Page:Romeo and Juliet (1917) Yale.djvu/116

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Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have

A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear

As will disperse itself through all the veins

That the life-weary taker may fall dead,

And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath

As violently as hasty powder fir'd

Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law

Is death to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,

And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,

Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,

Contempt and beggary hang upon thy back;

The world is not thy friend nor the world's law:

The world affords no law to make thee rich;

Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.

Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will,

And drink it off; and, if you had the strength

Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.

Rom. There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,

Doing more murders in this loathsome world

Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell:

I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.

Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh.

Come, cordial and not poison, go with me

To Juliet's grave, for there must I use thee.

Exeunt.

 59 ducats: coins each worth not quite a dollar

60 gear: stuff

63 trunk: body

67 utters: gives out 