Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
On the Wednesday night Juliet drank off the potion. She had many
misgivings lest the friar, to avoid the blame which might be imputed to
him for marrying her to Romeo, had given her poison; but then he was
always known for a holy man: then lest she should awake before the time
that Romeo was to come for her; whether the terror of the place, a vault
full of dead Capulets' bones, and where Tybalt, all bloody, lay
festering in his shroud, would not be enough to drive her distracted:
again she thought of all the stories she had heard of spirits haunting
the places where their bodies were bestowed. But then her love for
Romeo, and her aversion for Paris returned, and she desperately
swallowed the draught, and became insensible.
When young Paris came early in the morning with music to awaken his
bride, instead of a living Juliet, her chamber presented the dreary
spectacle of a lifeless corse. What death to his hopes! What confusion
then reigned through the whole house! Poor Paris lamenting his bride,
whom most detestable death had beguiled him of, had divorced from him
even before their hands were joined. But still more piteous it was to
hear the mournings of the old Lord and Lady Capulet, who having but this
one, one poor loving child to rejoice and solace in, cruel death had
snatched her from their sight, just as these careful parents were on the
point of seeing her advanced (as they thought) by a promising and
advantageous match. Now all things that were ordained for the festival
were turned from their properties to do the office of a black funeral.
The wedding cheer served for a sad burial feast, the bridal hymns were
changed for sullen dirges, the sprightly instruments to melancholy
bells, and the flowers that should have been strewed in the bride's
path, now served but to strew her corse. Now, instead of a priest to
marry her, a priest was needed to bury her; and she was borne to church
indeed, not to augment the cheerful hopes of the living, but to swell
the dreary numbers of the dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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