r's desire, and on the next night,
which was the night before the marriage, to drink of the contents of
a phial which he then gave her, the effect of which would be, that
for two-and-forty hours after drinking it she should appear cold and
lifeless; that when the bridegroom came to fetch her in the morning,
he would find her to appearance dead; that then she would be borne, as
the manner in that country was, uncovered, on a bier, to be buried in
the family vault; that if she could put off womanish fear, and consent
to this terrible trial, in forty-two hours after swallowing the liquid
(such was its certain operation) she would be sure to awake, as from
a dream; and before she should awake, he would let her husband know
their drift, and he should come in the night, and bear her thence
to Mantua. Love, and the dread of marrying Paris, gave young Juliet
strength to undertake this horrible adventure; and she took the phial
of the friar, promising to observe his directions.

Going from the monastery, she met the young count Paris, and, modestly
dissembling, promised to become his bride. This was joyful news to the
lord Capulet and his wife. It seemed to put youth into the old man:
and Juliet, who had displeased him exceedingly by her refusal of the
count, was his darling again, now she promised to be obedient. All
things in the house were in a bustle against the approaching nuptials.
No cost was spared to prepare such festival rejoicings, as Verona had
never before witnessed.

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 are 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