Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/206

Rom.

Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth[E 1] in thy eyes,70 Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;[C 1] 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.75

Rom.	I pay[C 2][E 2] thy poverty, and not thy will.

Ap.	Put this[E 3] 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[C 3] thy gold, worse poison to men's souls80 Doing more murder[C 4] 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[C 5] flesh.— Come, cordial and not poison, go with me85 To Juliet's grave, for there must I use thee.[Exeunt.

1. 71. Contempt … back] Q, F; Upon thy backe hangs ragged Miserie Q 1.
2. 76. pay] Q 1, Qq 4, 5; pray Q, F.
3. 80. There is] Q, There's F.
4. 81. murder] Q, F; murders Qq 4, 5.
5. 84. thyself in] Q, F; thee into Q 1.

1. 70. starveth] are hungry. Changed by Rowe (following Otway's version in Caius Marius) to stareth. Pope read stare within; starteth in has been suggested.
2. 76. pay] Knight retains pray Q, F; but the line should be read in connection with "take this," line 74.
3. 77. Put this] Steevens suggests that Shakespeare had not quite forgot a somewhat similar commendation of his poison by the Potecary in Chaucer's Pardoneres Tale.