[Stage] Friar Lawrence and Paris enter.
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.
Paris(帕里斯)
My father Capulet will have it so,
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course. I like it not.
Paris(帕里斯)
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talked of love,
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she do give her sorrow so much sway,
And in his wisdom hastes our marriage
To stop the inundation of her tears—
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
[Aside] I would I knew not why it should be slowed.—
Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.
Paris(帕里斯)
Happily met, my lady and my wife.
[Stage] Juliet enters.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Paris(帕里斯)
That “may be” must be, love, on Thursday next.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
What must be shall be.
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
That’s a certain text.
Paris(帕里斯)
Come you to make confession to this Father?
Juliet(朱丽叶)
To answer that, I should confess to you.
Paris(帕里斯)
Do not deny to him that you love me.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
I will confess to you that I love him.
Paris(帕里斯)
So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
If I do so, it will be of more price
Being spoke behind your back than to your face.
Paris(帕里斯)
Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
The tears have got small victory by that,
For it was bad enough before their spite.
Paris(帕里斯)
Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
Paris(帕里斯)
Thy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
It may be so, for it is not mine own.—
Are you at leisure, holy Father, now,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Paris(帕里斯)
God shield I should disturb devotion!—
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye.
[Kisses her] Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss.
[Stage] Paris exits.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
O, shut the door! And when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help.
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
O Juliet, I already know thy grief.
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this county.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God joined my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands.
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo sealed,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore out of thy long-experienced time,
Give me some present counsel, or, behold,
‘Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honor bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That copest with death himself to ’scape from it.
An if thou darest, I’ll give thee remedy.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel house,
O’ercovered quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud—
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble—
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstained wife to my sweet love.
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
Hold, then. Go home, be merry. Give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow.
Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone.
Let not the Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distillèd liquor drink thou off,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor, for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest.
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To wanny ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part, deprived of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death.
And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
Then, as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes uncovered on the bier
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come, and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valor in the acting it.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!
Friar Lawrence(劳伦斯神父)
[Gives her the vial]
Hold. Get you gone. Be strong and prosperous
In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua with my letters to thy lord.
Juliet(朱丽叶)
Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father.
[Stage] They exit separately.