And on the same an Aligarta hangs,
Olde ends of packthred, and cakes of roses
Are thinly strewed to make up a show.
Here as I noted thus with myselfe I thought:
Ah, if a man should need a poison now,
(Whose present sale is death in Mantua),
Here he might buy it. This thought of mine
Did but forerune my need; and hereabout he dwells.
Being holiday the beggar's shop is shut.
What ho! Apothecary! Come forth I say.
Ap. Who calls? What would you, Sir?
Rom. Here's twenty ducats.
Give me a dram of some such speeding gere
As will despatch the weary taker's life
As suddenly as powder being fired
From forth a cannon's mouth.
Ap. Such drugs I have, I must of force confesse,
But yet the law is death to those that sell them.
Rom. Art though so bare and full of poverty,
And dost thou fear to violate the law?
The law is not thy friend nor the law's friend,
And therefore make no conscience of the law.
Upon thy back hangs ragged misery
And starved famine dwelleth in thy cheeks.
Ap. My poverty but not my will consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty but not thy will.
Ap. Hold, take you this and put it
In any liquid thing you will, and it will serve,
Had you the lives of twenty men.
Rom. Hold, take this gold, worse poison to men's souls
Than this which thou hast given me. Go hie thee hence,
Go, buy thee cloathes, and get thee into flesh:
Come cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet's grave, for there must I use thee.
Shakespeare was a busy man in 1597, and in the years before as well as about that date he was preparing novelties for his theatre. Later he had more leisure, and it is interesting to notice how artistically he fills out his original sketch with only just such details as make the ideas more vivid. In the revised version of this scene, published in 1609, there are no new ideas, but
