THE APOTHECARY IN "ROMEO AND JULIET"
This grim compounder of death-dealing drugs was for me a most interesting part to play; I made him up from head to foot.
From the costumier I got the oldest garments that I could procure. At the elbows, knees, and heels, I destroyed them with acid, so that when I had them on the joints protruded. The coat and cloak, if I did not carefully bind them round me, disclosed my ribs.
Wherever flesh showed I painted it in such a way that it suggested emaciation, and though in reality I am well favoured with flesh I was told that on the stage I looked like a skeleton done up in a bundle of rags.
ROMEO AND JULIET
APOTHECARY
Apothecary. Who calls so loud?
Romeo. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor;
Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have
A dram of poison; such soon-speeding gear
As will dispense itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fired
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.
Apothecary. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
Is death to any he that utters them.
Romeo. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks;
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes;
Contempt and beggary, hang upon thy back,
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.
Apothecary. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Romeo. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Apothecary. Put this in any liquid thing you will,
And drink it off: and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
