PART VII.
PHARMACY.
Pharmacy was not overlooked.
I do remember an apothecary,— And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples: meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff’d, and other skins Of ill-shap’d fishes; and, about his shelves, A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter’d to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said— An if a man need poison now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
What, ho! apothecary! Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. I.
O, true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.
He did buy a poison of a poor apothecary, And there withal came to this vault to die. Romeo and Juliet, Act V., Sc. III.
Bid the apothecary Bring the strong poison that I bought of him. Henry VI—2d, Act III., Sc. III.
Your master will be dead ere you return; There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature. That can recover him. Give this to the ’pothecary, And tell me how it works. Pericles, Act III., Sc. II.
Great griefs, I see, medicine the less. Cymbeline, Act IV., Sc. II.