# Juliet: Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again (the potion speech) > What is happening, what every line means, how to perform it, and how to use it in an audition, with the full text. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/monologues/farewell-god-knows-when-we-shall-meet-again - Last updated: 2026-10-08 From [Romeo and Juliet](https://www.offbook.com/plays/romeo-and-juliet) by William Shakespeare, Act 4, Scene 3. ## What is happening Juliet married Romeo in secret only yesterday. Later that day he killed her cousin Tybalt and was banished; the two spent one night together, and at dawn he left for Mantua. Her father, who knows nothing of the marriage, has ordered her to marry Count Paris and sworn to disown her if she refuses. Friar Laurence has given her a way out: a vial of a drug that will make her seem dead for forty-two hours. She will be laid in the Capulet family vault, Romeo will be told the plan by letter, and he will be there when she wakes to take her away to Mantua. She has pretended to agree to the wedding, and her delighted father has moved it forward a day, to tomorrow morning. So she must drink tonight. She has sent the Nurse away for the night, and her mother has just said good night. Now Juliet is alone in her bedroom with the vial and a knife. She works through every fear, one at a time, until she drinks. In the morning the Nurse comes to wake the bride and finds her, apparently, dead. - Lines: 45 - Words: 356 - At 150 words a minute: 2.4 minutes - Form: Verse ## The speech, beat by beat The full text in 7 beats. Under each beat: what it means in plain English, and a note for playing it. ### Lines 1–7: Alone 1. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. 2. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, 3. That almost freezes up the heat of life: 4. I’ll call them back again to comfort me: 5. Nurse! What should she do here? 6. My dismal scene I needs must act alone. 7. Come, vial. **In plain English:** Goodbye. God knows when we’ll meet again. A faint, cold fear is running through my veins and almost freezing the life out of me. I’ll call them back to comfort me. Nurse! But what could she do here? I have to act this dreadful scene alone. Come, little bottle. **Acting note:** Mostly short, plain words: she is shaking, not yet panicking. She calls for the Nurse, not her mother, and then stops herself. “Come, vial” is half a line, which leaves time to take it out. ### Lines 8–10: If it doesn’t work 8. What if this mixture do not work at all? 9. Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? 10. No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there. **In plain English:** What if the mixture doesn’t work at all? Will I have to marry Paris tomorrow morning, then? No, no. This will stop that. You lie there. **Acting note:** “This” is her knife; the Folger edition adds a direction for her to put it down beside her. It sets the stakes at once: she would rather die than marry Paris. ### Lines 11–16: If it is poison 11. What if it be a poison, which the friar 12. Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead, 13. Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d, 14. Because he married me before to Romeo? 15. I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not, 16. For he hath still been tried a holy man. **In plain English:** What if it’s a poison the Friar has cunningly given me to kill me, so that he won’t be disgraced by this second wedding, since he already married me to Romeo? I’m afraid it is. And yet I think it can’t be, because he has always proved himself a holy man. **Acting note:** Her first fears are reasonable, and she argues them through. Let her win this argument; she needs to trust him. ### Lines 17–22: If I wake too soon 17. How if, when I am laid into the tomb, 18. I wake before the time that Romeo 19. Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point! 20. Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault, 21. To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, 22. And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? **In plain English:** What if, when I’m laid in the tomb, I wake before Romeo comes to rescue me? That’s a terrifying thought. Won’t I suffocate in the vault, whose foul mouth lets in no fresh air, and die there, choked, before my Romeo arrives? **Acting note:** “There’s a fearful point!” is still the language of reasoning. But the vault is turning into a body, with a foul mouth that will strangle her. ### Lines 23–35: The vault at night 23. Or, if I live, is it not very like, 24. The horrible conceit of death and night, 25. Together with the terror of the place— 26. As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, 27. Where, for these many hundred years, the bones 28. Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d: 29. Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, 30. Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say, 31. At some hours in the night spirits resort;— 32. Alack, alack, is it not like that I, 33. So early waking, what with loathsome smells, 34. And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth, 35. That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:— **In plain English:** Or, if I live, isn’t it likely that the horror of death and darkness, and the terror of that place (a vault, an ancient storehouse where the bones of all my ancestors have been packed for hundreds of years, where bloody Tybalt, freshly buried, lies rotting in his shroud, where they say ghosts gather at certain hours of the night), isn’t it likely that I, waking too early, what with the disgusting smells and shrieks like the scream of a mandrake pulled from the earth, which drives anyone who hears it mad... **Acting note:** This is one huge sentence that never finishes. Each new clause adds a horror and pushes her further from the question she started with. Carry it on as few breaths as you can, and let it break off. ### Lines 36–41: Madness 36. O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, 37. Environed with all these hideous fears? 38. And madly play with my forefather’s joints? 39. And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? 40. And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone, 41. As with a club, dash out my desperate brains? **In plain English:** Oh, if I wake, won’t I go mad, surrounded by all these horrors? Won’t I play madly with my ancestors’ bones, drag the mangled Tybalt out of his shroud, and in that frenzy, using some great relative’s bone as a club, beat out my own brains? **Acting note:** Each “And” adds a more violent picture. The images tip toward the grotesque, but the terror must be completely real to her. ### Lines 42–45: Tybalt’s ghost 42. O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost 43. Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body 44. Upon a rapier’s point: stay, Tybalt, stay! 45. Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee. **In plain English:** Look! I think I see my cousin’s ghost hunting for Romeo, who ran him through on the point of his sword. Stop, Tybalt, stop! Romeo, I’m coming! I drink this to you. **Acting note:** Now she sees it. Romeo’s name is what gives her the courage to drink. Some editions, including the Folger, print the last line as “Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink. I drink to thee.” Decide exactly how she drinks and how she falls. ## Hard words | Word | Line | Meaning | | --- | --- | --- | | *thrills* | 2 | pierces, runs shivering | | *dismal* | 6 | dreadful, disastrous | | *vial* | 7 | small glass bottle | | *minister’d* | 12 | given, as a doctor gives medicine | | *still been tried* | 16 | always been proved | | *redeem* | 19 | rescue, set free | | *healthsome* | 21 | wholesome, fresh | | *conceit* | 24 | idea, imagining | | *receptacle* | 26 | a place for storing things; here, a burial vault | | *green in earth* | 29 | newly buried | | *resort* | 31 | gather, come | | *mandrakes’* | 34 | of mandrakes: plants whose roots were said to shriek when pulled up, driving the hearer mad | | *distraught* | 36 | driven mad | | *Environed* | 37 | surrounded | | *spit* | 43 | skewer, run through | ## How to perform it - Know the objective: to drink. Every fear she raises is a reason not to, and she has to answer each one or push past it. Underneath all the horror is the fear that she will be too frightened to do it at all. - Treat it as an argument. One Cambridge reader calls it a debate with only one participant: she puts a question, tests it, and answers it herself. Lines 8 to 22 are reasoning, so give each “What if” a real question and each answer real relief. - Track the slide from reason into nightmare. The worries begin as practical problems (will it work, is it poison, will I suffocate) and turn into hallucination (bones, ghosts, madness). Build gradually. If you start at full volume, lines 36 to 44 have nowhere to go. - Handle the long sentence. Lines 23 to 35 are one sentence that keeps interrupting itself and never reaches its main point. Keep the thread alive, take quick top-up breaths at the commas, and play “Alack, alack” in line 32 as her trying to get back on track. - Use the props simply. She needs the vial (line 7) and the knife (line 10). In an audition a clear mime or a small real bottle is enough. Decide where the knife goes, so that line 10 is a clear action. - Common mistakes: hysteria from the first line; telling it like a horror story to the audience instead of living it; and a drink that is an afterthought. The last four lines need room: the ghost, the cry to Romeo, and a decisive drink. ## Using it in an audition This is a big, demanding piece that shows range: fear, logic, imagination and courage in one arc. It suits actors who can play young; Juliet is not yet fourteen. The full speech is 356 words, about 2.4 minutes at 150 words a minute, which is long for a two-minute limit. We have kept it whole, because the speech only works if it ends with the drink. To bring it to about two minutes, cut lines 11 to 16 (the fear that the Friar has poisoned her) and go straight from “lie thou there” to “How if, when I am laid into the tomb”; that leaves about 306 words. The 60-second cut on this page ends at line 22, “ere my Romeo comes?”, which loses the nightmare and the drink, so use it only if you must, and leave the question hanging. Productions trim it too: a Cambridge scholar calls it a brilliant challenge for an actor that is all too often cut, naming Zeffirelli’s film. Pair it with something light and quick, such as Rosalind’s “And why, I pray you?” or Helena’s “How happy some o’er other some can be!” Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 3. William Shakespeare. Public domain text. ## How long it runs | Pace | Words a minute | Run time | | --- | --- | --- | | Deliberate | 130 | 2.7 minutes | | Conversational | 150 | 2.4 minutes | | Brisk | 170 | 2.1 minutes | These are speech times before pauses. To time your own run, paste the text into the [monologue timer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/monologue-timer). Cut points that stop at a full sentence: near 60 seconds (after line 22). ## Practice it: first-letter version Each word is cut to its first letter. Say the whole line from the letters, then check the text. Make cues from any script with the [first-letter memorizer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer). ```text F! G k w w s m a. I h a f c f t t m v, T a f u t h o l: I c t b a t c m: N! W s s d h? M d s I n m a a. C, v. W i t m d n w a a? S I b m t t-m m? N, n: t s f i: l t t. W i i b a p, w t f S h m t h m d, L i t m h s b d, B h m m b t R? I f i i: a y, m, i s n, F h h s b t a h m. H i, w I a l i t t, I w b t t t R C t r m? t a f p! S I n, t, b s i t v, T w f m n h a b i, A t d s e m R c? O, i I l, i i n v l, T h c o d a n, T w t t o t p— A i a v, a a r, W, f t m h y, t b O a m b a a p: W b T, y b g i e, L f i h s; w, a t s, A s h i t n s r;— A, a, i i n l t I, S e w, w w l s, A s l m’ t o o t e, T l m, h t, r m:— O, i I w, s I n b d, E w a t h f? A m p w m f j? A p t m T f h s? A, i t r, w s g k b, A w a c, d o m d b? O, l! m I s m c g S o R, t d s h b U a r p: s, T, s! R, I c! t d I d t t. ``` ## More from Romeo and Juliet - [How many lines does Juliet have?](https://www.offbook.com/plays/romeo-and-juliet/juliet) - [Romeo: But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/but-soft-what-light) - [Juliet: ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy (What’s in a name?)](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/whats-in-a-name) - [Mercutio: The Queen Mab speech](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/queen-mab) - [Juliet: Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/gallop-apace) - [Every role in Romeo and Juliet, by size](https://www.offbook.com/plays/romeo-and-juliet) More lists: [Shakespeare monologues](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/shakespeare), [Monologues for women](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/for-women), [Dramatic monologues](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/dramatic), [Monologues for teens](https://www.offbook.com/monologues/for-teens). ## Sources - [Acting alone: come, vial (4.3.14-20) | Slow Shakespeare (University of Cambridge, Faculty of English)](https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slow-shakespeare/2018/09/23/acting-alone-come-vial-4-3-14-20/) - [Dagger ready, just in case – but what if it’s a trick? (4.3.21-29) | Slow Shakespeare (University of Cambridge, Faculty of English)](https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slow-shakespeare/2018/09/24/dagger-ready-just-in-case-but-what-if-its-a-trick-4-3-21-29/) - [Juliet’s living nightmare, #3 (really losing it, now) (4.3.45-54) | Slow Shakespeare (University of Cambridge, Faculty of English)](https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slow-shakespeare/2018/09/27/juliets-living-nightmare-3-really-losing-it-now-4-3-45-54/) - [Romeo! I drink to thee [Juliet falls, insensible] (4.3.55-58) | Slow Shakespeare (University of Cambridge, Faculty of English)](https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slow-shakespeare/2018/09/28/romeo-i-drink-to-thee-juliet-falls-insensible-4-3-55-58/) - [Romeo and Juliet - Act 4, scene 3 | Folger Shakespeare Library](https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/romeo-and-juliet/read/4/3/) ## Questions actors ask ### How long is Juliet’s Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again (the potion speech) speech? 45 lines and 356 words. At 150 words a minute it runs about 2.4 minutes; a slower, more deliberate delivery at 130 takes about 2.7 minutes. Pauses add time, so time a full run out loud. ### Is it a good audition monologue? This is a big, demanding piece that shows range: fear, logic, imagination and courage in one arc. It suits actors who can play young; Juliet is not yet fourteen. The full speech is 356 words, about 2.4 minutes at 150 words a minute, which is long for a two-minute limit. We have kept it whole, because the speech only works if it ends with the drink. To bring it to about two minutes, cut lines 11 to 16 (the fear that the Friar has poisoned her) and go straight from “lie thou there” to “How if, when I am laid into the tomb”; that leaves about 306 words. The 60-second cut on this page ends at line 22, “ere my Romeo comes?”, which loses the nightmare and the drink, so use it only if you must, and leave the question hanging. Productions trim it too: a Cambridge scholar calls it a brilliant challenge for an actor that is all too often cut, naming Zeffirelli’s film. Pair it with something light and quick, such as Rosalind’s “And why, I pray you?” or Helena’s “How happy some o’er other some can be!” ### What is the fastest way to memorize it? Learn it in sense units, not line by line: say each thought out loud until you can do it without looking, then add the next. The first-letter version below keeps the shape of every line in view while you test yourself. ## How we count Counts are computed from the full text of the [Standard Ebooks edition](https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-shakespeare/romeo-and-juliet) (public domain; retrieved 2026-10-08). Words are every spoken word, with stage directions removed. Lines are verse lines as printed, plus prose at 10 words a line, because prose has no fixed line breaks; editions differ, so other sources give slightly different line counts. Time is words at 140 words a minute, before pauses and stage business. A role is counted in a scene when it speaks there. To count a script that is not in the library, paste it into the [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/script-line-counter).