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1
ROMEO AND JULIET.
WITH
INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL.
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND families.
BY THE
REV. HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D.
GINN & COMPANY
BOSTON. NEW YORK CHICAGO
•
•
•
LONDON
$
+
|
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by
HENRY N. HUDSON,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
25.5
The Athenæum Press
GINN & COMPANY CAM-
BRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
•
}
}
*
1
!
INTRODUCTION.
Borrowed Matter.
TH
HE story which furnished the ground-work of THE
TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET was exceedingly
popular in Shakespeare's time. The original author of the
tale as then received was Luigi da Porto, whose novel, La
Giulietta, was first published in 1535. From him the matter
was borrowed and improved by Bandello, who published it
in 1554. Bandello represents the incidents to have oc-
curred when Bartholomew Scaliger was lord of Verona; and
the Veronese, who believe the tale to be historically true, fix
its date in 1303, when the family of Scaliger held the gov-
ernment of the city.
;
The story is next met with in the French version of
Belleforest, and makes the third in his collection of Tragi-
cal Histories. These were avowedly taken from Bandello.
Some of them however vary considerably from the Italian
as, for example, in this piece Bandello brings Juliet out of
her trance in time to hear Romeo speak and see him die;
and then, instead of using his dagger against herself, she
(dies of a broken heart; whereas the French orders this
matter the same as we have it in the play.
The earliest English version of the tale that has come.
down to us is a poem entitled The Tragical History of
Romeus and Juliet, written by Arthur Brooke, and pub-
ished in 1562. This purports to be from the Italian of
175242
t
4
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Bandello; but it agrees with the French version in makin¸.
the heroine's trance continue till after the death of he
lover. In some respects, however, the poem has the char
acter of an original work; the author not tying himself
strictly to any known authority, but drawing somewhat or
his own invention. I say known authority, because in hi
introduction to the poem Brooke informs us that the tale
had already been put to work on the English stage. As
the play to which he refers has not survived, we have no
means of knowing how the matter was there handled.
In 1567, five years after the date of Brooke's poem, a
prose version of the same tale was published by William
Paynter in his Palace of Pleasure, a collection of stories.
made up from divers sources, ancient and modern. This
is merely a literal translation from the French of Belle-
forest, and by no means skilfully done, at that; though the
interest of the tale is such as to triumph over the bungling
workmanship of the translator.
These two are the only English forms of an earlier date
than the tragedy, in which the story has reached us. But
the contemporary notices of it are such and so many as to
infer that it must have been a popular favourite. This
popularity was doubtless owing in a large measure to the
use of the story in dramatic form. We have seen that the
matter had been set forth on the stage before the publica- }
tion of Brooke's poem. That so great and general a fa.
vourite should have been suffered to leave the stage after
having tried its strength there, is not probable; so that we
may presume it to have been kept up on the boards in one
form or another, till Shakespeare took it in hand, and so far
eclipsed all who had touched it before, that their labours
were left to perish.
1
INTRODUCTION.
5
1
Whether the Poet availed himself of any earlier drama
on the subject, is not known. Nor, in fact, can we trace a
connection between the tragedy and any other work, except
Brooke's poem. That he made considerable use of this, is
abundantly certain from divers verbal resemblances, as well
as from a general likeness in the matter and the ordering
of the incidents. Perhaps I ought to add, that in senti-
ment, imagery, and versification the poem has very consid-
erable merit, and, on the whole, may take rank among the
best specimens we have of the popular English literature
of that period. It is written in rhyme, the lines consisting
alternately of twelve and fourteen syllables.
History of the Play..
The tragedy was first printed in 1597, and copies of that
date are still extant. It is evident from certain internal
marks, that this edition was surreptitious, or at least unau-
thorized. The authorship is not stated in the title-page;
but we have the words, "As it hath been often, with great
applause, publicly played." The next issue of the play was
in a quarto pamphlet dated 1599, with the following on its
title-page: "The most excellent and lamentable Tragedy of
Romeo and Juliet, newly corrected, augmented, and amend-
ed. As it hath been sundry times publicly acted by the
Right-Honourable the Lord Chamberlain's Servants." The
same text was reprinted in the same form in 1609, and
again at a later period, which however cannot be ascer-
tained, the edition being undated. The play reappeared in
the folio of 1623.
Of course the Poet would hardly have undertaken to re-
write the play, had he not supposed he could make impor-
1
;
6
ROMEO AND JULIET.
st
tant changes for the better. Accordingly the second
is a decided improvement on the first. How much the play
was augmented is shown in that the text of 1597 is not
quite three-fourths as long as that of 1599. And the differ-
ence of the two copies in respect of quality is still greater;
while the changes are such as hardly to consist with the
old notion of the Poet having been a careless or a hasty
writer. For instance, the speech of Juliet on taking the
sleeping-draught, and also that of Romeo just before he
swallows the poison, are mere trifles in the first copy as
compared with what they are in the second. The improve-
ment in these cases and in many others is such as may well
cause us to regret that the Poet did not carry his older
and riper hand into some parts of the play which he left
unchanged.
The date more commonly assigned for the writing of the
tragedy in its original form is 1596. This allows only a
space of about two years between the writing and rewriting
of the play; and I fully agree with Knight and Verplanck
that the second issue shows such a measure of progress in
judgment, in the cast of thought, and in dramatic power,
as would naturally infer a much longer interval. And
there is one item of internal evidence which would seem to
throw the original composition as far back as the year 1591.
This is in what the Nurse says when prattling of Juliet's
age: "'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; and she
was wean'd"; which has been often quoted as a probable
allusion to the earthquake that happened in England in the
Spring of 1580, and "caused such amazedness among the
people as was wonderful for the time." But arguments of
this sort are very apt to pass for more than they are worth;
and the most that I should affirm, with much confidence, is
A
INTRODUCTION.
7
that the tragedy was written before 1594. The cast of
thought and imagery, but especially the large infusion of
the lyrical element, naturally associates it to the same stage
of art and authorship which produced A Midsummer-
Night's Dream; the resemblance of the two plays in these
respects being, I think, too marked to escape any studious
eye, well practised in discerning the Poet's different styles.
And a comparison of Romeo and Juliet with the poetical
portions of King Henry the Fourth, which was published
in 1598, will suffice for concluding that the former must
have been written several years before the latter.
Additions and Variations.
We have seen that nearly all the incidents of the tragedy
were borrowed. In fact, the Poet's invention herein is con-
fined to the duel of Mercutio and Tybalt, and the meeting
of Romeo and Paris at the tomb. In the older English
versions of the tale, there is a general fight between the
partisans of the two Houses; when, after many have been
killed and wounded on both sides, Romeo comes in, tries
to appease with gentle words the fury of Tybalt, and at last
kills him in self-defence. The Poet's change in this point
is highly judicious, as bringing in a large accession of dra-
matic life and spirit. In the older versions, also, Paris
shows a cold and selfish policy in his love-suit, which dis-
honours both himself and the object of it. Shakespeare
elevates him with the breath of nobler sentiment; and the
character of the heroine is proportionably raised by the
pathos shed round her second lover from the circumstances
of his death. Moreover the incidents, throughout, are man-
aged with the utmost skill for dramatic effect; so that what
8
JLIET.
was before a lazy and lymphatic narrative is made
dant of animation and interest.
=
In respect of character, also, the play has little of formal
originality beyond Mercutio and the Nurse; who are as
different as can well be imagined from any thing that was
done to the Poet's hand. And all the other characters,
though the forms of them are partly borrowed, are set forth
with an idiomatic sharpness and vitality of delineation, to
which the older versions of the tale make no approach.
But what is most worthy of remark on this point is, that
Shakespeare just inverts the relation of things: before, the
persons served but as a sort of frame-work to support the
story here the story is used but as canvas for the por-
traiture of character and life. So that, notwithstanding the
large borrowings, the play has eminently the stamp of an
original work; and, which is more, an acquaintance with
the sources drawn upon nowise abates our sense of its
originality.
Immaturity of the Workmanship.
Before proceeding further, I must make some abatements
from the indiscriminate praise which this drama has of late
received. For criticism, in its natural and just reaction
from the mechanical methods formerly in vogue, has run to
the opposite extreme of unreserved special-pleading, and
hunting out of nature after reasons for unqualified approval;
by which course it stultifies itself without really helping the
subject. Now I cannot deny, and care not to disguise,
that some parts of this play are sadly bleed with in-
genious and elaborate affectations. For instance, Romeo, in
the first dialogue he holds with Benvolio, has the following
about love :
INTRODUCTION.
9
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This string of antithetical conceits seems absurd enough.
To be sure, the passage occurs before the hero's soul has
been fired by the vision of Juliet, and while his mind is
busy with the dreamy, moonshine image of Rosaline; and
he may be excused for playing with these smoke-wreaths
of fancy, inasmuch as the true flame is not yet kindled in
his heart. I must add, that such was the most approved
way of describing love in Shakespeare's time, and for some
ages before: Petrarch and Chaucer used it, and divers old
English poets and ballad-makers abound in it. But the best
defence of it in this case is, that such an affected way of
speaking not unaptly shows the state of Romeo's mind un-
der a passion that is self-generated, instead of being inspired
by an external object. At all events, as compared with his
style of speech after meeting with Juliet, it serves to mark
the difference between being love-sick and being in love.
But no such excuse will hold in several other cases;
especially when we have the heroine dallying with simi-
lar quirks of fancy even in her most impassioned moments;
as in the dialogue she has with the Nurse on first hearing
of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment. Yet Knight
boldly justifies these fantastical strains, as being "the results.
of strong emotion seeking to relieve itself by violent efforts
of the intellect, that the will may recover its balance." Which
is either a piece of far-fetched attorneyship, or else it is too
deep for my comprehension. No, no! such things are plain
disfigurements and blemishes, and criticism will best serve
its proper end by calling them so.
And if there be any
IO
1
ROMEO AND JULIET.
G
good apology for them, doubtless it is, that they grew from
the general custom and conventional pressure of the time,
and were written before the Poet had by practice and experi
ence worked himself above custom into the original strength:
and rectitude of his genius. I care not how much they are
set down as faults of the age, not of the man, so they do not
pass for other than faults. And I submit that any unsophis-
ticated criticism, however liberal and broad, will naturally
regard them as the effects of imitation, not of mental char-
acter, because they are out of keeping with the general style
of the piece, and strike against the grain of the sentiment
which that style inspires. We experience an unpleasant
hitch of the sympathies whenever we come upon those pas-
sages; as if the author were obtruding his own crotchets
upon us, instead of leaving us to the native and free tran-
spiration of his characters. It should be noted withal, that
the fault disappears after the third Act, and is met with in
none of those passages which were new in the second edition.
Bating certain considerable drawbacks on this score, the
play gives the impression of having been all conceived and
struck out in the full heat and glow of youthful passion; as if
the Poet's genius were for the time thoroughly possessed with
the spirit and temper of the subject; while at the same time
the passion is so pervaded with the light and grace of imagina-
tion, that it kindles only to ennoble and exalt. For richness of
poetical colouring, — dispensed with lavish hand indeed, but
yet so managed as not to interfere either with the develop-
ment of character or the proper dramatic effect, but rather to
help them both, it may challenge a comparison with any
of the Poet's dramas.
INTRODUCTION.
II
}
¦
}
Z
General Characteristics.
Of course, this play as a whole derives its character and
idiom from the passion of the hero and heroine, all the parts
being fused together in the energy of that. It is therefore as
much a tragedy of love as Hamlet is a tragedy of thought.
And it is the only one of Shakespeare's plays which pro-
ceeds, throughout, with supreme reference to that passion.
Touching the unity of feeling which marks this drama, an
unity that has both its organic law and its efficient cause in
that same passion,- Coleridge has a strain of criticism that
ought always to go with the subject: "Read Romeo and
Juliet: all is youth and Spring; youth with its follies, its vir-
tues, its precipitances; Spring with its odours, its flowers,
and its transiency: it is one and the same feeling that
commences, goes through, and ends the play. The old men,
the Capulets and the Montagues, are not common old men;
they have an eagerness, a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect
of Spring with Romeo, his change of passion, his sudden
marriage, and his rash death are all the effects of youth;
whilst in Luliet love has all that is tender and melancholy in
the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with what-
ever is sweet in the freshness of Spring; but it ends with a
long deep sigh, like the last breeze of an Italian evening."
:
:
In accordance with what is here noted, we find every
thing on the run; all the passions of the drama are in the
same fiery-footed and unmanageable excess the impatient Y
vehemence of old Capulet, the furious valour of Tybalt, the
brilliant volubility of Mercutio the petulant loquacity of the
Nurse, being all but so many issues of the reigning irritability
and impetuosity. Amid this general stress of impassioned
life, old animosities are rekindled, old feuds have broken out
¡
*

12
ĭ
ROMEO AND JULIET.
{
5
anew; while the efforts of private friendship and be
authority to quench the strife only to prove it unqu
able, the same violent passions that have caused the tumults
being brought to the suppression of them. The prevalence
of extreme hate serves of course to generate the opposite
extreme; out of the most passionate and fatal enmities there
naturally springs a love as passionate and fatal. With dis-
positions too gentle and noble to share in the animosities so
rife about them, the hearts of the lovers are rendered thereby
the more alive and open to impressions of a contrary nature;
the fierce rancour of their Houses only swelling in them the
emotions that prevent their sympathizing with it.
V
Thus the Poet carries us smoothly along through all the
aching joys and giddy transports of the lovers, by his manner
of disposing the objects and persons about them; the lead-
ing passion, intense as it is, being so associated with others
of like intensity, that we receive it without any sense of dis-
proportion to nature; whereas, if cut out of the harmony in
which it moves, it would seem overwrought and improbable.
For who does not see how the feelings are here raised and
sustained by a continuity of impression running from person
to person, and thus authenticating the whole? In other
words, we have no difficulty in sympathizing with the main
part, because all the parts are in sympathy with each other.
And the Poet secures this result with so much ease as not to
betray his exertions; his means are hidden in the skill with
which he uses them; and we forget the height to which he
soars, because he has the strength of wing to bear us along
with him, or rather gives us wings to rise with him of
ourselves.
INTRODUCTION.
13
1
*
Social Conditions.
P
One of the plainest things in human life, and yet one of
the hardest for men to learn, is, that Nature will have her
course in one shape or another. The more you put down
her rights, the more you will be put down in turn by her
wrongs. If you repress her native passions by factitious
rules and manners, first you know those passions will some-
how combine with your machinery of repression: the very
prison of ice, with which you think to freeze up her outlets,
will nurse an inward volcano, to explode against you. And
such is the general condition of life depicted in this drama.
It is a most artificial state of society, where all the safety-
valves of nature are closed up by an oppressive convention-
ality, and where the better passions, being clogged down to
their source, have turned their strength into the worse.
People must live all by rule, nothing by instinct; that is,
their life is to be a form impressed from without, not un-
folded from within. But the spontaneous forces of nature
will assert themselves either for good or for evil. We have
a choice outcropping of this in first scene of the play; where
it is evident that the underlings of the two Houses have
caught the fury of their masters, and are spiteful and quar-
relsome for no other reason than that their natural fires are
so much stifled beneath the artificial crust. They must
needs fight, because to ape their betters has become a pas-
sion with them; which could hardly be the case, but that
passion and imitation have got forced into an unnatural
mixture or alliance; for it is against the proper instinct of
passion to be imitative.
To take another view of the matter: Principle and impulse
are often spoken of as opposed to each other. And, as
*
14
ROMEO AND JULIET.
men are, such is indeed too often the case; but in ingen-
uous natures, and in well-ordered societies, the two grow
forth together, each serving to unfold and deepen the other;
so that we have principle warmed into impulse, and impulse
fixed into principle. This gives us what may be described
as a character informed with noble passions. And, say
what we will, bad passions will have the mastery of a man,
unless there be good ones to countervail them. For Rea-
son, do the best she can, is not enough: men must love ;
and their proper safeguard is in having their love married
to truth and virtue. When such is the case, the state of
man is at peace and unity: otherwise, he is a house divided
against itself, where principle and impulse strive each for
supremacy, and rule by turns; headlong and sensual in his
passions, cunning and selfish in his reason.
Now this fatal divorce of reason and passion is the rule
of life as represented in this drama. The generous impulses.
of nature are overborne and stifled by a discipline of selfish-
ness. Boldly calculative where they ought to be impassioned,
people are of course blindly passionate where they ought to
be deliberate and cool. Even marriage is plainly stripped
of its sacredness, made an affair of expediency, not of relig-
ion, insomuch that a previous union of hearts in discouraged,
lest it should interfere with a prudent union of hands. Thus
the hearts of the young are, if possible, kept sealed against
all deep and strong impressions, and the development of the
nobler impulses foreclosed by the icy considerations of inter-
est and policy. Think you that Nature can with impunity
be thus oppressed? She will revolt.
1
INTRODUCTION.
15
Natural-Heartedness of the Lovers.
Amidst this heart-withering tyranny of custom, the hero
and heroine stand out the unschooled and unspoiled crea-
tures of native sense and native sensibility. Art has tried
its utmost upon them, but Nature has proved too strong for
it. In the silent creativeness of youth their feelings have
insensibly matured themselves; and they come before us
glowing with the warmth of natural sentiment, with sus-
ceptibilities deep as life, and waiting only for the kindling
touch of passion. To go through life with a set of feelings.
ready-made, brewed together for social convenience, and
then pumped into them, was a destiny which, from their
innate strength of soul, they could not embrace. So that
they exemplify the simplicity of nature thriving amidst the
most artificial manners: nay, they are the more natural for
the excess of art around them; as if nature, driven from the
hearts of others, had taken refuge in theirs.
da
Principle, however, is as strong in them as passion: they
have the purity as well as the impulsiveness of nature; and
because they are free from immodest desires, therefore they
put forth no angelic pretensions. Idolizing each other, they
would nevertheless make none but permitted offerings. Not
being led by the conventionalities of life, they therefore are
not to be misled by them: as their hearts are joined in mu-
tual love, so their hands must be joined in mutual honour ;
for, while loving each other with a love as boundless as the
sea, they at the same time love in each other whatsoever
is pure and precious in their unsoiled imaginations. Thus
their fault lies not in the nature of their passion, but in its
that they love each other in a degree that is due
only to their Maker: but this is a natural reaction from that
excess,
16
ROMEO AND JULIET.
1
idolatry of interest and self which pervades the rest of so-
ciety, turning marriage into merchandise, and sacrificing the
holiest instincts of nature to avarice, ambition, and pride.
The lovers, it is true, are not much given to reflection,
because this is a thing that can come to them only by expe-
rience, which they are yet without. Life lies glittering with
golden hopes before them, owing all its enchantment per-
haps to the distance: if their bliss seems perfect, it is only
because their bounty is infinite; but such bounty and such
bliss "may not with mortal man abide." Bereft of the new
life they have found in each other, nothing remains for them
but the bitter dregs from which the wine has all evaporated ;
and they dash to earth the stale and vapid draught, when it
has lost all the spirit that caused it to foam and sparkle
before them. Nevertheless it is not their passion, but the
enmity of their Houses, that is punished in their death; and
the awful lesson we read in their fate is against that barba-
rism of civilization which makes love excessive by trying to
exclude it from its rightful place in life, and which subjects.
men to the just revenges of Nature, because it puts them
upon thwarting her noblest purposes. Were we deep in the
ways of Providence, we might doubtless forecast from the
first, that those two beings, the pride and hope of their
respective friends, would, even because themselves most in-
nocent, fall a sacrifice to the guilt of their families; and
that in and through their death would be punished and
healed those fatal strifes and animosities which have made
it at once so natural and so dangerous for them to love.
INTRODUCTION.
17
1
Character of the Hero.
It has been aptly remarked that the hero and heroine of
this play, though in love, are not love-sick. Romeo, how-
ever, as we have seen, is something love-sick before his
meeting with Juliet. His seeming love for Rosaline is but
a matter of fancy, with which the heart has little or nothing
to do. That Shakespeare so intended it, is plain from what
is said about it in the Chorus at the end of the first Act,
especially the two quaint lines,
Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir.
The same thing is worked out, with a higher grace of art
and a much riper insight of nature, in the case of the love-
sick Duke Orsino, of Twelfth Night, in his wordy, sighful
quest of Olivia. There is evidently no soul-seizure nor any
thing genuine about it; and Orsino himself knows it was
orly a mock-spell, as soon as he gets disenchanted.
Accordingly Romeo's first passion is airy, affected, fan-
tastical, causing him to think much of his feelings, to count
over his sighs, and play with language, as pleased with the
figure he is making; which shows that his thoughts are not
so much on Rosaline, or any thing he has found in her, as
on a figment of his own mind, which he has baptized into
her name, and invested with her form. This is just that
sort of love with which people often imagine themselves
about to die, but which they always manage to survive, and
that, without any further harm than the making them some-
what ridiculous. For when a man is truly in love, it is not
his own health, but the health of another person, that he
thinks about. Romeo's love is a thing infinitely different.
18
ROMEO AND JULIET.
A mere idolater, Juliet converts him into a true worshipper;
and the fire of his new passion burns up the old idol of his
fancy. Love works a sort of regeneration upon him: his
dreamy, sentimental fancy giving place to a passion that
interests him thoroughly in an external object, all his fine
energies are forthwith tuned into harmony and eloquence,
so that he becomes a true man, with every thing clear and
healthy and earnest about him. As the Friar suggests, it
was probably from an instinctive sense that he was making
love by rote, and not by heart, that Rosaline rejected his
suit. The dream, though, has the effect of preparing him
for the reality, while the contrast between them helps our
appreciation of the latter.
Hazlitt pronounces Romeo to be Hamlet in love; than
which he could not well have made a greater mistake. In
all that most truly constitutes character, the two, it seems
to me, have nothing in common. To go no further, Hamlet
is all consideration, Romeo all precipitancy: the one pre-
faces action with "large discourse"; the other acts first, and
does his reflecting afterwards. With Hamlet, it is a neces-
sity of nature to think; with Romeo, to love: the former,
studious of consequences, gets entangled with a multitude
of conflicting passions and purposes; the latter, absorbed.
in one passion and one purpose, drives right ahead, regard-
less of consequences. It is this necessity of loving that,
until the proper object appears, creates in Romeo an object
for itself: hence the love-bewilderment in which he first
comes before us. Which explains and justifies the sudden-
ness and vehemence of his passion, while the difference
between this and his fancy-sickness amply vindicates him
from the reproach of inconstancy.
Being of passion all compact, Romeo of course does not
1
I
:
19
INTRODUCTION.
generalize, nor give much heed to abstract truth. Intel-
ligent, indeed, of present facts and occasions, he does not
however study to shape his feelings or conduct by any rules:
he therefore sees no use of philosophy in his case, unless
philosophy can make a Juliet; nor does he care to hear
others speak of what they do not feel. He has no life but
passion, and passion lives altogether in and by its object:
therefore it is that he dwells with such wild exaggeration.
on the sentence of banishment. Thus his love, by reason
of its excess, exalting a surbordinate into a sovereign good,
defeats its own security and peace. Had he stayed himself
more on general considerations of life had he tempered
his interest in the transient with a due thoughtfulness of the
permanent; he would have been a wiser man indeed, but
not so entire a lover.
Ÿ
Yet there is a sort of instinctive rectitude in his passion,
which makes us rather pity than blame its excess; and we
feel that death comes to him through it, not for it. We
can scarce conceive any thing more full of manly sweetness
and gentleness than his character. Love is the only thing
wherein he seems to lack self-control; and this is the very
thing wherein self-control is least a virtue. He will peril
his life for a friend, but he will not do a mean thing to save
it; has no pride and revenge to which he would sacrifice
others, but has high and brave affections to which he will
not shrink from sacrificing himself. Thus even in his resent-
ments he is in noble contrast with those about him. His
heart is so preoccupied with generous thought, as to afford
no room for those furious transports which prove so fatal in
others where their swords jump in wild fury from the scab-
bard, his sleeps quietly by his side but then, as he is very
hard to provoke, so he is very dangerous when provoked.
For so it is when Tybalt would force him to a duel :
:
J
20
ROMEO AND JULIET.
1
Romeo still speaks him fair, bids him bethink
How nice the quarrel is; and this he urges
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd.
He will not be stung out of his propriety by words of insult.
But when he learns that the mad fire-spouter has killed his
bold friend Mercutio, and is coming back in triumph, then
all his manhood boils with irrepressible energy :
Away to Heaven, respective lenity!
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now ! -
Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again
That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company:
Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.
In all this affair he plays the man, and all the parts of hon-
our are held true to their just aim; thus exemplifying in
perfect form the great law of heroism, that he who rightly
fears to do wrong has nothing else to fear.
Shakespeare has few passages in a higher pitch of elo-
quence than Romeo's soliloquy at the tomb; where we have
a tempest of various emotions, love, sorrow, pity, regret,
admiration, despair, all subdued and blended in a strain of
the most plaintive, sweetly-solemn music:
What said my man, when my betossèd soul
Did not attend him as we rode ? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet:
Said he not so ? or did I dream it so ?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so ?-O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave, —
A grave! O, no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth;
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting-presence full of light.
How oft, when men are at the point of death,
J
{
}
A
21
.RODUCTION.
t
?
Have they been merry !-O, my love! my wife !
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And Death's pale flag is not advanced there.-
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin !-- Ah, dear Juliet!
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial Death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.
With what vividness every article of this speech tells of
the speaker's whereabout! All is surpassingly idiomatic
of the spot, supremely characteristic of the man; not a
thought, not an image, not a word, that could have come
from any one but Romeo, or could have come from him at
any other time, or in any other place. How prompt, how
piercing, how kindling, his mental eye! seeing every thing
just as it is, and yet, from his preternatural illumination of
mind, looking every thing full of his own passion, and turn-
ing it into something rich and rare. For his essential grace
of imagination, touched with new virtue, as it is, by the
genius of the place, beautifies all the dishonours of the
grave, and sweetens its very offences into dearness: he sees
but the presence of his Juliet; and he knows no home, no
paradise but that; and whatever shares in that is precious
to his sense. Such is the strength, such the elevation, such
he spiritualizing power of wedded love, as here depicted!
22
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Character of the Heroine.
Hallam a man who weighs his words well before speak-
ing them gives as his opinion, that "it is impossible to
place Juliet among the great female characters of Shake-
speare's creation." Other critics of high repute, especially
Mrs. Jameson, take a different view: but this may result in
part from the representation being so charged, not to say
overcharged, with poetic warmth and splendour, as to hin-
der a cool and steady judgment of the character. For the
passion in which Juliet lives is most potently infectious:
one can hardly venture near enough to see what and whence
it is, without falling under its influence while in her case it
is so fraught with purity and tenderness, and self-forgetting
ardour and constancy, and has so much withal to challenge
a respectful pity, that the moral sense does not easily find
where to fix its notes of reproof. And if, in her intoxication
of soul and sense, she loses whatever of reason her youth and
inexperience can have gathered, the effect is breathed forth
with an energy and elevation of spirit, and in a transporting
affluence of thought and imagery, which none but the stern-
est readers can well resist, and which, after all, there may be
not much virtue in resisting.
:
I have to confess, however, that Juliet appears something
better as a heroine than as a woman, the reverse of which
commonly holds in the Poet's delineations. But then she is
a real heroine, in the best sense of the term; her woman-
hood being developed through her heroism, not eclipsed nor
obscured by it. Wherein she differs from the general ru..
of tragic heroines, who act as if they knew not how to be
heroic without becoming something mannish or viraginous;
the trouble with them being, that they set out wi¹
?
INTRODUCTION.
23
purpose to be heroines, and to approve themselves such:
whereas Juliet is surprised into heroism, and acts the hero-
ine without knowing it, simply because it is in her to do so,
and, when the occasion comes, she cannot do otherwise.
It is not till the marriage with Paris is forced upon her,
that her proper heroism displays itself. All her feelings as
a woman, a lover, and a wife, are then thoroughly engaged;
and because her heart is all truth, therefore it stands a fixed
necessity with her, either "to live an unstain'd wife to her
sweet love," or else to die. To avert what is to her liter-
ally an infinite evil, she appeals imploringly to father, to
mother, and the Nurse, in succession; nor is it till she is
cast entirely on her own strength that she finds herself suf-
ficient for herself. There is something truly fearful in the
resolution and energy of her discourse with the Friar; yet
we feel that she is still the same soft, tender, gentle being
whose breath was lately so rich and sweet with words of
love :
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;
And, ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
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 honour bring.
When told the desperate nature of the remedy, she rises
to a yet higher pitch, her very terror of the deed inspiring
her with fresh energy of purpose. And when she comes
to the performance, she cannot indeed arrest the workings
of her imagination, neither can those workings shake her
the
24
ROMEO AND JULIET.
1
!
resolution on the contrary, in their reciprocal aon each
adds vigour and intensity to the other; the terrific images
which throng upon her excited fancy developing within her
a strength and courage to face them. In all which there
is indeed much of the heroine, but then the heroism is
the free, spontaneous, unconscious outcome of her native
womanhood.
It is well worth noting how the different qualities of
the female character are in this representation distributed.
Juliet has both the weakness and the strength of a woman,
and she has them in the right, that is, the natural places.
For, if she appears as frail as the frailest of her sex in the
process of becoming a lover, her frailty ends with that
process: weak in yielding to the touch of passion, she is
trong as a seraph. Thus it is in the cause of
wite that greatness proper to her as a woman tran-
spres. Moor, in his Life of Byron, speaks of this as a
peculiarity of the Italian women; but surely it is nowise
peculiar to them, save that they may have it in a larger
measure than others; though even that is doubtful. For I
think the general rule of women everywhere is, that the
easiest to fall in love are the hardest to get out of it, and
at the same time the most religiously tenacious of their
honour in it.
It is very considerable that Juliet, though subject to the
same necessity of loving as Romeo, is neverthless quite
exempt from the delusions of fancy, and therefore never
gets bewildered with a love of her own making. The ele-
ments of passion in her do not act, it is against her nature
that they should act, in such a way as to send her in quest
of an object indeed those elements are a secret even to
herself she suspects not their existence, till the proper
INTRODUCTION.
25
1
object appears, because it is the inspiration of that object
that kindles them. Her modesty, too, is much like Romeo's
honour; that is, it is a living attribute of her character, and
not a result of conventional pressure. She therefore does
not try to disguise or conceal from herself the impulses of
her nature, because they are justly sanctified to her by the
religion of her heart. On this point, especially with refer-
ence to the famous soliloquy at the beginning of the second
scene of the third Act, I will leave her in the hands of
Mrs. Jameson; who with a rare gift to see what is right
joins an equal felicity in expressing it. "Let it be remem-
bered," says she, "that in this speech Juliet is not supposed
to be addressing an audience, nor even a confidante; and I
confess I have been shocked at the utter want of taste and
refinement in those who, with coarse derision, or in a spirit
of prudery yet more gross and perverse, have dared to com-
ment on this beautiful Hymn to the Night, breathed out by
Juliet in the silence and solitude of her chamber. She is
thinking aloud; it is the young heart triumphing to itself
in words'; and her impatience, to use her own expression,
is truly that of a child before a festival, that hath new
robes and may not wear them.''
Je pa je de
،
(
Delineation of the Nurse.
The Nurse is in some respects another edition of Mrs.
Quickly, though in a different binding. The character has
a tone of reality that almost startles us on a first acquaint-
ance. She gives the impression of a literal transcript from
actual life; which is doubtless owing in part to the pre-
dominance of memory in her mind; as in her account of
Juliet's age, where she cannot go on without bringing in all
(
26
ROMEO AND JULIET
the accidents of the s
ว
just as they fell out in the order
of place and tin... And she has a way of repeating the
same thin the some words, so that it strikes us as a fact
cleaving to her thoughts, and exercising a sort of fascination
over them
She is idealized indeed, but rather idealized
into the dirt than out of it.
X
This general passiveness of mind naturally makes her
whole character "smell of the shop." She takes the print
of circumstances without the least mitigation, and holds it
unmodified by any force from within. And she has a cer-
tain vulgarized air of rank and refinement, as if, priding
herself on the confidence of her superiors, she had caught
and assimilated their manners to her own vulgar nature. In
this mixture of refinement and vulgarity, both elements are
made the worse for being together; for, like all who ape.
their betters, she exaggerates whatever she copies; or, bor-
rowing the proprieties of those above her, she turns them
into their opposite, because she has no sense of propriety.
Without a particle of truth or honour or delicacy; one to
whom life has no sacredness, virtue no beauty, love no holi-
ness; a woman, in short, without womanhood; she abounds
however in serviceable qualities; has just that low menial
shrewdness which at once fits her to be an instrument, and
makes her proud to be used as such. Yet she acts not so
much from a positive disregard of right as from a lethargy
of conscience; or as if her soul had run itself into a sort of
moral dry-rot through a leak at the mouth.
Accordingly in her basest acts she never dreams but that
she is a pattern of virtue. And because she is thus uncon-
scious and, as it were, innocent of her own vices, therefore
Juliet thinks her free from them, and suspects not but that
beneath her petulant, vulgar loquacity she has a vein of
1
เ
1
INTRODUCTION.
27
womanly honour and sensibility. For she has, in her way,
a real affection for Juliet: whatsoever would give pleasure
to herself, that she will do any thing to compass for her
young mistress; and, until love and marriage become the
question, there has never been any thing to disclose the
essential oppugnancy of their natures. When, however, in
her noble agony, Juliet appeals to the Nurse for counsel,
and is met with the advice to marry Paris, she sees at once
what her soul is made of; that her former praises of Romeo
were but the offspring of a sensual pruriency easing itself
with talk; that in her long life she has gained only that
sort of experience which works the debasement of its pos-
sessor; and that she knows less than nothing of love and
marriage, because she has worn their prerogatives without
any feeling of their sacredness.
Mercutio.
Mercutio is one of the instances which strikingly show
the excess of Shakespeare's powers above his performances.
Though giving us more than any other man, still he seems
to have given but a small part of himself. For we feel that
he could have gone on indefinitely with the same exquisite
redundancy of life and wit which he has started in Mercutio.
As aiming rather to instruct us with character than to enter-
tain us with talk, he lets off just enough of the latter to dis-
close the former, and then stops, leaving the impression of
an inexhaustible abundance withheld to give scope for
something better. From the nature of the subject he had
to leave unsatisfied the desire which in Mercutio is excited.
Delightful as the man is, the Poet valued, and makes us
value, his room more than his company. It has been said
28
ROMEO AND JULIET.
|
that he was obliged to kill off Mercutio, lest Mercutio
should kill the play. And, sure enough, it is not apparent
how he could have kept Mercutio and Tybalt in the play
without spoiling it, nor how he could have kept them out
without killing them: for so long as they live they must
needs have a chief hand in whatever is going on about
them; and they can scarce have a hand in any thing, with-
out turning it, the one into a comedy, the other into a
butchery. The Poet, however, so manages them and their
fate as to aid rather than interrupt the proper interest of
the piece; the impression of their death, strong as it is,
being overcome by the sympathy awakened in us with the
living.
Mercutio is a perfect embodiment of animal spirits acting
in and through the brain. So long as the life is in him his
blood must dance, and so long as the blood dances the brain
and tongue must play. His veins seem filled with sparkling
champagne. Always revelling in the conscious fulness of
his resources, he pours out and pours out, heedless whether
he speaks sense or nonsense; nay, his very stumblings seem
designed as triumphs of agility; he studies, apparently, for
failures, as giving occasion for further trials, and thus serv-
ing at once to provoke his skill and to set it off. Full of
the most companionable qualities, he often talks loosely
indeed, but not profanely; and even in his loosest talk there
is a subtilty and refinement both of nature and of breeding,
that mark him for the prince of good fellows. Nothing
could more finely evince the essential frolicsomeness of his
composition, than that, with his ruling passion strong in
death, he should play the wag in the face of his grim enemy,
as if to live and to jest were the same thing with him.
Of Mercutio's wit it were vain to attempt an analysis.
1
}
INTRODUCTION.
29
4
a fancy as quick and aerial as the Aurora Borealis,
ost unique and graceful combinations come forth with
inconceivable facility and felicity. If wit consists in
a peculiar briskness, airiness, and apprehensiveness of spirit,
catching, as by instinct, the most remote and delicate affini-
ties, and putting things together most unexpectedly and at
the same time most appositely, then it can hardly be denied
that Mercutio is the prince of wits as well as of good fellows.
Friar Laurence.
I have always felt a special comfort in the part of Friar
Laurence. How finely his tranquillity contrasts with the
surrounding agitation! And how natural it seems that from
that very agitation he should draw lessons of tranquillity!
Calm, thoughtful, benevolent, withdrawing from the world,
that he may benefit society the more for being out of it,
his presence and counsel in the play are as oil poured, yet
poured in vain, on troubled waters. Sympathizing quietly
yet deeply with the very feelings in others which in the still-
ness of thought he has subdued in himself, the storms that
waste society only kindle in him the sentiments that raise
him above them; while his voice, issuing from the heart of
humanity, speaks peace, but cannot give it, to the passions
that are raging around him.
Schlegel has remarked with his usual discernment on the
skill with which the Poet manages to alleviate the miracle
of the sleeping-potion; and how, by throwing an air of
mysterious wisdom round the Friar, he renders us the more
apt to believe strange things concerning him; representing
him as so conjunctive and inward with Nature, that incre-
dulity as to what he does is in a great measure forestalled
t
30
ROY O AND JULIET.
į
I
1
:
}
by impressions of reverence for his character.
How," says
he, "does the Poet dispose us to believe that Friar Lau-
rence possesses such a secret? He exhibits him first in a
garden, collecting herbs, and descanting on their wonderful
virtues. The discourse of the pious old man is full of deep
meaning he sees everywhere in Nature emblems of the
moral world; the same wisdom with which he looks through
her has also made him master of the human heart. In this
way, what would else have an ungraceful appearance, be-
comes the source of a great beauty."
((
The Catastrophe.
Much fault has been found with the winding-up of this
play, that it does not stop with the death of Juliet. Look-
ing merely to the uses of the stage, it might indeed be
better so; but Shakespeare wrote for humanity as well as,
yea, rather than, for the stage. And as the evil fate of the
lovers springs from the bitter feud of their Houses, and
from a general stifling of nature under a hard crust of artifi-
cial manners, he wisely represents their fate as reacting upon
and removing the cause. We are thus given to see and
feel that they have not suffered in vain; and the heart has
something to mitigate and humanize its over-pressure of
grief. The absorbing, devouring selfishness of society gen-
erates the fiercest rancour between the leading families,
and that rancour issues in the death of the very members
through whom they had thought most to advance their rival
pretensions; Earth's best and noblest creatures are snatched
away, because, by reason of their virtue, they can best afford
to die, and because, for the same reason, their death will be
most bitterly deplored. The good old Friar indeed the… 4
-1.
INTRODUCTION.
31
that by the marriage of the lovers the rancour of their
Houses would be healed. But a Wiser than he knew that
the deepest touch of sorrow was required, to awe and melt
their proud, selfish hearts; that nothing short of the most
afflicting bereavement, together with the feeling that them-
selves had both caused it and deserved it, could teach them
rightly to "prize the breath they share with human kind,'
and remand them to the impassioned attachments of nature.
Accordingly the hatred that seemed immortal is buried in
the tomb of the faithful lovers; families are reconciled, so-
ciety renovated, by the storm that has passed upon them;
the tyranny of selfish custom is rebuked and broken up by
the insurrection of nature which itself has provoked; tears
flow, hearts are softened, hands joined, truth, tenderness,
and piety inspired, by the noble example of devotion and
self-sacrifice which stands before them. Such is the sad but
wholesome lesson to be gathered from the story of "Juliet
and her Romeo."
Concluding Remarks.
It may have been remarked, that I habitually speak of
Shakespeare's men and women as if they were veritable
flesh-and-blood persons, actual "travellers between life and
death," just as we are. Whatever of folly or absurdity there
may be in such a course, I must plead guilty to it. If it be
asked why I so speak of them, the answer is, because I can-
not help it. To me their virtues are as true as those of the
friends I have loved and mourned, their sorrows as real and
as close to the heart as any I have felt or pitied. I have
much the same life in their sociem as that of my breathing
t I know sickness
make spoil of their
"
ܕ
1
wi
1
32
ROMEO AND JULIET.
1
"
sweetness. Sometimes indeed they appear to me, with
their thoughts and feelings, more real, more living, than the
human forms I see about me, and even than myself. So it
is with the characters of this play; so it is with those of
many others. And as often as I renew my intercourse with
them, I am reminded of an incident related by Wordsworth
in one of his smaller poems. An
An eminent British artist
being on a visit at the Escurial, a venerable monk was
guiding him through the convent, and showing him the
paintings; and, as they both stood with eyes intent on
Titian's picture of the Last Supper,
The hoary Father in the Stranger's ear
Breathed out these words: "Here daily do we sit,
Thanks given to God for daily bread, and here,
While thinking of my brethren, dead, dispersed,
Or changed and changing, I not seldom gaze
Upon this solemn company unmoved
week
By shock of circumstance or lapse of years,
Until I cannot but believe that they,
They are in truth the substance, we the shadows."
"
EO AND JULIET.
7
,,-~u.3rn!
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ESCALUS, Prince of Verona.
PARIS, his Kinsman.
SAMPSON, } Servants to Capulet.
GREGORY,
MONTAGUE, Heads of two Hostile PETER, Servant to the Nurse.
CAPULET, Houses.
ABRAHAM, Servant to Montague.
An old Man, Uncle to Capulet.
▲ ROMEO, Son to Montague.
PERSONS. REPRESENTED.
MERCUTIO Friends to Romeo.
BENVOLIO,
TYBALT, Nephew to Lady Capulet.
FRIAR LAURENCE,
}
Franciscans.
FRIAR JOHN,
BALTHAZAR, Servant to Romeo.
',
·
An Apothecary.
Three Musicians.
Chorus. A Boy, Page to Paris.
An Officer.
Citizens of Verona; male and female Relations to both Houses; Maskers
Guards, Watchmen, and Attendants.
my
LADY MONTAGUE.
LADY CAPULET.
JULIET, Daughter to Capulet.
Nurse to Juliet.
SCENE. During the greater part of the Play, in Verona; once, in the fifth
Act, at Mantua.
Enter Chorus.
Chor. Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal¹ loins of these two foes
PROLOGUE.
¹ Fatal for fated; the active form with the passive sense. This confusion
of the two forms, both in adjectives and participles, is very frequent.
34
ACT I
ROMEO AND JULIET.
π
;
A pair of cross u lovers take their life
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. [Exit.
ACT I.
SCENE I.— Verona. A Public Place.
с
C
Enter SAMPSON and GREGORY, armed with swords and
bucklers.
Sam. Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.¹
Gre. No, for then we should be colliers.2
2 Star-cross'd is thwarted or opposed by planetary influence; that is, ill-
fated. The Poet, in common with the writers of his time, abounds in such
astrological allusions; the old faith in judicial astrology being then still held
by many, and colouring the language of those who had renounced it.
8 The exceptive but, as it is called; having the sense of be out, of which
it is an old contraction.
1 To carry coals is to put up with insults. Anciently, in great families,
the scullions, turnspits, and carriers of wood and coals were est
very lowest of menials. Such attendants upon the royal househo
gresses, were called the black-guard; and hence the origin of
So in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour: "Here come:
will carry coals; ergo will hold my dog." And in Cotgrave's L
"Hee is very chollericke, furious, or couragious; he will carrie:
See, also, King Henry the Fifth, page 87, note 15.
2 Collier was a common term of reproach: perhaps from the
3,-2
he
0-
n.
at
V:
"
SS
{
J
SCENE I.
35
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Sam. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.
Gre. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar.
Sam. I strike quickly, being moved.
Gre. But thou art not quickly moved to strike.
Sam. A dog of the House of Montague moves me.
Gre. To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.
Sam. A dog of that House shall move me to stand: I will
take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.
Gre. That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes
to the wall.
Sam. True; and therefore women, being the weaker ves-
sels, are ever thrust to the wall: therefore I will push Mon-
tague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.
Gre. The quarrel is between our masters and us their
inen.
Sam. 'Tis all one; I will show myself a tyrant: when I
have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids;
and 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
Gre. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst
been poor-john.3 Draw thy tool; here comes two of the
House of the Montagues.4
Sam. My naked weapon is out: quarrel; I will back thee.
Gre. How! turn thy back and run?
Sam. Fear me not.
Gre. No, marry; I fear thee!
of colliers; the Devil being represented as black. See Twelfth Night,
page 100, note 10.
Poor-john is hake, dried and salted.
4 The partisans of the Montague family wore a token in their hats in order
to distinguish them from their enemies the Capulets. Hence throughout
this play they are known at a distance.
36
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT I.
Sam. Let us take the law of our sides; 5 let them begin.
Gre. I will frown as I pass by; and let them take it as
they list.
Sam. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them ;
which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.6
m
Enter ABRAHAM and BALTHAZAR.
R
Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. I do bite my thumb, sir.
as you.
Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. [Aside to GRE.] Is the law of our side, if I say
ay?
Gre. [Aside to SAM.] No.
Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I
bite my thumb, sir.
Gre. Do you quarrel, sir?
Abr. Quarrel, sir! no, sir.
Sam. If you do, sir, I am for you: I serve as good a man
Abr. No better.
Sam. Well, sir.
(
5 Keep the law on our sides. The indifferent use of on o ef much cases
was very common; as in Hamlet, ii. 2: "Nay, then I have an c of you."
Also in The Merchant, ii. 2: More hair of his tail than I have of my face."
And in Much Ado, iii. 5: “An two men ride of a horse, one must ride
behind."
+
1
6 This was a common mode of insult, in order to begin a quarı、 Dek-
ker, in his Dead Term, 1608, describing the various groups that daily fre-
quented St. Paul's, says, "What swearing is there, what shouldering, hat
justling, what jeering, what byting of thumbs, to beget quarrels!" And sɔ in
Cotgrave's French Dictionary: "Nique, faire la nique, to threaten or defie,
by putting the thumbe naile into the mouth, and with a jerke (from the ip-
per teeth) make it to knocke."
·
I
1
L
SCENE I.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
37
Gre. [Aside to SAM.] Say better: here comes one of my
master's kinsmen.7
Sam. Yes, better, sir.
Abr. You lie.
Sam. Draw, if you be men.
swashing blow.
8
W
Gregory, remember thy
[They fight.
→
Enter BENVOLIO.
Ben. Part, fools!
Put up your swords; you know not what you do.
Enter TYBALT.
"
[Beats down their swords.
Tyb. What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death.
Ben. I do but keep the peace: put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.
Tyb. What, drawn, and
word,
7 Gregory is a servant of the Capulets: he therefore means Tybalt.
whom he sees coming in a different direction from that of Benvolio. — Up-
on this scene Coleridge comments with rare felicity: "With his accustomed
judgment, Shakespeare has begun by placing before us a lively picture of
all the impulses of the play; and, as nature ever presents two sides, one for
Heraclitus and one for Democritus, he has, by way of prelude, shown the
laughable absurdity of the evil by the contagion of it reaching the servants,
who have so little to do with it, but who are under the necessity of letting
the superfluity of sensorial power fly off through the escape-valve of wit-
combats, and of quarrelling with weapons of sharper edge, all in humble
imitation of their masters. Yet there is a sort of unhired fidelity, an ourish-
ness about all this, that makes it rest pleasant on one's feelings. All the first
scene, down to the conclusion of the Prince's speech, is a motley dance of
all ranks and ages to one tune, as if the horn of Huon had been playing
behind the scenes.'
8 Swashing is swaggering or blustering. See As You Like It, page 52
note 9.
talk of peace!
talk of peace! I hate the
38
ACT I.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
As I hate Hell, all Montagues, and thee:
Have at thee, coward!
[They fight.
Enter several of both Houses, who join the fray; then enter
Citizens with clubs.
Citizens. Clubs, bills, and partisans !9 strike! beat them
down!
Down with the Capulets! down with the Montagues !
Enter CAPULET in his gown, and Lady CAPULET.
Cap. What noise is this? — Give me my long sword,¹º ho!
L. Cap. A crutch, a crutch! why call you for a sword?
Cap. My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.
Enter MONTAGUE and Lady MONTAGUE.
Mon. Thou villain Capulet, Hold me not, let go.
L. Mon. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.
Enter the Prince, with Attendants.
Prince. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stainèd soil,
Will they not hear?—what, ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
—
9 The old custom of crying out Clubs, clubs! in case of any tumult ...
ring in the streets of London, has been made familiar to man, v
by Scott in The Fortunes of Nigel. See Henry VIII., page 170, nɛ'.
Bills and partisans were weapons used by watchmen and foresters
As You Like It, page 40, note 10.
10 The long sword was used in active warfare; a lighter, shorter, and
desperate weapon was worn for ornament.
k
"T-
I
1
i
SCENE I.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your movèd Prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets;
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast-by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd ¹¹ hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our further pleasure in this case,
To old Freetown,12 our common judgment-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
-
2
[Exeunt all but MONTAGUE, Lady MONTAGUE,
and BENVOLIO.
Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?
Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary,
And yours, close fighting, ere I did approach:
I drew to part them in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared;
Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
11 The first canker'd is rusted; as in St. James, v. 3: "Your gold and
silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you."
The second has the analogous sense of an eating, obstinate sore, like a can-
cer; which word is from the same original.
12 In Brooke's poem, Free-town is the name of a castle belonging to
40
ACT L
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn.
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the Prince came, who parted either part.
L. Mon. O, where is Romeo? saw you him to-day?
Right glad am I he was not at this fray.
Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd Sun
Peer'd forth the golden window of the East,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
Where underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from the city's side
So early walking did I see your son.
Towards him I made; but he was 'ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood :
I — measuring his affections by my own,
That most are busied when they're most alone
Pursued my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.
Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs:
But, all so soon as the all-cheering Sun
Should in the farthest East begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself;
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
Mon. I neither know it nor can learn of him,

SCENE I.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
4I
Ben. Have you impórtuned him by any means?
Mon. Both by myself and many other friends:
But he, his own affections' counsellor,
Is to himself, I will not say how true,
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious 13 worm,
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the Sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure as know.
Ben. See, where he comes: so please you, step aside;
I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.
Mon. I would thou wert so happy by thy stay
To hear true shrift. — Come, madam, let's away.
[Exeunt MONTAGUE and Lady.
Enter ROMEO.
Ben. Good morrow, cousin.
Rom.
Is the day so young?
Ben. But new struck nine.
Rom.
Ah me! sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?
Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Rom. Not having that, which having makes them short.
Ben. In love?
Rom. Out
Ben. Of love?
Rom. Out of her favour, where I am in love.
18 The more common meaning of envy and envious was malice and
malicious. In the Poet's time, when the passive voice was used, and the
agent expressed by prepositional phrase, with was often used instead of by.
M
*

ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT L
Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will ! 14
Where shall we dine? O me! what fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love:
7Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first created!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity !
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep,15 that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
No, coz, I rather weep.
Ben.
Rom. Good heart, at what?
Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.
Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast;
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it press'd 16
With more of thine: this love, that thou hast shown,
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
14 Should think he sees a way to his will merely because he wishes to
have it so, and when in truth there is none.
15 This string of antithetical conceits seems absurd enough to us; but
such was the most approved way of describing love in Shakespeare's time.
Perhaps the best defence of the use here made of it is, that such an affected
way of speaking not unaptly shows the state of Romeo's mind, that his love.
is rather self-generated than inspired by any object. At all events, as com-
pared with his style of speech after meeting with Juliet, it serves to mark
the difference between being love-sick and being in love.
16 That is, "by having it press'd." An instance of the infinitive used
gerundively, where present usage does not admit of it.
SCENE I.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
43
oxymoron

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs
Being purged,17 a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.
Ben.
Soft! I will go along;
And, if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
Rom. Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here;
This is not Romeo, he's some other where.
Ben. Tell me in sadness,18 who 'tis that you love.
Rom. What, shall I groan, and tell thee?
Ben.
Groan! why, no ;
But sadly tell me who.
Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will,
Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
Ben. I aim'd so near, when I supposed you loved.
Rom. A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.
Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
Rom. Well, in that hit you miss she'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit;
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,
From Love's weak childish bow she lives encharm'd.19
17 Purged is here used in the same sense as in St. Matthew, iii. 12: 'And
he will throughly purge his floor." The figure is of a fire purified of the
smoke.
"
18 In sadness is in seriousness, or in earnest. So, a little after, sadly for
seriously. The usage was common. See Much Ado, page 64, note 13.
19 That is, shielded from Cupid's artillery as by a charm. So in Cymbe-
line, v. 3: "I, in mine own woe charm'd, could not find Death where I
did hear him groan, nor feel him where he struck." And in Macbeth, v. 7:
"Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life."
44
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT
£
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor,
That, when she dies, with her dies beauty's store.20
Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starved with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow
Do I live dead that live to tell it now.
Ben. Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
Rom. O, teach me how I should forget to think.
Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.
Rom.
'Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.21
These 22 happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,
Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair:
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?
20 Poor only in that, when she dies, her great estate of beauty must die
with her, as she will have none to inherit it.
21 To call her exquisite beauty more into my mind, and make it more
the subject of conversation. Question was often used in this sense.
22 These appears to be here used indefinitely, and as equivalent merely
to the. We often use the demonstratives in the same way.
}
t
{
SCENE II
RMEO AND JULIET.
45
Farewell thou canst not teach me to forget.23
Ben. I'll pay that doctrine,24 or else die in debt. [Exeunt.
SCENE II. — The Same. A Street.
Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant.
Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.
Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both;
And pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before :
My child is yet a stranger in the world;
She, hath not seen the change of fourteen years:
Let two more Summers wither in their pride,
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.
Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early married.
The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth: 1
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
23 It would have displeased us if Juliet had been represented as already
in love, or as fancying herself so; but no one, I believe, ever experiences
any shock at Romeo's forgetting his Rosaline, who had been a mere name
for the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rushing into his passion
for Juliet. Rosaline was a mere creation of his fancy; and we should
remark the boastful positiveness of Romeo in a love of his own making,
which is never shown where love is really near the heart.-COLERIDGE.
24 Doctrine for lesson or instruction; one of the Latin senses of the
word.
1 Fille de terre is the old French phrase for an heiress. Earth is put for
lands, or landed estate, in other old plays.
44
ACT
ROMEO AND JULIET.
i
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor,
That, when she dies, with her dies beauty's store.20
Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starved with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love; and in that vow
Do I live dead that live to tell it now.
Ben. Be ruled by me, forget to think of her.
Rom. O, teach me how I should forget to think.
Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.
Rom.
'Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.21
These 22 happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,
Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair:
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?
20 Poor only in that, when she dies, her great estate of beauty must die
with her, as she will have none to inherit it.
21 To call her exquisite beauty more into my mind, and make it more
the subject of conversation. Question was often used in this sense.
22 These appears to be here used indefinitely, and as equivalent merely
to the. We often use the demonstratives in the same way.
SCENE II
45
RMEO AND JULIET.
Farewell thou canst not teach me to forget.23
Ben. I'll pay that doctrine,24 or else die in debt. [Exeunt.
SCENE II. — The Same. A Street.
Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant.
Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.
Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both;
And pity 'tis you lived at odds so long.
But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before:
My child is yet a stranger in the world;
She, hath not seen the change of fourteen years:
Let two more Summers wither in their pride,
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.
Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early married.
The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth : 1
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
23 It would have displeased us if Juliet had been represented as already
in love, or as fancying herself so; but no one, I believe, ever experiences
any shock at Romeo's forgetting his Rosaline, who had been a mere name
for the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rushing into his passion
for Juliet. Rosaline was a mere creation of his fancy; and we should
remark the boastful positiveness of Romeo in a love of his own making,
which is never shown where love is really near the heart. - COLERIDGE.
24 Doctrine for lesson or instruction; one of the Latin senses of the
word.
1 Fille de terre is the old French phrase for an heiress. Earth is put for
lands, or landed estate, in other old plays.
46
ACT I
ROMEO AND JULIT.
My will to her consent is but a part;
An she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair-according voice.
This night I hold an old-accustom'd feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love; and you, among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven fight :
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparell'd April on the heel
Of limping Winter treads,2 even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit 3 at my house; hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be :
Whilst, on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.¹
Come, go with me. [To the Servant.] Go, sirrah, trudge
about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out
Whose names are written there, [Gives a paper.] and to
them say,
2 The Poet's 98th Sonnet yields a good comment on the text:
From you have I been absent in the Spring,
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
3 Inherit in its old sense of possess or have. See Tempest, page 125, note 30.
4 The allusion is to the old proverbial expression, " One is no number."
So in the Poet's 136th Sonnet:
Among a number one is reckon'd none;
Then, in the number let me pass untold.
SCENE II.
47
ROMEO AND JULIET.
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.
[Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS.
Serv. Find them out whose names are written here! It
is written, that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard,
and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the
painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons
whose names are here writ, and can never find what names
the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned:
in good time.
Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO.
Ben. Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning,5
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ;
Turn giddy, and be holp6 by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another's languish :
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.
Rom. Your plantain-leaf is excellent for that.7
Ben. For what, I pray thee?
Rom.
For your broken shin.
Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is ;
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp'd and tormented, and — Good-den, good fellow.
8
5 Alluding, probably, to the old remedy for a burn, by holding the burnt
place up to the fire. So in Julius Cæsar, iii. 1: “As fire drives out fire, so
pity, pity."
6 Holp or holpen is the old preterit of help. That form of the word
occurs repeatedly in the English Psalter, which is an older version than
the Psalms in the Bible.
7 The plantain-leaf is a blood-stancher, and was formerly applied to
green wounds.
⁹ Such, it seems, were the most approved modes of curing mad people
in the Poet's time. See Twelfth Night, page 101, note II.
48
ACT I.
ROMEO AND JA I
!
Serv. God gi' good-den.9
1
way, s
sery.
Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my
Serv. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book: but, I
pray, can you read any thing you see?
Rom. Ay, if I know the letters and the language.
Serv. Ye say honestly: rest you merry!
Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.
u read?
[Reads.] Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;
The lady widow of Vitruvio;
Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces;
Mercutio and his brother Valentine ;
[Takes the paper.
Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;
My fair niece Rosaline, and Livia;
Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt;
Lucio and the lively Helena.
Serv. Up.
Rom. Whither?
Serv. To our house, to supper.
Rom. Whose house?
[Giving back the paper.] A fair assembly: whither should
they come?
Serv. My master's.
Rom. Indeed, I should have ask'd you that before.
Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking: my master is the
great rich Capulet; and, if you be not of the House of Mon
tagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine.10 Rest you!
merry!
[Exii
9 An old colloquialism for "God give you good even."
10 This expression often occurs in old plays. We have one still in use
of similar import: "To crack a bottle."
}
SCENE II.
49
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lovest ;
With all th' admirèd beauties of Verona :
Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,11
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
And these, who, often drown'd,12 could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! th' all-seeing Sun
Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.
Ben. Tut, tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself poised with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales 13 let there be weigh'd
Your lady-love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now shows best.
Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.

[Exeunt.
11 Unattainted is uncorrupted or undisabled; an eye that sees things as
they are.
12" And these eyes of mine, which, though often drown'd with tears,
could never," &c. One of the old reasons for burning witches as heretics
was, because water could not or would not strangle them. So in King
James's Dæmonology: “It appears that God hath appointed for a super-
natural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches, that the water shall refuse
to receive them in her bosom that have shaken off them the sacred water
of baptism, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof."
13 Here scales is a noun singular; the pair being regarded merely as
parts of one and the same thing.
30
407 1.
SOMEO AND 117
SCENE III. — The Same. A Room in CAPULET'S House.
Enter Lady CAPULET and the Nurse.
L. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to
me.
Nurse. Now, by my maidenhood at twelve year old,
I bade her come. What, lamb! what, lady-bird!
God forbid !1 where's this girl? — What, Juliet !
Enter JULIET.
Jul. How now! who calls?
Nurse. Your mother.
Jul. Madam, I am here. What is your will?
L. Cap. This is the matter: — Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret : nurse, come back again;
I have remember'd me, thou'se 2 hear our counsel.
Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty³ age.
Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
L. Cap. She's not fourteen.
Nurse.
I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,-
And yet, to my teen 4 be it spoken, I have but four, -
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
1 An exquisite touch of nature! The old Nurse in her fond garrulity
uses lady-bird as a term of endearment; but recollecting its application
to a female of loose manners, checks herself: "God forbid" her darling
should prove such a one!-STAUNTON.
2 The use of thou'se for thou shalt was common.
3 Pretty for apt, fitting, or suitable. Such, or nearly such, is often its
meaning. So in King Henry V., i. 2: “We have pretty traps to catch
the petty thieves."
4 Teen is an old word for sorrow, and is here used as a sort of play upon
four and fourteen. See The Tempest, page 51, note 15.
}
1
SCENE III.
51
ROMEO AND JULIET.
A fortnight and odd days.
L. Cap.
Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve 5 at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she God rest all Christian souls!
Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me: but, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen ;
That shall she, marry; I remember't well.
"Tis since the earthquake now eleven years ;
And she was wean'd, I never shall forget it,-
Of all the days of the year, upon that day :
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in th' sun under the dove-house wall ;
My lord and you were then at Mantua :
Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy, and fall out wi' th' dug!
Shake quoth the dove-house :7 'twas no need, I trow,
5 Lammas-day or -tide falls on the first of August; and of course Lam-
mas-eve is the day before. It is an ancient festival of the Catholic Church.
The most probable derivation of the name is from a Saxon word meaning
loafmass, because on that day the Saxons used to offer loaves made of new
wheat, as an oblation of first-fruits. Some, however, hold the festival to
have been instituted in commemoration of St. Peter in the fetters, and
derive the name from our Lord's injunction to that Apostle, "Feed my
lambs."
The Nurse is boasting of her retentive faculty. To bear a brain was
to have good mental capacity.
7 It appears that quoth, as here used, was a vulgar corruption of go'th,
or goeth. Mr. P. A. Daniel quotes from Peele's Old Wives' Tale: "Bounce
quoth the guns." Also, from one of Dekker's plays: Bounce goes the
guns." ―The meaning probably is, that the dove-house was shaken by
the earthquake. The matter is commonly explained as referring to an
earthquake that happened in England on the 6th of April, 1580. It is
44
52
ACT I.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
U
To bid me trudge :
And since that time it is eleven years ;
For then she could stand alone, nay, by the Rood,
She could have run and waddled all about.
God mark thee to His grace!
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed :
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.
L. Cap. Marry, that marry is the
the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.
Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only nurse,
I'd say thou had'st suck'd wisdom from thy teat.
L. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus, then, in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man
As all the world—why, he's a man of wax.8
L. Cap. Verona's Summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
L. Cap. What say you? can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
said that the great clock at Westminster, and other clocks and bells
struck of themselves with the shaking of the earth; and that the roof of
Christ church near Newgate was so shaken that a stone dropped out of
it, and killed two persons, it being service-time.
8 As well made, as handsome, as if he had been modelled in wax. So
in Wily Beguiled: "Why, he is a man as one should picture him in wax."
And so Horace uses cerea brachia, waxen arms, for arms well-shaped.
SCENE III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
53
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,9
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscured in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margent 10 of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him only lacks a cover :
The fish lives in the shell; 12 and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
11
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Enter a Servant.
Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you
call'd, my young lady ask'd for, the nurse cursed in the pan-
try, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait; I
beseech you, follow straight.
9 That is, all the features harmonized into mutual helpfulness. So, in
Troilus and Cressida, we have "the unity and married calm of States."
10 The comments on ancient books were generally printed in the margin.
Horatio says, in Hamlet, "I knew you must be edified by the margent."
11 This speech is full of quibbles. The unbound lover is a quibble on
the binding of a book, and the binding in marriage; and the word cover
is a quibble on the law phrase for a married woman, femme couverte.
12 Referring, probably, to the well-known beauty of many conchiferous
structures and habitations. The implied comparison is indeed something
strained, but such appears to be the meaning. See Critical Notes,
54
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT L
!
L Cap. We follow thee. [Exit Servant.] - Jul the
county stays.
Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV. — The Same. A Street.
Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six
Masquers, Torch-bearers, and others.
Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?
Ben. The date is out of such prolixity : 1
We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper; 2
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance : 3
But, let them measure us by what they will,
1 In King Henry VIII., where the King introduces himself at the enter-
tainment given by Wolsey, he appears, like Romeo and his companions,
in a mask, and sends a messenger before with an apology for his intrusion.
This was a custom observed by those who came uninvited, with a desire to
conceal themselves, for the sake of intrigue, or to enjoy the greater freedom
of conversation. Their entry on these occasions was always prefaced by
some speech in praise of the beauty of the ladies, or the generosity of the
entertainer; and to the prolixity of such introductions it is probable
Romeo is made to allude.
2 The Tartarian bows resemble in their form the old Roman or Cupid's
bow, such as we see on medals and bas-relief. Shakespeare uses the
epithet to distinguish it from the English bow, whose shape is the segment
of a circle. A crow-keeper was simply a scare-crow,
3 Entrance is here used as a word of three syllables, and perhaps should
be spelt enterance. The passage evidently refers to certain stage practices
of the time. In Timon of Athens, i. 2, we have Cupid making a speech as
prologue to "a Masque of Ladies as Amazons."
SCENE IV.
55
ROMEO AND JULIET.
We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.
4
Rom. Give me a torch:5 I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
| Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
Rom. Not I, believe me: you have dancing-shoes
With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead,
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
JAnd
Mer. You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
1
Rom. I am too sore empiercèd with his shaft,
To soar with his light feathers; and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe : 6
Under love's heavy burden do I sink.
Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love ;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love ;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in ;
[Putting on a mask.
A visor for a visor! What care I
What curious eye doth quote 7 deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.
Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in,
}
4 Measure is used in two senses here, the last meaning a sort of dance.
See Much Ado, page 42, note 5.
5 A torch-bearer was a constant appendage to every troop of masquers.
To hold a torch was anciently no degrading office. Queen Elizabeth's
Gentlemen Pensioners attended her to Cambridge, and held torches while
a play was acted before her in the Chapel of King's College.
6 Milton uses a similar quibble in Paradise Lost, Book iv.: "At one
slight bound he overleap'd all bound."
7 Quote was often used for observe or notice.
56
ACT I
ROMEO AND JULIET.
But every man betake him to his legs.
Rom. A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes 8 with their heels;
For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase:
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.9
The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.
Mer. Tut, dun's the mouse,10 the constable's own word:
If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire,
Or-
A
save your reverence 11— love, wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight,¹² ho!
Rom. Nay, that's not so.
Mer.
I mean, sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that, ere once in our five wits.13
8 The stage was commonly strewn with rushes, which were also con-
sidered good enough carpeting even for great men's houses in the Poet's
time. See First Part of King Henry the Fourth, page 130, note 23.
9 To hold the candle is a common proverbial expression for being an
idle spectator. Among Ray's proverbial sentences we have "A good
candle-holder provės a good gamester." This is the "grandsire phrase "
with which Romeo is proverbed. There is another old maxim alluded to,
which advises to give over when the game is at the fairest.
10 Dun is the mouse is a proverbial saying of vague signification, alluding
to the colour of the mouse; but frequently employed with no other intent
than that of quibbling on the word done. Why it is attributed to a con-
stable we know not. So in The Two Merry Milkmaids, 1620: "Why, then
'tis done, and dun's the mouse, and undone all the courtiers." To draw dun
out of the mire was a rural pastime, in which dun meant a dun horse, sup-
posed to be stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the
persons who played, sometimes by a log of wood.
11 Save your reverence was a common phrase of apology for introducing
a profane or indelicate expression.
12 That is, use a candle when the Sun shines; an old proverbial prox
for superfluous actions in general.
18 The five wits was a common phrase denoting the five senses. It was
SCENE IV.
57
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Rom. And we mean well in going to this masque ;
But 'tis no wit to go.
Mer.
Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.
Mer.
Rom. Well, what was yours?
Mer.
That dreamers often lie.
Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
Mer. O, then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairy midwife; 14 and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,15
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film ;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid.
Why, may one ask?
A
t
And so did I.
sometimes used also of the intellectual faculties, which were supposed to
correspond to the five senses. See Much Ado, page 26, note 9.
14 "The fairy midwife" was that member of the fairy nation whose
office it was to deliver sleeping men's fancies of their dreams, those "chil-
dren of an idle brain."
16 Rings cut out of agate, and having very small images of men or chil-
dren carved on them, were much worn by civic dignitaries and wealthy
Citizens.
58
TL
ROMEO AND JULIET.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Though lovers' brains, and then they dream of lu…~,
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream ;
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are :
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose that lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,1
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes:
This is she —
16
17
16 It was believed that certain malignant spirits assumed occasionally
the likenesses of women clothed in white; that in this character they
haunted stables in the night, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which
they dropped on the horses' manes, thereby platting them into inextricable
knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and the vexation of
their masters.
17 Alluding to a superstition which, as Warburton observed, may have
originated from the plica Polonica, which was supposed to be the ope at07
of the wicked elves: whence the clotted hair was called elf-locks or
knots.
f
•
SCENE IV.
4
ROMEO AND JULIET.
59
Rom.
Thou talk'st of nothing.
True, I talk of dreams;
Mer.
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the North,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.18
Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves :
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!


Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels; and expire 19 the term
Of a despised life, closed in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail!-On, lusty gentlemen!
Ben. Strike, drum.
[Exeunt.
18 Wit ever wakeful, fancy busy and procreative as an insect, courage,
An easy mind that, without cares of its own, is at once disposed to laugh
hway those of others, and yet to be interested in them, these and all
congenial qualities, melting into the common copula of them all, the man
of rank and the gentleman, with all its excellences and all its weaknesses,
constitute the character of Mercutio! - COLERIDGE.
19 This way of using expire was not uncommon in the Poet's time.
M
60
ACT L
ROMEO AND JULIET.
.d
SCENE V. The Same.
The Same. A Hall in CAPULET'S House.
Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.
I Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away?
he shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher !
2 Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two
men's hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.
I Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-
cupboard,² look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece
of marchpane;³ and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in
Susan Grindstone, and Nell. Anthony Potpan!
2 Serv. Ay, boy, ready.
I Serv. You are look'd for and call'd for, ask'd for and
sought for, in the great chamber.
Cheerly,
2 Serv. We cannot be here and there too.
boys; be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.
[They retire behind.
Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, JULIET, TYBALT, and others
of the House, with the Guests and Masquers.
Cap. Gentlemen, welcome! ladies that have their toes
Unplagued with corns will have a bout4 with you :
Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all
1 To shift a trencher was technical. Trenchers were used in Shake-
speare's time and long after by persons of fashion and quality.
2 The court-cupboard was the ancient sideboard; a cumbrous piece of
furniture, with shelves gradually receding to the top, whereon the plate was
displayed at festivals. — Joint-stools were what we call folding-chairs.
3 Marchpane was a constant article in the desserts of our ancestors.
was a sweet-cake, composed of filberts, almonds, pistachios, pine kenali
and sugar of roses, with a small portion of flour.
4 A bout was the same as a turn; or, as we now say, "dance a
:
SCENE V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
61
Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty, she
I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
Gentlemen, welcome! I have seen the day
That I have worn a visor; and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
Such as would please; 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone:
You're welcome, gentlemen!-Come, musicians, play. —
A hall, a hall 15 give room!—and foot it, girls.
[Music plays, and they dance.
More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,6
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin 7 Capulet;
For you and I are past our dancing-days:
How long is't now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?
2 Cap.
By'r Lady, thirty years.
Cap. What, man! 'tis not so much, 'tis not so much :
'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,
Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five-and-twenty years; and then we mask’d.
2 Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more: his son is elder, sir;
His son is thirty.
Cap.
Will you tell me that?
His son was but a ward two years ago.
Rom. [To a Servant.] What lady's that which doth en-
rich the hand
6 An exclamation to make room in a crowd for any particular purpose,
as we now say a ring! a ring!
6 The ancient tables were flat leaves or boards joined by hinges and
placed on trestles; when they were to be removed they were therefore
turned up.
* Cousin was a common expression for kinsman.
62
ACT I
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Of yonder knight?

Serv. I know not, sir.
Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for Earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague :
Fetch me my rapier, boy : — what, dares the slave
Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.
Cap. Why, how now, kinsman ! wherefore storm you so
Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain, that has hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.
Cap. Young Romeo is't?
Tyb.
Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,
He bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.
I would not for the wealth of all this town
Here in my house do him disparagement:
Therefore be patient, take no note of him;
It is my will, the which if thou respect,
'Tis he, that villain Romeo.
SCENE V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
63
Show a fair presence, and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
Tyb. It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
I'll not endure him.
Cap.
He shall be endured:
What, goodman boy! I say, he shall; go to:
Am I the master here, or you? go to.
You'll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
You'll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock a-whoop !8 you'll be the man!
Tyb. Why uncle, 'tis a shame —
Cap.
You are a saucy boy. Is't so, indeed?
Go to, go to ;
This trick may chance to scathe9 you; I know what :
You must contráry me! marry, 'tis time.
Well said,10 my hearts! -You are a princox ; 11 go:
Be quiet, or— More light, more light! For shame!
I'll make you quiet what!-Cheerly, my hearts!
Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall
Now-seeming sweet convert to bitterest gall.12
[Exit.
8 To set cock a-whoop means the same, apparently, as to get up a row,
to spring a quarrel; like cocks whooping or crying each other into a fight.
9 To scathe is to hurt, to damage, or do an injury.
10 Well said was in frequent use for well done. See First Part of King
Henry the Fourth, page 182, note 5.
11 Minsheu calls a princox "a ripe-headed young boy," and derives the
word from the Latin precox. The more probable derivation is from prime
cock; that is, a cock of prime courage or spirit; hence applied to a pert,
conceited, forward person. So in the Return from Parnassus: "Your
proud university princox thinkes he is a man of such merit, the world
cannot sufficiently endow him with preferment."
12 Convert is here a transitive verb; the sense being, "shall convert
what now seems sweet to bitterest gall."
64
ACT I.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Rom. [To JULIET.] If I profane with my unworthiest
hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
`And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Rom. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do );
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' 13 sake.
Rom. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
[Kissing her 14
Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Rom. Sin from my lips? O, trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
[Kissing her again.
Jul.
You kiss by th' book.
Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.
Rom. What is her mother?
Nurse.
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous :
I nursed her daughter, that you talk'd withal;
13 Prayers is here a dissyllable; in the next line, a monosyllable. There
are a good many words which the Poet thus uses as of one or two syllables,
indifferently, to suit the occasion of his verse.
14 In Shakespeare's time, the kissing of a lady at a social gathering
seems not to have been thought indecorous. So, in King Henry VIII., we
have Lord Sands kissing Anne Boleyn, at the supper given by Wolsey.
}
SCENE V.
65
ROMEO AND JULIET.
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.
Rom.
Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.15
Ben. Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.
Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.
Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone ;
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.16
Is it e'en so? why, then I thank you all;
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
More torches here! Come on, then, let's to bed.
[To 2 CAP.] Ah, sirrah, by my fay,17 it waxes late :
I'll to my rest.
[Exeunt all but JULIET and Nurse.
Jul. Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?
Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.
Jul. What's he that now is going out of door?
Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.
Jul. What's he that follows there, that would not dance?
Nurse. I know not.
Jul. Go, ask his name.
If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding-bed.
Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
The only son of your great enemy.
15 The meaning seems to be, that he has put his life in pledge to or at
the mercy of his foe; or that what has just passed is likely to cost him
his life. At the close of the preceding scene, Romeo's mind is haunted
with a foreboding or presentiment of evil consequences from what he is
going about. That presage is strengthened by what has just happened;
and he naturally apprehends this new passion as in some way connected
with the fulfilment of it. The whole thing is very finely conceived.
16 Towards is ready, at hand. - A banquet, or rere-supper, as it was
sometimes called, was similar to our dessert.
17 Fay is a diminutive of faith; rather a small oath for such a fiery old
man as the Capulet to swear.
's
**
66
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Jul. My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathèd enemy.
}
Nurse. What's this? what's this?
Jul.
Of one I danced withal.
Nurse.
A rhyme I learn'd even now
[One calls within, Juliet!
[Exeunt.
Anon, anon!
Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.
Enter Chorus.
Chor. Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair, for which love groan'd for,18 and would die,
With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is beloved, and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks ;
But to his foe supposed he must complain,
And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new belovèd anywhere:
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Tempering extremities with éxtreme sweet.
[Exit.
18 This doubling of a preposition was common with the old writers, and
occurs divers times in these plays. See As You Like It, page 72, note 15.-
Fair, in this line, is used as a substantive, and in the sense of beauty. The
usage was common.
SCENE 1.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT II.
SCENE I. — Verona. An open Place adjoining the wall of
CAPULET'S Orchard.
Enter ROMEO.
Rom. Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.¹
[He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it.
Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.
Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo!
Mer.
He is wise;
And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.
Ben. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard-wall : 2
Call, good Mercutio.
Mer.
Nay, I'll conjure too. —
Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh:
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but Ah me! pronounce but love and dove ;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young abram Cupid,3 he that shot so trim,
1 By dull earth Romeo means himself; by thy centre Juliet. He has
been a little uncertain, it seems, whether to go forward, that is, leave the
place, or to do the opposite; and he now resolves upon the latter.
2 Orchard, from hort-yard, was formerly used for garden.
3 Abram and abraham were certainly in use to denote a colour of the
hair; what colour, is still somewhat in question. The fair inference from


ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT II
Cophetua loved the beggar-maid! —
eth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us!
Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.
Mer. This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle 5
6
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it and conjured it down;
That were some spite my invocation
Is fair and honest; and, in his mistress' name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.
Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,
To be consorted with the humorous night : 7
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

CA
this passage seems to be, that flaxen was the colour signified; as Keightley,
in his Mythology, tells us that Eros is usually represented as a roguish
boy, plump-cheeked and naked, with light hair floating on his shoulders."
The older poets were much given to celebrating hair of this colour. So in
Browne's Pastorals: "Her flaxen hair, insnaring all beholders." And in
Fawkes' Apollonius Rhodius:
Adown the shoulders of the heavenly fair
In easy ringlets flow'd her flaxen hair.
4 Ape was used as an expression of tenderness, like poor fool.
5 In conjuring to "raise a spirit," the custom was to draw a circle
within which the spirit was to appear at the muttering of the charms o
invocations.
6 In Shakespeare's time, conjure was pronounced indifferently with the
first or the second syllable long; the two ways of pronouncing it not being
then appropriated to the different senses of the word. Here the second syl
lable is long; while, just below, as also in Mercutio's preceding speech, the
first is so.
7 The humid, the moist dewy night.
0
SCENE LA.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
69
Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Romeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep : 8
Come, shall we go?
Ben.
Go, then; for 'tis in vain
To seek him here that means not to be found.
SCENE II. — The Same.
The Same. CAPULET'S Orchard.
[Exeunt.
Be not her maid,2 since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but pale and green,
And none but Fools 3 do wear it; cast it off.
Enter ROMEO.
Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.¹
› E
[JULIET appears above at a window.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the Sun !
Arise, fair Sun, and kill the envious Moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
8 The truckle-bed or trundle-bed was a bed for the servant or page, and
was so made as to run under the "standing-bed," which was for the master.
We are not to suppose that Mercutio slept in the servant's bed: he merely
speaks of his truckle-bed in contrast with the field-bed, that is, the ground.
The Poet has it once again.
1 It may be needful to explain that Romeo has been overhearing the
foregoing dialogue of Benvolio and Mercutio, and that he here refers to the
jests with which Mercutio has been overflowing. He is not so carried away
with the sense of his own "sweet wound," but that he can appreciate the
merry humour of Mercutio's free and easy mind.
2 That is, be not a votary to the Moon, to Diana.
8 It seems that white and green were somewhat noted as the livery cos-
tume of professional Fools, those colours having been worn officially by
Will Summers the celebrated Court-Fool of Henry the Eighth. Shake-
70
ACT IL
ROMEO AND JULIET.
It is my lady; O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
Jul.
She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Rom.
Ah me!
F
She speaks.-
speare has the same combination of colours in Macbeth, i. 7:
to look so green and pale at what it did so freely?"
O, speak again, bright angel? for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a wingèd messenger of Heaven
Unto the white-upturnèd wondering eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name ;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.
"Wakes it now
.
SCENE II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
71
t
Rom. [Aside.] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.4
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
palakku Y
On June 1 -
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
—
Retain that dear perfection which he owes 5
Without that title. - Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
K
Rom.
I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
Jul. What man art thou, that, thus bescreen'd in night,
So stumblest on my counsel?
Rom.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am :
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
Jul. My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound :
Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?
4 The meaning appears to be, "Thou art thyself the same in fact as if
thou wert not a Montague in name." This sense is, I think, fairly required
by the general tenour of the context. Juliet regards the name as an insup-
erable bar to her wishes; and her argument is, that the repudiating or
doffing of that name by Romeo would in no sort impair his proper self.
5 Owes for owns, as usual in Shakespeare.
72
ACT IL
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee clis
Jul. How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard-walls are high and hard to climb ;
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.
Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out ;
And what love can do, that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.
7
Jul. If they do see thee, they will murder thee.
Rom. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here.
Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;
And, but thou love me, let them find me here :
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death proroguèd⁹ wanting of thy love.
Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out this place?
Rom. By love, who first did prompt me to inquire;
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,
I would adventure for such merchandise.
Jul. Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.
#
3
6 Dislike in its old sense of displease. The use of to like in the opposite
sense is very frequent. See King Henry the Eighth, page 49, note 22.
7 The old let, now obsolete, meaning hindrance or impediment.
8 But, again, in the exceptive sense of be out.
• Prorogued is put off, or postponed.
SCENE II.
73
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke but farewell compliment ! 10
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say Ay;
And I will take thy word: yet, if thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.11 O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully :
Or, if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;
And therefore thou mayst think my 'haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange."
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard'st, ere I was 'ware,
My true love's passion: therefore pardon me ;
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discoveréd.
Rom. Lady, by yonder blessèd Moon I swear,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,
Jul. O, swear not by the Moon, th' inconstant Moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Rom. What shall I swear by?
M
12
For Jove himself sits in the azure skies,
And laughs below at lovers' perjuries.
12 Strange, here, is coy, distant, reserved. Repeatedly so.
10 Farewell all disguises of complimentary or conventional form. Miranda,
in The Tempest, iii. 1, has a similar thought: "Hence, bashful cunning, and
prompt me, plain and holy innocence!"
11 This famous proverb is thus given in Marlowe's translation of Ovid's
Art of Love:
74
ACT 1
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Jul.
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I'll believe thee.
Do not swear at all;
Rom.
If my heart's dear love —
Jul. Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say It lightens. Sweet, good night!
This bud of love, by Summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast! 13
Rom. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?
Rom. Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine,
Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it ;
And yet I would it were to give again.
Rom. Wouldst thou withdraw it? for what purpose, love
Jul. But to be frank, and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have :
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
[Nurse calls withi
18 I do not know a more wonderful instance of Shakespeare's mastery
playing a distinctly rememberable variety on the same remembered air, tha
in the transporting love-confessions of Romeo and Juliet, and Ferdina
and Miranda. There seems more passion in the one, and more dignity
the other; yet you feel that the sweet girlish lingering and busy noctur
of Juliet, and the calmer and more maidenly fondness of Mira
easily pass into each other, — Çoleridge,
זין
>
i
SCENE II.
75
ROMEO AND JULIET.
I hear some noise within; dear love, adieu !
Anon, good nurse! - Sweet Montague, be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again.
Rom. O blessed, blessèd night! I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.
Re-enter JULIET above.
Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,
By one that I'll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;
And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,
And follow thee my lord throughout the world : ·
Nurse. [Within.] Madam!
Jul. I come, anon : – but, if thou mean'st not well,
I do beseech thee
Nurse. [Within.] Madam!
[Exit above.
Jul.
To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief:
To-morrow will I send.
Rom.
So thrive my soul
Jul. A thousand times good night!
[Exit above.
Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books;
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. [Retiring.
By-and-by, I come.
Re-enter JULIET above.
Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist !— O, for a falconer's voice,
To lure this tercel-gentle 14 back again!
14 The tercel is the male of the gosshawk, and had the epithet gentle, from
76
ACT II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
嫠
​Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud;
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse 15 than mine,
With repetition of my Romeo's name.
Rom. It is my soul that calls upon my name :
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!
Jul. Romeo!
Rom. My dear?
Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow shall I send to thee?
Rom. At the hour of nine.
Jul. I will not fail: 'tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.
Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it.
Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.
Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.
Jul. 'Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone;
And yet no further than a wanton's bird,
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Rom. I would I were thy bird.
the ease with which it was tamed, and its attachment to man. Tardif, in his
book of Falconry, says that the tiercel has its name from being one of three
birds usually found in the eyrie of a falcon, two of which are females, and
the third a male; hence called tiercelet, or the third. According to the old
books of sport the falcon gentle, and tiercel gentle are birds for a prince.
15 "Her airy tongue more hoarse," though not strictly correct, is right
poetically. So Milton, in Comus: "And airy tongues that syllable men's
names."
C III.
77
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Jul.
Sweet, so would r:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!
Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,
His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; 1
And fleckèd 2 darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:
Now, ere the Sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night's dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier-cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juicèd flowers.
The Earth, that's Nature's mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb : 3
[Exit above.
SCENE III. The Same. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell.
Enter Friar LAURENCE, with a basket.
Fri. L. The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning
night,
-
· [Exit.
1 The reverend character of the Friar, like all Shakespeare's representa-
tions of the great professions, is very delightful and tranquillizing, yet it is
no digression, but immediately necessary to the carrying on of the plot.
COLERIDGE.
2 Fleckèd is dappled, streaked, or variegated. Lord Surrey uses the
word in his translation of the fourth Eneid: "Her quivering cheekes fleckèd
with deadly stain."
+
"The
3 Lucretius has the same thought: Omniparens, eadem rerum com-
mune sepulcrum." Likewise, Milton, in Paradise Lost, Book ii.:
womb of nature, and perhaps her grave."
78
L
ROMI
AC1
D JULIET.
An
We
r womb chi
15
g on her natu
I
smell.
Many for many virtues eat,
ace that lies
their true qualities:
Earth doth live,
good doth give;
Non but for some, and
O, mickle is the powerful
In herbs, plants, stones,
For nought so vile that
But to the Earth some s
Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse :
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometime 's by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power :
for this 1g smelt, with that part 4 cheers each part ;
beng tas, says all senses with the heart.
W. 200 ´‚· sèd kings encamp them still
în man as wel as herbs, Grace and rude Will;
And, where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Enter ROMEO.
4 That part is the odour;
of divers kind
om find;
་
Rom. Good morrow, father.
Fri. L.
l different.
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper'd head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
Care keeps his watch i
у old man's eye,
And where care lodges
will never lie;
But where unbruisèd y、ith unstuff'd brain
t of a flower that affects the sense of
SCENE III.
79
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.
Rom. That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
Fri. L. God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?
Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;
I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.
Fri. L. That's my good son: but where hast thou been,
then?
Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy;
Where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me,
That's by me wounded: both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies:
I bear no hatred, blessèd man; for, lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
Fri. L. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.5
Rom. Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet :
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage: when, and where, and how,
We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us to-day.
Fri. L. Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
5 Shrift is the old word for confession and absolution. Of course the
order of the Confessional is referred to.
80
ACT IL
KOMEO AND JULIET.
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? young men's love, then, lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The Sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet.
If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline :
And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence, then,
Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.
Rom. Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rosaline.
Fri. L. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Rom. And badest me bury love.
Fri. L.
Not in a grave,
To lay one in, another out to have.
Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she whom I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow ;
The other did not so.
Fri L.
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be ;
6
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your household's rancour to pure love.
6 In one respect means on one consideration, or for one reason.
was very often used in that sense.
Respect
SCENE IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Rom. O, let us hence! I stand on sudden haste.
Fri. L. Wisely, and slow; they stumble that run fast.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV. — The Same.
The Same. A Street.
Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.
| Mer. Why, where the Devil should this Romeo be?
Came he not home to-night?
Ben. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.
| Mer.
Mer. Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosa-
line,
Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
Hath sent a letter to his father's house.
Mer. A challenge, on my life.
Ben. Romeo will answer it.
Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter.
Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he
dares, being dared.

1
Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he's already dead! stabb'd with
a white wench's black eye; shot thorough the ear with a
tove-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind
bow-boy's butt-shaft ;2 and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?
Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?
Mer. More than prince of cats,3 I can tell you. O, he
1 Through and thorough, which are but different forms of the same word,
were used indifferently in the Poet's time.
2 The allusion is to archery. The clout, or white mark at which the
arrows were aimed, was fastened by a black pin, placed in the centre of it.
To hit this was the highest ambition of every marksman.
3 Tybert, the name given to a cat in the old story of Reynard the Fox.
So in Dekker's Satiromastix: "Tho' you were lybert, prince of long-tail'd
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT IL
is the courageous captain of complements. He fights as
you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion;
rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your
bosom the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duel-
list; a gentleman of the very first House,—of the first and
second cause.5 Ah, the immortal passado! the punto re-
verso the hay 16
:
Ben. The what?
Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasti-
coes, these new tuners of accents! By Jesu, a very good
blade! — a very tall man! Why, is not this a lamentable
thing, grandsire,7 that we should be thus afflicted with these
strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these Pardonnez-mois,
who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at
ease on the old bench ?8 O, their bons, their bons!
cats."— Prick-song music was music pricked or written down, and so sung
by note, not from memory, or as learnt by the ear.
4 Complements is accomplishments; whatever arts and acquirements go to
complete a man; one of which was skill in the use of weapons.
5 That is, a gentleman of the highest rank among duellists; one who wili
fire up and fight on the slightest provocation, the first or second cause.
See As You Like It, page 134, note 8.
• All the terms of the fencing-school were originally Italian; the rapier,
or small thrusting sword, being first used in Italy. The word hai, you
have it, was used when a thrust reached the antagonist. Passado was a
pass or motion forwards; punto reverso what we should term a back-handed
stroke or thrust.
7 Humorously apostrophizing his ancestors, whose sober times were
unacquainted with the fopperies here complained of.
8 During the ridiculous fashion which prevailed of great "boulstered
breeches," it is said to have been necessary to cut away hollow places in
the benches of the House of Commons, without which those who stood on
the new FORM could not sit at ease on the old bench. Of course Mercutio
is poking fun at the fantastical affectations of those smart rapier-and-dagger
experts, with their fencing-school jargon, who explode in boyish ecstasies
at every slight turn of agility, shouting bon, that is, good, or well done, as
often as a clever thrust or parry occurs in the practice of their fellows.
SCENE IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
}
Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
Enter ROMEO.
Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring.9 O flesh, flesh,
how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Pe-
trarch flowed in: Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen-wench;
marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her;— Dido,
a dowdy; Cleopatra, a gipsy; Helen and Hero, hildings and
harlots; Thisbe, a gray eye 10 or so, but not to the purpose.
Signior Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation to your
French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did
11
I give you?
Mer. The slip, sir, the slip; 12 can you not conceive?
Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great;
and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
Mer. That's as much as to say, Such a case as yours con-
strains a man to bow in the hams.
Rom. Meaning, to curtsy.
Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.13
Rom. A most courteous exposition.
9 A play, apparently, upon the first syllable of Romeo, and at the same
time an equivoque or quibble upon roe, which, in one of its senses, is a
female deer; perhaps, also, a further pun implied between deer and dear.
10 What we call blue eyes were commonly spoken of as gray in the
Poet's time, as was also the cerulean, or the bluish gray of the sky. - Hild-
ing was a term of contempt applied to the lowest menials of either sex.
11 Slops was a term for the large "boulstered" breeches or trousers that
were at one time in fashion. The word occurs in two or three other places
of Shakespeare. See Much Ado, page 72, note 6.
12 The quibble is well explained by Robert Greene in his Thieves Falling
Out, True Men Come by their Goods: "And therefore he went out and got
him certain slips, which are counterfeit pieces of money, being brasse, and
covered with silver, which the common people call slips.”
18 Meaning, thou hast retorted or answered in kind.
ROMEO
ACT IL
JULIET.
Mer. Nay, I am the ve
Rom. Pink for flower.
k of courtesy.
Mer. Right.
Rom. Why, then is my pump well-flower'd.14
Mer. Well said: follow me this jest now, till thou hast
worn out thy pump; that, when the single sole of it is worn,
the jest may remain, after the wearing, solely singular.
Kom. O single-soled jest, solely singular for the single-
ness ! 15
Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio, for my wits fail.
Rom. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a
match.
Mer Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase,16 I have
done; for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy
wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with
you there for the goose?
Rom. Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou
wast not there for the goose.
Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not.
14 Romeo wore pinked pumps, that is, punched with holes in figures. It
was the custom to wear ribands in the shoes formed in the shape of roses,
or other flowers. So in The Masque of Gray's-Inn, 1614: "Every mas-
quer's pump was fastened with a flower suitable to his cap."
15 Shakespeare repeatedly has single in the sense of weak or feeble. So
that the meaning is, “O feeble-soul'd jest, only singular for the feebleness."
Of course there is a quibble between sole and soul, as there also is between
the different senses of single. I
16 One kind of horse-race which resembled the flight of wild geese was
formerly known by this name. Two horses were started together, and
whichever rider could get the lead, the other rider was obliged to follow
him wherever he chose to go. This explains the pleasantry kept up here.
"My wits fail," says Mercutio. Romeo exclaims briskly, "Switch and
spurs, switch and spurs." To which Mercutio rejoins, "Nay, if thy wits
run the wild-goose chase," &c.
SCENE IV.
85
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting;
sharp sauce.
Rom. And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
Mer. O, here's a wit of cheveril, 18 that stretches from an
inch narrow to an ell broad!
Rom. I stretch it out for that word broad; which, added
to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.
Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou
what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this drivelling
love is like a great natural.19
17 it is a most
Ben. Stop there, stop there.
Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the
hair, 20
Enter the Nurse and PETER.
Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
Mer. O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:
for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and meant,
indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.
Rom. Here's goodly gear !21
Mer. A sail, a sail !
Ben. Two, two; a shirt and a smock.
Nurse. Peter !
Peter. Anon.
Nurse. My fan,22 Peter.
{
17 The allusion is to an apple of that name.
18 Soft stretching leather, kid-skin. See Henry VIII., page 90, note 2.
19 Natural was often used, as it still is, for a fool.
20 This is a French idiom, and is equivalent to our "against the grain."
21 Gear, in old language, is any matter or business in hand.
22 In The Serving Man's Comfort, 1598, we are informed, "The mis-
tresse must have one to carry her cloake and hood, another her fanne,"
86
ACT IL
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer
face.
Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
|
Mer. God ye good den,23 fair gentlewoman.
Nurse. Is it good den?
Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell you; for the hand of the dial is
now upon the prick 24 of noon.
Nurse. Out upon you! what a man are you!
Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made, for him-
self to mar.
Nurse. By my troth, it is well said: for himself to mar,
quoth 'a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may
find the young Romeo?
Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older
when you have found him than he was when you sought
him: I am the youngest of that name, for fault 25 of a worse.
Nurse. You say well.
Mer. Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i'faith
wisely, wisely.
Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with
you.
Ben. She will indite 26 him to some supper.
So in Love's Labours Lost: “To see him walk before a lady, and to bear
her fan."
28 As before noted, (page 48, note 9,) this was a common form for
good even, or good evening. It was the customary salutation after twelve
o'clock at noon; as it still is in some places. So Mercutio means it as a
sportive correction of the Nurse's "good morrow"; which answers to our
"good morning."—"God ye good" for "God give ye good," of course.
24 Prick was often used thus for print or mark. So in Julius Cæsar,
iv. I:
"These many, then, shall die; their names are prick'd."
25 For lack, or in default, of a worse.
26 Indite was probably meant as a humorous offset to the Nurse's con-
fidence, which is a characteristic blunder for conference.
SCENE IV.
87
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Mer. So-ho!
Rom. What hast thou found?
Mer. No hare,27 sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,
that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
will you come to your father's? we'll to dinner thither.
Romeo,
Rom. I will follow you.
Mer. Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,-[Singing.] lady,
lady, lady,28
[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO.
Nurse. Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery? 29
Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,
and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a
month.
Nurse. An 'a speak any thing against me, I'll take him
down, an 'a were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks;
and, if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I
am none of his flirt-Jills; 30 I am none of his skains-mates.31
27 It would seem, from this, that so-ho! was a common exclamation on
finding a hare. - Hoar, or hoary, was often used of things that turn whitish
from moulding; much the same as in our hoar-frost.
28 This was the burden of an old ballad. See Twelfth Night, page 63,
note 17.
29 Ropery appears to have been sometimes used in the sense of roguery;
perhaps meaning tricks deserving the rope, that is, the gallows; as rope-
tricks, in The Taming of the Shrew, i. 2. So in The Three Ladies of Lon-
don, 1584: "Thou art very pleasant, and full of thy roperye." Merchant
was often used as a term of reproach; probably somewhat in the sense of
huckster or shopkeeper.
30 Flirt-Fills for what are sometimes called jill-flirts, that is, flirting
jilts; Fill being, of old, a common term for girl or wench, and a feminine
correspondent to Jack; as in the proverb, "For every Jack there is a Jill."
31 The only tolerable explanation of skains-mates was furnished by Staun-
ton, who says a Kentish man told him that the term was formerly used in
Kent in the sense of scape-grace. The Nurse is evidently speaking of
Mercutio's supposed female companions, and telling what sorts of girls she
is not to be classed with.
88
ACT II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
me.
And thou must stand by too, and suffer every knave to
use me at his pleasure?
Peter. I saw no man use you at his pleasure; if I had,
my weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I
dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a
good quarrel, and the law on my side.
Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vex'd, that every part
about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
and, as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out;
what she bade me say, I will keep to myself: but first let me
tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool's-paradise, as they
say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say: for
the gentlewoman is young; and therefore, if you should
deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I
protest unto thee
Nurse. Good heart, and, i'faith, I will tell her as much.
Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.
Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark
Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as
I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
Rom. Bid her devise some means to come to shrift
This afternoon at Friar Laurence' cell;
And there she shall be shrived and married. Here
Is for thy pains.
Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny.
Rom. Go to; I say you shall.
Nurse. This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there.
Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey-wall :
Within this hour my man shall be with thee,
SCENE IV.
89
ROMEO AND JULIET.
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell; be trusty, and I'll 'quite thy pains:
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.
Nurse. Now God in Heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.
Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?
Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,
Two may keep counsel, putting one away?
Rom. I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.
32
Nurse. Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady — Lord,
Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing,—O, there is a
nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife
aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very
toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that
Paris is the properer man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say
so, she looks as pale as any clout in the 'versal world.
not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?
Doth
R is for
Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.
Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name.
thee? 33 no
I know it begins with some other letter: and
she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary,
that it would do you good to hear it.
Rom. Commend me to thy lady.
}
Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. [Exit ROMEO.] — Peter!
Peter. Anon.
Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before.
[Exeunt.
82 Like the stairs of rope in the tackle of a ship. The image of a ship's
tackle is continued in high top-gallant of the next line. Stair was once in
common use for flight of stairs. — Convoy for conveyance.
33 Ben Jonson, in his English Grammar, says, "R is the dog's letter,
and hirreth in the sound." And Nashe, in Summer's Last Will and Testa-
ment, 1600, speaking of dogs: "They arre and barke at night against the
moone."
90
ACT II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
SCENE V. The Same. CAPULET'S Orchard.
—
Enter JULIET.
Jul. The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;
In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him; that's not so.
O, she is lame ! love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the Sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the Sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day's journey; and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She'd be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me :
But old folks move, i'faith, as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and dull as lead.
O God, she comes ! -
Enter the Nurse and PETER.
O honey nurse, what news?
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.
Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate.
[Exit PETER
Jul. Now, good sweet nurse, -O Lord, why look'st thou
sad?
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.
SCENE V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
91
Nurse. I am a-weary, give me leave awhile :
Fie, how my bones ache! what a jaunt have I had!
Jul. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
Nay, come, I pray thee, speak; good, good nurse, speak.
Nurse. Jesu, what haste! can you not stay awhile?
Do you not see that I am out of breath?
Jul. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?
Th' excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good or bad? answer to that ;
Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance: 1
Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?
:
Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know
not how to choose a man. Romeo! no, not he though
his face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's;
and for a hand, and a foot, and a body, though they be not
to be talk'd on, yet they are past compare: he is not the
flower of courtesy, but I'll warrant him as gentle as a lamb.
Go thy ways, wench; serve God. What, have you dined at
home?
Jul. No, no: but all this did I know before.
What says he of our marriage? what of that?
Nurse. Lord, how my head aches! what a head have I !
It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
My back o' t' other side, O, my back, my back!
Beshrew your heart for sending me about,
To catch my death with jaunting up and down!
Jul. I'faith, I'm sorry that thou art not well.
Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?
1 Circumstance for particulars, or circumstantial details. Repeatedly so.
7
92
ACT 11.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
C
Nurse. Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a
courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I warrant, a
virtuous, Where is your mother?
Jul. Where is my mother! why, she is within;
Where should she be? How oldly thou repliest !
Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
Where is your mother?
Nurse.
O God's Lady dear!
Are you so hot? marry, come up, I trow;
Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.
Jul. Here's such a coil!2 Come, what says Romeo?
Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?
Jul. I have.
Nurse. Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;
There stays a husband to make you a wife :
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks;
They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.3
Hie you to church; I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
Must climb a bird's-nest soon when it is dark:
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight.
Go; I'll to dinner: hie you to the cell.
Jul. Hie to high fortune!
B
Honest nurse, farewell.
[Exeunt.
2 Coil was often used for tumult, bustle, or ado. Here it is fuss.
3 That is, they are sure to flush and redden forthwith at any talk of love
and Romeo. They'll be is not used in a futuritial sense here.
SCENE VI.
93
ROMEO AND JULIET.
SCENE VI. — The Same. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell.
Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO.
Fri. L. So smile the Heavens upon this holy act,
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!
Rom. Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail th' exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight:
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare;
It is enough I may but call her mine.
Fri. L. These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds¹ the appetite:
Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so ;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Here comes the lady: O,
So light a foot ne'er hurts the trodden flower ! 2
Of love and joy, see, see the sovereign power!
A lover may bestride the gossarner
That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.
1 To destroy is one of the old meanings of to confound. The Poet has it
repeatedly in that sense. See The Merchant, page 150, note 40.
2 Jonson, in his Vision of Delight, has a strain of exquisite delicacy that
may have been suggested by this:
And thence did Venus learn to lead
Th' Idalian brawls, and so to tread
As if the wind, not she, did walk,
Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk.
94
ACT II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Enter JULIET.
Jul. Good even to my ghostly³ confes >
Fri. L. Romeo shall thank thee, daugnter, for us both.
Jul. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.
Rom. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
Unfold th' imagined happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.
Jul. Conceit,4 more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars that can count their worth
1;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.
Fri. L. Come, come with me, and we will make short
work;
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
Till holy Church incorporate two in one.
[Exeunt.
3 It is hardly needful to say that ghostly is here used in the sense of spir-
itual. So in the Confirmation Office of the Episcopal Church: "The spirit
of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength."
+ Conceit was always used in a good sense; here it is conception or imag
ination.
SCENE I.
95
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT III.
SCENE I.. Verona. A public Place.
Enter MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, Page, and Servants.
Ben. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And, if we meet, we shall not 'scape a brawl;
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.
1
Mer. Thou art like one of those fellows that, when he
enters the confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the
table, and says, God send me no need of thee! and, by the
! operation of the second cup, draws it on the drawer, when,
indeed, there is no need.
Ben. Am I like such a fellow?
Mer. Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as
any in Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon
moody to be moved.
Ben. And what to?
Mer. Nay, an there were two¹ such, we should have none
shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt
quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in
his beard than thou hast thou wilt quarrel with a man for
cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast
hazel eyes: what eye, but such an eye would spy out such
a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of
meat; and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg
for quarrelling thou hast quarrell'd with a man for cough-
1 In the word two Mercutio plays on to, just used by Benvolio.
:
96
ACT III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ing in the street, because he hath waken'd thy dog that hath
lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor
for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another, for
tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou wilt tutor
me from quarrelling!
Ben. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man
should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a
quarter.
2
Mer. The fee-simple! O simple!
Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets.
[Mer. By my heel, I care not.
Enter TYBALT and others.
Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good den: a word with one of you.
Iso
Mer. And but one word with one of us? couple it with
something; make it a word and a blow.
Tyb. You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you
will give me occasion.
Mer. Could you not take some occasion without giving?
Tyb. Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,
Mer. Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels ? 3 an
thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but dis-
cords here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you
dance. Zounds, consort!
Ben. We talk here in the public haunt of men:
Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason 4 coldly of your grievances,
2 Fee-simple is an old law term for the strongest tenure of a thing; as of
land held in absolute and perpetual right.
3 Consort is the old term for company or band of musicians. Tybalt uses
it in the sense of keep company or associate; and Mercutio plays upon it.
4 To reason here means to talk or converse.
SCENE I.
97
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Or else depart; 5 here all eyes gaze on us.
Mer. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze;
I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.
Tyb. Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.
Enter ROMEO.
Mer. But I'll be hang'd, sir, if he wear your livery:
Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower ;
Your Worship in that sense may call him man.
Tyb. Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford
No better term than this: Thou art a villain.
Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting: 6 villain am I none :
Therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not.
Tyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me; therefore turn, and draw.
Rom. I do protest I never injured thee;
But love thee better than thou canst devise,
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love :
And so, good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as my own, be satisfied.
Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
A la stoccata carries it away.
M
[Draws.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you _walk?
Tyb. What wouldst thou have with me?
Mer. Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine
8
5 Depart in the sense of part, probably; that is, separate. The two words
were used interchangeably. See King John, page 72, note 58.
6 The construction is, "the rage appertaining to such a greeting."
7 The Italian term for a thrust or stab with a rapier.
Alluding to Tybalt's name. See page 81, note 3.
98
ACT III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use
me hereafter, dry-beat⁹ the rest of the eight. Will you pluck
your sword out of his pilcher 10 by the ears? make haste, lest
mine be about your ears ere it be out.
[Drawing.
Tyb. I am for you.
Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
Mer. Come, sir, your passado.
Rom. Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage!
Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath
Forbidden bandying in Verona streets :
Hold, Tybalt! good Mercutio!
Mer.
A plague o' both your Houses! I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?
Ben.
[They fight.
[Exeunt TYBALT and his Friends.
I am hurt :
What, art thou hurt?
Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.-
Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon. [Exit Page.
Rom. Courage, man! the hurt cannot be much.
Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve ask for me to-
morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
I am pep-
per'd, I warrant, for this world: a plague o' both your
Houses! — Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch
a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by
the book of arithmetic ! — Why the Devil came you betwe
us? I was hurt under your arm.
9 To dry-beat is to cudgel soundly. So in iv. 5, of this play: "I will
beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger."
10 Pilche was the name for an outer garment made of leather. H
pilcher evidently means sheath or scabbard.—His for its, as usual.
a
SCENE I.
99
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Rom. I thought all for the best.
Mer. Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your Houses!
They have made worm's-meat of me: I have it,
And soundly too; - your Houses!
M
[Exit, led by BENVOLIO and Servants.
Rom. This gentleman, the Prince's near ally,
My very friend,¹¹ hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation's stain'd
With Tybalt's slander, Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my kinsman !— O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate,
And in my temper soften'd valour's steel!
Re-enter BENVOLIO.
Ben. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!
That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds,¹2
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.
Rom. This day's black fate on more days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.
Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.
Rom. Alive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain !
Away to Heaven, respective 14 lenity,
And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!
Re-enter TYBALT.
Now, Tybalt, take the villain back again
11 "My real or true friend. "Very in the sense of the Latin verus. Often so.
12 The Poet uses both aspire and arrive as transitive verbs, or without
the preposition. So in Marlowe's Tamburlaine: "And both our souls
aspire celestial thrones."
13 The unhappy destiny of this day hangs over other days yet to come.
14 Respective here means considerate; as we often have respect for con-
sideration.-Conduct, in the next line, for conductor or guide. Repeatedly so.
100
ACT III
ROMEO AND JULIET.
**
That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company :
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.
Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence.
Rom.
This shall determine that.
[They fight; TYBALT falls.
Ben. Romeo, away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
Stand not amazed: the Prince will doom 15 thee death,
If thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!
Rom. O, I am fortune's fool! 16
Ben.
Why dost thou stay?
[Exit ROMEO.
Enter Citizens and Officers.
I Off. Which way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?
Ben. There lies that Tybalt.
Up, sir, go with me;
I Off.
I charge thee in the Prince's name, obey.
Enter the Prince, attended; MONTAGUE, CAPULET, Lady
MONTAGUE, Lady CAPULET, and others.
Prin. Where are the vile beginners of this fray?
Ben. O noble Prince, I can discover all
Th' unlucky manage 17 of this fatal brawl:
15 To doom is, in one of its senses, to decree or ordain, and so takes two
accusatives, as here. The Poet has it several times just so.
16 Fortune's fool is the sport, mockery, or plaything of fortune.
17 Discover in its old sense of disclose or make known; and manage for
course os process. Both of them frequent usages.
SCENE I.
IOI
ROMEO AND JULIET.
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.
L. Cap. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!
O Prince ! — O husband ! — O, the blood is spilt
Of my dear kinsman ! — Prince, as thou art true,
For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.
O cousin, cousin!
M
Prin. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?
Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay;
Romeo, that spoke him fair, bade him bethink
How nice 18 the quarrel was, and urged withal
Your high displeasure: all this — utteréd
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd —
Could not take truce 19 with the unruly spleen
Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast;
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it: Romeo he cries aloud,
An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled :
But by-and-by comes back to Romeo,
20
Hold, friends! friends, part! and, swifter than his tongue,
His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
20
18 Nice, here, is trifling, petty, insignificant.
19 To take truce is old language for to make peace. Here, as often,
spleen is put for explosive or headlong impetuosity; the spleen being formerly
regarded as the seat of the eruptive passions.
20 This small portion of untruth in Benvolio's narrative is finely con
ceived. COLERIDGE.
102
t
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,
And to't they go like lightning; for, ere I
Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain ;
And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.
L. Cap. He is a kinsman to the Montague;
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true :
Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
And all those twenty could but kill one life.
I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give;
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.
Prin. Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio ;
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?
Mon. Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio's friend;
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.
And for that offence
Prin.
Immediately we do exile him hence:
I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;
But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine,
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses,
Therefore use none: let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he's found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body, and attend our will:
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.21
[Exeunt.
21 The thought here expressed seems to have had the currency of a
proverb. Shakespeare has it repeatedly, though in different language..
Perhaps I ought to note that hour, second line before, is a dissyllable
Often so.
SCENE II.
103
ROMEO AND JULIET.
SCENE II. — The Same. CAPULET'S Orchard.
Enter JULIET.
Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging: such a wagoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the West,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink,¹ and Romeo
Leap to these arms untalk’d-of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. — Come, civil 2 night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
1 The difficulty of this passage seems to turn mainly upon the fact that
it involves the figure of speech called Prolepsis. At any rate, runaway,
as Warburton clearly saw, refers, beyond question, to Phoebus, the Sun, or
day. Juliet has just been urging the "fiery-footed steeds" of day to
hasten toward their master's lodging, and give "cloudy night" possession
of the world. She now proceeds to repeat the same thought in language
and imagery still more intense; addressing night as the mistress and keeper
of the bed where the nimble-footed day is to sleep. Juliet wishes the day
to speed his course with fiery haste, and therefore proleptically calls him
runaway. In other words, she longs to have him play the runaway; and
for this cause she would have night prepare his couch at once, that so his
prying eyes and babbling tongue may be quickly bound up in sleep. The
whole, I think, may be put into a nutshell, thus: "You swift-footed steeds
of Phoebus, run away with your master, and get him to his lodging forth-
with; and thou, Night, make ready his bed, that the runaway Phoebus
may close his eyes in sleep at once, and thus give Romeo and me the
benefit of silence and darkness." See Critical Notes.
2 Civil for grave, sober, decorous. So in Twelfth Night, iii. 4: "Where
is Malvolio? - he is sad and civil, and suits well for a servant with my
fortunes." Also in several other instances.
104
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT II
And learn me how to lose a winning match: 3
Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,4
With thy black mantle; till strange 5 love, grown bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night; come, Romeo, come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish Sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it so tedious is this day,
As is the night before some festival
6
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,
And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence. -
Enter the Nurse, with cords.
Now, nurse, what news?
That Romeo bid thee fetch?
Nurse. [Throwing them down.] Ay, ay, the cords.
What hast thou there? the cords
3 She is to lose her maiden freedom, and win a husband; and so to
'lose a winning match."
}
4 These are terms of falconry. An unmanned hawk is one that is no
brought to endure company; and such a hawk was hooded, or blinded, to
keep it from being scared. Bating is fluttering or beating the wings an
striving to fly away.
5 Strange, again, for coy, shy, or bashful. See page 73, note 12.
6 Garish is gaudy, glittering.
SCENE II.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
105
Jul. Ah me! what news? why dost thou wring thy hands?
Nurse. Ah, well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone !
Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!
Jul. Can Heaven be so envious?7
Nurse.
Romeo can,
Though Heaven cannot : - O Romeo, Romeo!
Who ever would have thought it? — Romeo !
Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar'd in dismal Hell.
M
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but Ay,
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice :
I am not I, if there be such an 1;9
8
Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer ay.
If he be slain, say ay; or, if not, no :
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark !10 - here on his manly breast:
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
7 Envious, again, in the old sense of malicious.
8 Touching the marvellous power of this old fabulous beast, see King
Richard the Third, page 145, note 4.
9 In Shakespeare's time the affirmative particle ay was commonly
written I; hence this string of verbal or literal conceits, which is both
poor enough in itself, and strangely out of place in such a stress of passion.
The vapid quibble makes it necessary to retain the I twice where it has the
sense of ay. There is further quibbling also between I and eye. A good
deal of a thing, "whereof a little more than a little is by much too much."
10 This interjectional phrase was much used in the Poct's time, and he
has it repeatedly. Mark appears to be put for sign, token, or omen. So
that the meaning probably is, "May God bless the token!" or, "May God
avert, or save us from, the omen!" that is, the consequences threatened or
portended by it. It appears, also, that the mark put upon the doors of
houses as a sign of the plague was called “God's mark.'
106
ACT II
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
All in gore-blood: I swooned at the sight.
Jul. O, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!
Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!
Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had !
O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead!
Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?
My dear-loved cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
For who is living, if those two are gone?
Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.
Jul. O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?
Nurse. It did, it did; alas the day, it did!
Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical !
Dove-feather'd raven ! wolvish-ravening lamb !
Despised substance of divinest show ! 11
Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,
A damnèd saint, an honourable villain!
O Nature, what hadst thou to do in Hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
Make
11 Another string of elaborate conceits all out of place, and showin
alike the fertility and the immaturity of the Poet's mind when this pla
was written. Even Shakespeare could not at once rise above the intel
lectual fashion or rather epidemic of his time. But then, if he had been
less docile, he probably would not have learned so much.
SCENE II.
107
ROMEO AND JULIET.
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
Nurse.
There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua-vitæ:
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo!
Jul.
Blister'd be thy tongue
For such a wish! 12 he was not born to shame :
Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;
For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the universal Earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?
Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth 13 thy name,
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband:
12 Note the Nurse's mistake of the mind's audible struggles with itself for
its decision in toto. - COLERIDGE.
13 To smooth is to speak fair; it is here metaphorically used for to miti-
gate or assuage the asperity of censure with which Romeo's name would be
now mentioned.
108
ACT 11
ROMEO AND JULIE
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybal's death,
That murder'd me: I would forget it fain ;
But, O, it presses to my memory,
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds.
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished!
That banished, that one word banished,
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.14 Tybalt's death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there :
Or- if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank'd with other griefs
Why follow'd not, when she said Tybalt's dead,
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,
Which modern 15 lamentation might have moved?
But with a rear-word following Tybalt's death,
Romeo is banished! to speak that word,
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. Romeo is banished!
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.
Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?
Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse:
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.
Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears: mine shall b
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguiled,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exíled,
And I, a maid, die maiden-widowéd.
de
14 Is worse than the loss of ten thousand Tybalts.
15 Modern is trite, common, ordinary. So in As You Like It, ii. 7: “Fu
of wise saws and modern instances."
A
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[199
Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding-bed.
Nurse. Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo
To comfort you: I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night:
I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.
Jul. O, find him! give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.
SCENE III. — The Same.
The Same. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell.
Enter Friar LAURENCE.
Fri. L. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful
man :
Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.
[Exeunt.
1 A singular use of vanish', but very elegant withal.
Enter ROMEO.
Rom. Father, what news? what is the Prince's doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?
Fri. L.
Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company :
I bring thee tidings of the Prince's doom.
Rom. What less than dooms-day is the Prince's doom?
Fri. L. A gentler judgment yanish'd from his lips;
Not body's death, but body's banishment.
1
Rom. Ha, banishment! be merciful, say death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death: do not say banishment.
Fri. L. Hence from Verona art thou banished:
ΠΙΟ
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT III
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Rom. There is no world without Verona's walls,
But Purgatory, torture, Hell itself.
Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exile is death: then banishment
Is death misterm'd: calling death banishment,
Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
Fri. L. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness !
Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
And turn'd that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy, and thou see'st it not.
In syllar
Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: Heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat, and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in Heaven,2 and may look on her;
But Romeo may not. More validity,³
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion-flies than Romeo: they may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,
And steal immortal blessings from her lips;
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly:
And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death?
2 Heaven, as also even, given, and various other words ending in -en, i
used indifferently by the Poet as one or two syllables. Here it is two; in
the first line of this speech it is one.
3 Validity is repeatedly employed to signify worth, value. By courtship
courtesy, courtly behaviour is meant.
Ve

SCENE III,
III
ROMEO AND juliet.
Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
But banished to kill me, banished?
O friar, the damnèd use that word in Hell;
Howlings attend it: how hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly cónfessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
To mangle me with that word banished?
Fri. L. Thou fond4 mad man, hear me a little speak.
Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.
Fri. L. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banishéd.
Rom. Yet banished? Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,
It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.
Fri. L. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?
Fri. L. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.
Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murderéd,
Doting like me, and like me banishéd,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
[Throws himself on the floor. Knocking within
Fri. L. Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide thyself.
Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans,
4 Fond here means foolish: often so used.
112
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT III.
Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.
[Knocking within.
Fri. L. Hark, how they knock !— Who's there?— Romeo,
arise;
Thou wilt be taken.-Stay awhile!
Stay awhile!-Stand up ;
[Knocking within.
Run to my study. — By-and-by !— God's will,
What simpleness is this!—I come, I come! [Knocking within.
Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will?
Nurse. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know
my errand
I come from Lady Juliet.
Fri. L. Welcome, then.
·
Enter the Nurse.
Nurse. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,
Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?
Fri. L. There on the ground, with his own tears made
drunk.
Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case,
Just in her case!
Fri. L.
O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament!
Nurse.
Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering. -
Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man :
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
Rom. [Rising.] Nurse!-
Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.
Rom. Spakest thou of Juliet? how is it with her?
Doth she not think me an old murderer,
SCENE 111.
113
ROMEO AN i
JULIET.
Now I have stain'd the childhood of ourjov
With blood removed but little from her own?
Where is she? and how doth she? and what says
My conceal'd lady to our cancell❜d 5 love?
Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps ;
And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
As if that name,
Rom.
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her; as that name's cursèd hand
Murder'd her kinsman. — O, tell me, friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
[Drawing his dagger.
Fri. L.
Hold thy desperate hand!
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art :
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denotę
Th' unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amazed me by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,
By doing damnèd hate upon thyself?
Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the Heaven, and Earth?
Since birth, and Heaven, and Earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
5 The word conceal'd is to be understood of the condition of Juliet, not
of her person; her marriage is concealed. There is a poor jingle of con-
ceal'd and cancell'd; quite out of place withal.
I 14
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT IIL
Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man ;
Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask,
Is set a-fire by thine own ignorance,6
And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.7
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy :8 Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there art thou happy too:
The law, that threaten'd death, becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy :
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
6 To understand this allusion, it should be remembered that the ancient
English soldiers, using match-locks, were obliged to carry a lighted match
hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden flask in which they carried
their powder.
7 And thou torn to pieces with thine own weapons.
8 Here, as also twice in what follows, happy is lucky or fortunate. Often so
CT III
115
III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
Go before, nurse commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the House to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto :
Romeo is coming.
state :
Nurse. O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night
To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!
My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.
Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.
Nurse. Here is a ring, sir, that she bade me give you :
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.
[Exit.
Rom. How well my comfort is revived by this!
Fri. L. Go hence; good night; and here stands all your
9
Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguised from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.
Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee:
Farewell.
[Exeunt
9 The meaning is, "your whole fortune depends on this."
116
A
ROMEO AND JULIET.
1
SCENE IV. — The Same.
The Same. A Room in CAPULET'S House.
Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and PARIS.
Cap. Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily,
That we have had no time to move our daughter.
Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I. Well, we were born to die.
'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night :
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been a-bed an hour ago.
Par. These times of woe afford no time to woo.-
Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter.
L. Cap. I will, and know her mind early to-morrow ;
To-night she's mew'd-up to her heaviness.
1
Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate ¹ tender
Of my child's love: I think she will be ruled
In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;
Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love;
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next
But, soft! what day is this?
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Par.
Monday, my lord.
Cap. Monday! ha, ha!
Well, Wednesday is too soon;
O' Thursday let it be: o' Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? do you like this haste?
We'll keep no great ado, a friend or two;
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
1 Desperate, here, is bold, confident, as if he had said "I venture, or make
bold, to promise you my daughter." - Mew'd-up, in the line before, is a
term in falconry; a mew being an enclosure where hawks were kept.
SCEN
117
ROMEO AND JULIET.
It mi
Bein
The
And the
+
ɔught we held him carelessly,
isman, if we revel much :
'll have some half-a-dozen friends,
I end. But what say you to Thursday?
Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.
Cap. Well, get you gone: o' Thursday be it, then. —
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.
Farewell, my lord. — Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me,2 'tis so very late, that we
May call it early by-and-by.
Good night.
SCENE V. The Same.
M
An open Gallery to JULIET'S
Chamber, overlooking the Orchard.
Enter ROMEO and JULIET.
Jul. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day :
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree : 3
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
[Exeunt.
2 Afore me is a mild protestation, a sort of oath, or oathlet.
3 A writer in the Pictorial Shakespeare gives the following on this pas-
sage: "Amongst the fruit-bearing trees, the pomegranate is in some respects
the most beautiful; and therefore, in the South of Europe, and in the East,
it has become the chief ornament of the garden. Chaucer puts his nightin-
gale in 'a fresh green laurel-tree'; but the preference of the nightingale for
the pomegranate is unquestionable. 'The nightingale sings from the pome-
granate groves in the day-time,' says Russel, in his account of Aleppo. A
friend, whose observations as a traveller are as acute as hi intions are
graphic and forcible, informs us that throughout his journs a
never heard such a choir of nightingales as in a row of
that skirt the road from Smyrna to Boudjia."
ܐ ܐ
ばしら
​(
118
ROMEO AND JULIET.
No nightingale : look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East :
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Jul. Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meior that the Sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,4
And light thee on thy way to Mautua :
Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not to be gone.
Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
10
I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's bow ;5
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go:-
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.
1
}
Jul. It is, it is; hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
1
ACT IIL
4 So in Sidney's Arcadia: "The moon, then full, not thinking scorn to be
a torch-bearer to such beauty, guided her steps." And Sir John Davies's
Orchestra, speaking of the Sun :
When the great torch-bearer of heaven was gone
Downe in a maske unto the ocean's court.
5 As Cynthia, or Diana, was a famous huntress, so the Moon, when she
appeared as the segment of a circle, whether a little after or a little before
a lunar change, was classically figured as Diana's bow. As the time repre-
sented in the text is a little before day-break, and as the Moon is apparently
in the East, she is of course in a position to present that appearance.
Reflex is here used as but another form of reflection, and is put for radianc
or light. So in Macbeth, i. 2: "As whence the Sun gives his reflection
See Critical Notes.
g),
}
SCENE V.
119
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division; 6
This doth not so, for she divideth us :
Some say the lark and loathed toad changed eyes;
O, now I would they had changed voices too!7
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day.
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows. 2°
8
Rom. More light and light; more dark and dark our
woes!
Enter the Nurse.
Nurse. Madam !
Jul. Nurse?
Nurse. Your lady mother's coming to your chamber :
The day is broke; be wary, look about.
[Exit.
Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
Rom. Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll descend.
[Descends.
Jul. Art thou gone so? my lord, my love, my friend !9
I must hear from thee every day in th' hour,
6 Division, in music, appears to have meant what is now called an accom-
paniment. See First Part of Henry the Fourth, page 129, note 22.
7 The toad having very fine eyes and the lark very ugly ones, was the
occasion of a common saying that the toad and the lark had changed eyes.
The croak of the toad would have been no indication of the appearance of
day, and consequently no signal for her lover's departure.
8 The hunt's-up was originally a tune played to wake sportsmen, and call
them together. It was a common burden of hunting-ballads. According to
Cotgrave the Reveille, or morning song to a new married woman, was called
the hunt's-up. So Drayton, in his Poly-Olbion : “But hunt's-up to the morn
the feather'd sylvans sing." And in his third Eclogue: "Time plays the
hunt's-up to thy sleepy head."
9 This closing of the series with friend sounds like an anti-climax to our
ears, but it was not so in the Poet's time, and ought not to be so now,
120
ACT III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
For in a minute there are many days :
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo !
Rom. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, io thce.
Jul. O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
Rom. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
Jul. O God, I have an ill-divining soul !10
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you :
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu !
Jul. O Fortune, Fortune! all men call thee fickle :
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, Fortune;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back.
[Exit below.
L. Cap. [Within.] Ho, daughter! are you up?
Jul. Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?11
10 Romeo, as we have seen, was haunted with a like foreboding of evil
on going to the Capulet's feast. The circumstance is eminently judicious
and beautiful in both cases; gently preparing us for the catastrophe, and
at the same time chastening our sympathy with the mutual enchantment
of the lovers.
1
11 Mr. P. A. Daniel says, I don't know how any sense can be made of
this line." As the morning has just begun to dawn, Juliet may well think it
very late for her mother not to have gone to bed, and yet rather early for
her to have got up: so she naturally asks, "Has she not been a-bed ali
night, or has she just risen?" The Poet is something fond of playing thus
between early and late. So in Twelfth Night, ii. 3: "To be up after mid-
night, and to go to bed then, is early; so that to go to bed after midnight is
to go to bed betimes."
SCENE V.
121
ROMEO AND JULIET.
What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?
Enter Lady CAPULET.
L. Cap. Why, how now, Juliet !
Jul.
Madam, I'm not well.
L. Cap. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live;
Therefore have done some grief shows much of love ;
But much of grief shows still some want of wiť.
Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
L. Cap. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you do weep for.
Jul.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
L. Cap. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.
Jul. What villain, madam?
L. Cap.
That same villain, Romeo.
Jul. [Aside.] Villain and he be many miles asunder.
[To her.] God pardon him? I do, with all my heart;
And yet no man like 12 he doth grieve my heart.
L. Cap. That is, because the traitor murderer lives.
Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands :
Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!
L. Cap. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:
Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,
M
12 This is not a breach of grammar, even according to our usage.
Like
is used conjunctively, not as a preposition, and so is equivalent to as. See
A Midsummer, page 92, note 15.
122
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT III
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company;
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.
Jul. Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him-dead-
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd:
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it;
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him named, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt
Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!
L. Cap. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.
But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
Jul. And joy comes well in such a needful time:
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
L. Cap. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child!
One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
M
That thou expect'st not, nor I look'd not for.
Jul. Madam, in happy time,13 what day is that?
L. Cap. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, 14 at Saint Peter's Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
Jul. Now, by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste; that I must wed
13 A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected when the hearer was
not so well pleased as the speaker.
14 County, or countie, was the usual term for an earl in Shakespeare's
time. Paris is in this play first styled a young earle.
SCENE V.
123
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris.
L. Cap.
These are news indeed!
Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.
Enter CAPULET and the Nurse.
Cap. When the Sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother's son
It rains downright. -
How now! a conduit, 15 girl? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind:
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
Who, — raging with thy tears, and they with them,
Without a sudden calm, will overset
Thy tempest-tossèd body. — How now, wife!
Have you deliver'd to her our decree?
L. Cap. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave !
Cap. Soft! take me with you,16 take me with you, wife.
How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?
1
15 The same image, which was in frequent use with Shakespeare's con-
temporaries, occurs in Brooke's poem: His sighs are stopt, and stopped
in the conduit of his tears."
44
16 That is, let me understand you; like the Greek phrase, "Let me go
along with you."
124
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT III.
Is she not proud? doth she not count her bless'd,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
Jul. Not proud, you have; but thankful that you have :
Proud can I never be of what I hate ;
But thankful even for hate, that is meant love.
Cap. How now, how now, chop-logic! 17 What is this?
Proud, and yet not proud, and, I thank you not;
And yet I thank you. Mistress minion, you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle 18 your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,
To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage !.
You tallow-face ! 19
L. Cap.
Fie, fie! what, are you mad?
Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
Cap. Hang thee, young baggage ! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what, get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face:
17 Capulet uses this as a nickname. "Choplogyk is he that whan his
mayster rebuketh his servaunt for his defawtes, he will give him xx wordes
for one, or elles he will bydde the devylles paternoster in scylence." — The
xxiiii Orders of Knaves.
-
18 Fettle is an old provincial word, meaning put in order, arrange, or make
ready. So in Hall's Satires: "But sells his team and fettleth to the war."
And in Silvester's Maiden Blush: "They to their long hard journey fettling
them."
19 In the age of Shakespeare, authors not only employed these terms of
abuse in their original performances, but even in their versions of the most
chaste and elegant of the Greek or Roman poets. Stanyhurst, the translator
of Virgil, in 1582, makes Dido call Æneas hedge-brat, cullion, and tar-breech,
in the course of one speech.
SCENE V.
125
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me ;
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us bless'd
That God had sent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her :
Out on her, hilding!
Nurse.
God in Heaven bless her!
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
Nurse. I speak no treason.
Cap.
O, God ye good-den.
Nurse. May not one speak?
Cap.
Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl;
For here we need it not.
Peace, peace, you mumbling fool!
L. Cap.
You are too hot.
Cap. God's bread! it makes me mad: day, night, late,
early,
At home, abroad, alone, in company,
Waking, or sleeping, still my care hath been
To have her match'd: and having now provided
A gentleman of princely parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man ;
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet,20 in her fortune's tender,
20 This word occurs again in 1 Henry IV., ii. 3: "This is no world to
play with mammets and to tilt with lips"; and is there explained (note 12)
“puppets or dolls." That explanation has been disputed, but is confirmed
by the use of the word in the present instance. -"In her fortune's tender"
is "in the offer which her good fortune makes to her."
126
ACT IIL
ROMEO AND JULIET.
To answer I'll not wed, - I cannot love,
I am too young, I pray you, pardon me.
But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise: 21
An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i' the streets;
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good :
Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.
Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief? —
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away !
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
L. Cap. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word :
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
Jul. O God! - O nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on Earth, my faith in Heaven: 22
How shall that faith return again to Earth,
Unless that husband send it me from Heaven
By leaving Earth? Comfort me, counsel me.
Alack, alack, that Heaven should practice stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself!
What say'st thou ? hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, nurse.
Nurse.
[Exit.
[Exit.
Faith, here 'tis. Romeo
21 That is, "bethink yourself in good earnest," or "take it seriously to
heart." So the Poet often uses advise.
22 Meaning, probably, that her marriage vows are registered in Heaven.
SCINE V.
ROTEO AND JULIET.
127
Is banished; and all the world to nothing,23
That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you ;
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the county.
O, he's a lovely gentleman!
Romeo's a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green,24 so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you're happy in this second match,
For it excels your first; or, if it did not,
Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
As living hence, and you no use of him.25
Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart?
Nurse. And from my soul too; or else beshrew them
both.
Jul. Amen!
Nurse. What?
Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in ; and tell my lady I am gone,
23 A wager, apparently: "I'll stake all the world against nothing." Or,
perhaps, "the chances are as all the world to nothing, that he dares," &c.
24 What is now called a hazel eye was described as green in the Poet's
time, and was esteemed the most beautiful. So in The Two Noble Kins-
men: "O, vouchsafe with that thy rare green eye." And Lord Bacon says
that "eyes somewhat large, and the circles of them inclined to greenness,
are signs of long life."
25 The old woman, true to her vocation, and fearful lest her share in these
events should be discovered, counsels her to forget Romeo and marry Paris;
and the moment which unveils to Juliet the weakness and baseness of her
confidante is the moment which reveals her to herself. She does not break
into upbraidings; it is no moment for anger; it is incredulous amazement,
succeeded by the extremity of scorn and abhorrence, which takes possession
of her mind. She assumes at once and asserts all Irer own superiority, and
rises to majesty in the strength of her despair. MRS. JAMESON.
128
ACT IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Having displeased my father, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession, and to be absolved.
Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
Jul. Ancient damnation! O most cursèd fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times?— Go, counsellor ;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy :
If all else fail, myself have power to die.
ACT IV.
Verona. Friar LAURENCE's Cell.
Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS.
Fri. L. On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.
Par. My father Capulet will have it so ;
And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste.¹
Fri. L. You say you do not know the lady's mind:
Uneven is the course; I like it not.
Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
SCENE I. Verona.
[Exit.
[Exit
1 Here the words, taken strictly, express just the opposite of what is evi-
dently intended. But the language is probably elliptical: "I am not at all
slow, that I should slack his haste." Or, "I am nothing backward, so as to
restrain his haste." The Poet has several like instances. So in Julius Cæsar,
i. 3: "I have seen th' ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, to be ex-
alted with the threatening clouds"; that is, "so as to be exalted." See
Critical Notes.
SCENE I.
129
ROMEO AND JULIET.
And therefore have I little talk'd of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway;
And, in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,2
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.
Fri. L. [Aside.] I would I knew not why it should be
slow'd.3
Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.
Enter JULIET.
Par. Happily met, my lady and my wife!
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Par. That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.
Jul. What must be shall be.
Fri. L.
That's a certain text.
Par. Come you to make confession to this father?
Jul. To answer that, were to confess to you.
Par. Do not deny to him that you love me.
Jul. I will confess to you that I love him.
Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me.
Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.
Jul. The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.
Par. Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.
2 Marriage is here a trisyllable. So it was often used in poetry.
3 To slow and to forslow were formerly in common use.
130
ACT IV.
KOMEO AND JULIET.
Jul. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.
Jul. 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? 4
Fri. L. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
Par. God shield I should disturb devotion !
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye :
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
q
[Exit.
Jul. O, shut the door! and, when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!
Fri. L. Ah, 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.
Jul. 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 join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands ;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,5
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both :
4 This has commonly been noted as an error, on the ground of there
being no such thing as evening Mass. But it appears that the Roman
Catholics did, as, I believe, they still do, sometimes celebrate Mass in the
evening, or at the time of what is called Vespers.
• The seals of deeds were formerly stamped on distinct slips or labels,
which were attached to the instrument. See Richard II., page 143, note 6.
;
SCENE I.
131
ROMEO AND JULIET.
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 6 of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
Fri. L. 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;
And, if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy.
Jul. 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'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks, and yellow chopless skulls ;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
7
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble ;
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.
6 Commission is here equivalent to authority. Often so.
7 The infinitive used gerundively again: in hearing. See page 42
note 16.
132
ACT IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Fri. L. Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy 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 humour; 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 paly 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 borrow'd 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, uncover'd, on the bier,8
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
8 The Italian custom here alluded to, of carrying the dead body to the
grave richly dressed, and with the face uncovered, Shakespeare found par-
ticularly described in Brooke's poem :
An other use there is, that whosoever dyes,
Borne to their church, with open face upon the beere he lyes,
In wonted weed attyrde, not wraped in winding shecte.
SCENE II.
133
ROMEO AND JULIET.
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,9 nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.
Jul. Give me, O, give me! tell not me of fear.
Fri. L. 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.
Jul. Love give me strength
afford.
Farewell, dear father!
—
44
SCENE II.- The Same. A Hall in CAPULET'S House.
Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, the Nurse, and Servants.
Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.
[Exit 1 Servant.
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.¹
9 Toy was often used in the sense of fancy or whim. So in Hamlet, i. 4:
"The very place puts toys of desperation into every brain that looks so
many fathoms," &c.
1 The Poet has been suspected of an oversight or something worse, in
making Capulet give order here for so many "cunning cooks." The
passage is in keeping with Shakespeare's habit of hitting off a character
almost by a word. Capulet is a man of ostentation; but his ostentation
is covered with a thin veil of affected indifference. In the first Act he says
to his guests, "We have a trifling foolish banquet toward." In the third
Act, when he settles the day of Paris' marriage, he just hints, "We'll keep
no great ado; a friend, or two." But Shakespeare knew that these indi-
and strength shall help
[Exeunt.
cations of " the pride which apes humility" were not inconsistent with the
twenty cooks.". · KNIGHT.
134
ACT IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
3
2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can
lick their fingers.
Cap. How canst thou try them so?
2 Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own
fingers: 2 therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not
with me.
Cap. Go, be gone.
We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time. -
What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?
Nurse. Ay, forsooth.
Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good on her :
A peevish, self-will'd harlotry³ it is.
Nurse. See where she comes from shrift with merry look.
Enter JULIET.
Cap. How now, my headstrong! where have you been
gadding?
Jul. Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin
[Exit 2 Servant.
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests; and am enjoin'd
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
And beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you!
Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.
Cap. Send for the county; go tell him of this:
I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.
Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell;
2 This adage is in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, 1589:
As the olde cocke crowes so doeth the chicke:
A bad cooke that cannot his owne fingers lick.
3 Harlotry was a general term of reproach; not to be taken literally
here. See I Henry IV., page 129, note 20.
SCENE II.
135
ROMEO AND JULIET.
And gave him what becomèd 4 love I might,
Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.
Cap. Why, I am glad on't; this is well; stand up:
This is as't should be. Let me see the county;
Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.
Ju. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?
L. Cap. No, not till Thursday; there is time enough.
Cap. Go, nurse, go with her we'll to church to-morrow.
[Exeunt JULIET and Nurse.
L. Cap. We shall be short in our provision :
'Tis now near night.
Cap. Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck her up :
I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone;
I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho! -
They are all forth: well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare him up
Against to-morrow: my heart's wondrous light,
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.
Mag
[Exeunt.
4 Becomed for becoming. The old writers furnish many such instances
of the active and passive forms used interchangeably. So we have very
often beholding instead of beholden. See As You Like It, page 96, note 4.
136
ACT WV
ROMEO AND JULIET.
SCENE III. –
-
The Same. JULIET'S Chamber.
Enter JULIET and the Nurse.
Jul. Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle nurse,
I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the Heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know'st, is cross¹ and full of sin.
Enter Lady CAPULET.
L. Cap. What, are you busy, ho? need you my help?
Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state to-morrow:
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you ;
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business.
L. Cap.
Good night:
Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.
[Exeunt Lady CAPULET and Nurse.
Jul. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life :
I'll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse! - what should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
1 Cross is perverse, or athwart the line of rectitude. So Milton, in his
Tetrachordon, speaks of " crossness from the duties of love and peace."
SCENE III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
137
Must I of force 2 be married to the county?
No, no; this shall forbid it : - lie thou there.
3
[Laying down her dagger.³
What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is; and yet, methinks, it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man :
I will not entertain so bad a thought.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
As in a vault, and ancient réceptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd ;4
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort;
3
2 Of force is necessarily, or of necessity.
8 "Daggers," says Gifford, "or, as they are commonly called, knives,
were worn at all times by every woman in England; whether they were so
in Italy, Shakespeare, I believe, never inquired, and I cannot tell."
4 This idea may have been suggested to the Poet by his native place.
The charnel at Stratford-upon-Avon is a very large one, and perhaps con-
tains a greater number of bones than are to be found in any other repository
of the same kind in England.
138
ACT IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking,
what with loathsome smells;
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad;5
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environéd with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefathers' joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point:-stay, Tybalt, stay!-
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
—
-
!!!!
////
[Drinks, and throws herself on the bed.
SCENE IV. — The Same. A Hall in CAPULET's House.
Enter Lady CAPULET and the Nurse.
L. Cap. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices,
nurse.
Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.¹
[Exit.
Enter CAPULET.
Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd,
5 “The mandrake," says Thomas Newton in his Herbal, “has been idly
represented as a creature having life, and engendered under the earth of
the seed of some dead person that hath beene convicted and put to death
for some felonie or murther, and that they had the same in such dampish
and funerall places where the saide convicted persons were buried." So in
Webster's Duchess of Malfi, 1623: “I have this night digg'd up a man-
drake, and am grown mad with it."
1 Fastry here stands for the room where the pastry was made, or kept.
1 November 28, 1960).
SCENE IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
The curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.2
Look to the baked meats, good Angelica :
Spare not for cost.
L. Cap.
Go, go, you cot-quean,3 go,
Get you to bed; faith, you'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.
Cap. No, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now
All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.
L. Cap. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt4 in your time;
But I will watch you from such watching now.
139
[Exit Lady CAPULET.
Cap. A jealous-hood,5 a jealous-hood! -
2 I do not well understand this. The time, if the text be right, is three
o'clock in the morning; and no curfew-bell was rung at or near that hour.
- Curfew is from the French couvre feu, cover fire; and the bell-ringing so
called was the signal of bed-time. So in Peshall's History of the City of
Oxford: "The custom of ringing the bell every night at eight o'clock
(called Curfew Bell, or Cover-fire Bell) was by order of King Alfred,
the restorer of our University, who ordained that all the inhabitants of
Oxford should, at the ringing of that bell, cover up their fires and go to
bed; which custom is observed to this day; and the bell as constantly
rings at eight, as Great Tom tolls at nine." Also in Articles for the Sexton
of Faversham, 1532: "Imprimis, the sexton, or his sufficient deputy, shall
lye in the church steeple; and at eight o'clock every night shall ring the
curfewe by the space of a quarter of an hour." It is possible, however,
that the name was transferred to other bell-ringings; and we learn that in
some places of England a bell was formerly rung at four in the morning.
See Critical Notes.
3 A cot-quean is a man who busies himself too much in women's affairs.
Well instanced in Fletcher's Love's Cure, ii. 2: "Don Lucio? Don Cot-
Quean, Don Spinster! wear a petticoat still, and put on your smock o'
Monday; I will have a baby o' clouts made for it, like a great girl." The
word was so used as late as Addison's time. See The Spectator, No. 482.
4 The animal called the mouse-hunt is the martin, which, being of the
weasel tribe, prowls about in the night for its prey. Cat after kinde, good
ouse-hunt," is one of Heywood's proverbs.
Fealous-hood is but another word for jealousy.
(4
140
ACT IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
}
Enter Servants, with spits, logs, and baskets.
What's there?
I Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.
Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit 1 Serv.]— Sirrah,
fetch drier logs :
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.
2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs,
And never trouble Peter for the matter.
Cap. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!
Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day:
The county will be here with music straight,
For so he said he would: I hear him near.
Nurse! wife!
Now, fellow,
g
what, ho! what, nurse, I say!
Re-enter the Nurse.
Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up :
I'll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make naste,
Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already :
Make haste, I say.
が
​Enter the Nurse.
[Exit.
[Music within.
[Exeunt.
SCENE V. — The Same. JULIET's Chamber; JULIET on the
bed.
Nurse. Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet !-fast, I war-
rant her, she :
Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!
Why, love, I say! madam! sweetheart! why, bride! -
What, not a word? How sound is she asleep!
I must needs wake her. - Madam, madam, madam !
SCENE V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
141
Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
He'll fright you up, i'faith. — Will it not be?
What, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again!
I must needs wake you: Lady! lady! lady!
Alas, alas! Help, help! my lady's dead!
O, well-a-day, that ever I was born!
Some aqua-vitæ, ho! - My lord! my lady!
Enter Lady Capulet.
L. Cap. What noise is here?
Nurse.
L. Cap. What is the matter?
Nurse.
O lamentable day!
Look, look! O heavy day!
L. Cap. O me, O me! My child, my only life,
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee !
Help, help! — call help.
M
Enter CAPULET.
Cap. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.
Nurse. She's dead, deceased, she's dead; alack the day!
L. Cap. Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's
dead!
Cap. Ha! let me see her. Out, alas! she's cold ;
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;
Life and these lips have long been separated :
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Nurse. O lamentable day!
L. Cap.
O woeful time!
Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.
ROMEO AND JULIFT
10 W
• "7"~~
Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians.
Fri. L. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
Cap. Ready to go, but never to return. -
O son! the night before thy wedding-day
Hath Death lain with thy bride: see, there she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;
My daughter he hath wedded: I will die,
And leave him all; life, living, all is Death's.
Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?
L. Cap. Accursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!
Most miserable hour that e'er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage !
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel Death hath catch'd it from my sight!
Nurse. O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!
Most lamentable day, most woeful day,
That ever ever I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day !
Never was seen so black a day as this:
O woeful day, O woeful day!
Par. Beguiled, divorced, wrongèd, spited, slain!
Most détestable Death, by thee beguiled,
By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!
O love! O life! not life, but love in death!
Cap. Despised, distressèd, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!
Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?—
O child! O child! my soul, and not my child !
SCENE V.
143
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Dead art thou, dead! alack, my child is dead;
And with my child my joys are buried!
Fri. L. Paco, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lies not
Heaven and yourself
In these confusions.
Had part in this fair maid; now Heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid:
Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But Heaven keeps His part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion ;
For 'twas your Heaven she should be advanced:
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced
Above the clouds, as high as Heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well :
She's not well married that lives married long;
But she's best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church :
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
Cap. All things that we ordainèd festival
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells;
Our wedding-cheer to a sad burial-feast ;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;
And all things change them to the contrary.
Fri. L. Sir, go you in, — and, madam, go with him;
And go, Sir Paris ; every one prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
The Heavens do lour upon you for some ill;
Jake
ACT IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
klove them no more by crossing their high will.
Sewer Capulet, Lady CAPULET, PARIS, and Friar.
1 Mus. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.
Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up ;
For, well you know, this is a proful case.
[Exit.
I Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
Enter PETER.
Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, Heart's ease, Heart's ease:
O, an you will have me live, play Heart's ease.
I Mus. Why Heart's ease?
Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays My heart
is full of woe :2 O, play me some merry dump, to comfort
me.
I Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.
Pet. You will not, then?
I Mus. No.
Pet. I will, then, give it you soundly.
I Mus. What will you give us?
Pet. No money, on my faith; but the gleek; I will give
you the minstrel,3
1 As the audience know that Juliet is not dead, this scene is, perhaps,
excusable. But it is a strong warning to minor dramatists not to introduce
at one time many separate characters agitated by one and the same circum-
stance. It is difficult to understand what effect, whether that of pity or of
laughter, Shakespeare meant to produce; the occasion and the charac-
teristic speeches are so little in harmony! For example, what the Nurse
says is excellently suited to the Nurse's character, but grotesquely unsuited
to the occasion. — COLERIDGE.
2 This is the burden of the first stanza of A Pleasant New Ballad of Two
Lovers: "Hey hoe! my heart is full of woe."- A dump was formerly the
term for a grave or melancholy strain in music, vocal or instrumental. It
also signified a kind of poetical elegy. A merry dump is no doubt a pur-
posed absurdity put into the mouth of Master Peter.
3 A pun is here intended. A gleekman, or gligman, is a minstrel. To
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
SCENE V.
145
ROMEO AND JULIET.
1
I Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.
Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your
pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you, I'll fa you; do
you note me?
I Mus. An you re us and fa us, you note us.
2 Mus. Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your
wit.
Pet. Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you
with my iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me
like men:
When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound¹
why silver sound? why music with her silver sound?
What say you, Simon Catling?5
I Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
Pet. Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
2 Mus. I say, silver sound, because musicians sound for
silver.
Pet. Pretty too!- What say you, James Soundpost?
3 Mus. Faith, I know not what to say.
Pet. O, I cry you mercy; you are the singer: I will say
give the gleek meant also to pass a jest upon a person, to make him appear
ridiculous; a gleek being a jest or scoff.
4 This is part of a song by Richard Edwards, to be found in the Paradice
of Dainty Devices. Another copy of the song is to be found in Percy's Rel-
iques of Ancient English Poetry.
5 This worthy takes his name from a small lutestring made of catgut; his
companion the fiddler, from an instrument of the same name mentioned by
many of our old writers, and recorded by Milton as an instrument of mirth :
When the merry bells ring round,
And the joyful rebecks sound.
146
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
for you. It is music with her silver sound, because such
fellows as you have seldom gold for sounding:
Then music with her silver sound
With speedy help doth lend redress.
I Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same !
2 Mus. Hang him, Jack Come, we'll in here; tarry
for the mourners, and stay dinner.
[Exeunt.
ACT V.
SCENE I. — Mantua. A Street.
Enter ROMEO.
Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand :
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,
That I revived, and was an emperor.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!
Enter BALTHAZAR.
News from Verona ! - How now, Balthazar !
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? that I ask again ;
[Exit
SCENE I.
147
ROMEO AND JULIET.
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.
Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill :
Her body sleeps in Capels' monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you :
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
Rom. Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
'Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.
Bal. I do beseech you, sir, have patience :
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's see for means. —- O mischief, thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,—
Rom.
Tush, thou art deceived:
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?
Bal. No, my good lord.
Rom.
No matter: get thee gone,
And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.
[Exit BALTHAZAR,
And hereabouts he dwells, which late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; ¹ meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
1
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
\Life
was,
J
1 Simples is, properly, medicinal herbs, but used for medicines generally.
148
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.'
An alligator stuff'd,2 and other skins.
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves.
A beggarly account 3 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 did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but forerun my need;
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house :
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.-
What, ho! apothecary!
Enter the Apothecary.
Apoth.
Who calls so loud?
Rom. 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 disperse 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.
Apoth. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
2 We learn from Nash's Have with You to Saffron Walden, 1596, that
stuffed alligator then made part of the furniture of an apothecary's shop
"He made an anatomie of a rat, and after hanged her over his head, insteac
of an apothecary's crocodile or dried alligator."
3 An account, as the word is here used, is simply an array.
SCENE II.
149
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Is death to any he that utters 4 them.
Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression stareth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs 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.
Apoth. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Apoth. Put this in any liquid thing you will,
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.
Rom. There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell :
I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.
Farewell buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial, and not poison, go with me
To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.
SCENE II. — Verona.
Verona. Friar LAURENCE's Cell.
Enter Friar JOHN.
Fri. J. Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!
Enter Friar LAURENCE.
[Exeunt.
Fri. L. This same should be the voice of Friar John. -
Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?
4 To utter, in the sense of to sell or to vend, is now out of use except in
the technical language of the law.
150
ACT V
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
Fri. J. Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,¹
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.
Fri. L. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
Fri. J. I could not send it, here it is again,-
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.
Fri. L. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice,2 but full of charge
Of dear import; and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence;
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight
Unto my cell.
Fri. J. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.
Fri. L. Now must I to the monument alone :
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
[Exit.
1 Each friar had always a companion assigned him by the superior, when
he asked leave to go out. In the Visitatio Notabilis de Seleborne, a curious
record printed in White's Natural History of Selborne, Wykeham enjoins
the canons not to go abroad without leave from the prior, who is ordered on
such occasions to assign the brother a companion, "ne suspicio sinistra vel
scandalum oriatur." There is a similar regulation in the statutes of Trinity
College, Cambridge.
2 Nice, again, in the sense of trivial or unimportant. See page 101,
note 18.
SCENE III.
151
ROMEO AND JULIET.
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come;
Poor living corse, closed in a dead man's tomb !
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
[Exit.
SCENE III. — The Same. A Churchyard; in it a Monu-
ment belonging to the Capulets.
Enter PARIS, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.
Par. Give me thy torch, boy; hence, and stand aloof:
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread
Being loose, unfirm, with digging-up of graves
But thou shalt hear it whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
Page. [Aside.] I am almost afraid to stay alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.
[Retires.
Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew :
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones!
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew;
Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
[The Page whistles.
The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies and true love's rites?
What, with a torch! - Muffle me, night, awhile. [Retires.
152
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
?
Enter ROMEO, and BALTHAZAR with a torch, mattock, &c.
Rom. Give me that mattock and the wrenching-iron.
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light upon thy life, I charge thee,
Whate'er thou hear'st or see'st, stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is partly to behold my lady's face;
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By Heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that :
Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.
Bal. [Aside.] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout :
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
[Retires.
Rom. Thou détestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the Earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
[Breaking open the door of the monument
And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!
Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague
That murder'd my love's cousin, — with which grief,
SCENE III.
153
ROMEO AND JULIET.
It is supposed, the fair creature died,
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.—
Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.
Rom. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man ;
Fly hence, and leave me think upon these gone ;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,
[Advances.
By urging me to fury: O, be gone!
By Heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm'd against myself.
Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.
Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy!
[They fight.
Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.
[Exit.- PARIS falls.
[Dies.
Par. O, I am slain ! — If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
Rom. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossèd soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet :
Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
!
154
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
1
To think it was so?— O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave; -
A grave? O, no, a lantern, ¹ slaughter'd youth ;
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Dead, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.º
[Laying PARIS in the monument.
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry ! 3 which their keepers call
A lightning before death : 4 O, how may I
Call this a lightning? - O my love! my wife !
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
1 A lantern, here, is not what we mean by the word, but a louvre, or what
in ancient records is styled lanternium; that is, a spacious round or octag-
onal turret full of windows, by means of which cathedrals and sometimes
halls are illuminated; such as the beautiful lantern at Ely Minster. The
same word, with the same sense, occurs in Churchyard's Siege of Edin-
borough Castle: This lofty seat and lantern of that land like lodestarre
stode, and lokte o'er ev'ry streete." And in Holland's translation of Pliny:
be
Hence came the louvers and lanternes reared over the roofes of temples."
- Presence, second line after, is a presence-chamber, the most splendid
apartment of a royal palace, especially when lighted for a feast.
(
2 Romeo speaks of himself as already dead, because he came hither'
on purpose to die, and will "never from this palace of dim night depart
again."
3 Accordingly, Mercutio, in this play, goes to his death, with his spirit
bubbling over in jests. Shakespeare was familiar no doubt with the in-
stance of Sir Thomas More, who at once deepened and sweetened the
tragedy of the scaffold with his playful speech: as Wordsworth gives it,
"
44
More's gay genius played
With th' inoffensive sword of native wit,
Than the bare axe more luminous and keen.
"
4 This idea frequently occurs in old dramas. So in The Downfall of
Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601: "I thought it was a lightning before
death, too sudden to be certain."
SCENE III.
155
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin! — Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
That unsubstantial Death is amorous; 5
And that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. - Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss.
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!—
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks my sea-sick weary bark!
6
Here's to my love! [Drinks.]-O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[Dies.
5 A connection is traceable between parts of this speech and some lines
in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, published in 1592.
6 Conduct for conductor. So in a former scene:
be my conduct now."
44
And fire-eyed fury
156
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar LAURENCE,
with a lantern, crow, and spade.
7
Fri. L. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves ! Who's there?
Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
Fri. L. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,
It burneth in the Capels' monument.
Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,
One that you love.
Who is it?
S
Fri. L.
Bal.
Romeo.
Fri. L. How long hath he been there?
Bal.
Fri. L. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.
I dare not, sir:
Full half an hour.
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.8
My master knows not but I am gone hence;
And fearfully did menace me with death,
If I did stay to look on his intents.
Fri. L. Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me ;
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.
Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
7 This accident was reckoned ominous. So in King Richard III., Has-
tings, going to execution, says, "Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did
stumble."
8 This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand
of any painter less attentive to it than Shakespeare. What happens to a
person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him,
when he is recovered from it, like a dream. Homer represents Rhesus
SCENE III.
157
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Fri. L.
Romeo !
Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?
[Advancing.
[Enters the monument.
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too!
And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
The lady stirs.
Jul. O comfortable 9 friar! where's my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
[JULIET wakes
And there I am: where is my Romeo?
[Noise within.
Fri. L. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater Power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away :
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too: come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns :
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
Come, go, good Juliet. [Noise again.] I dare no longer
stay.
Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
[Exit Friar LAURENCE,
What's here? a cup closed in my true love's hand?
dying, fast asleep, and, as it were, beholding his enemy in a dream, plung-
ing a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this
image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope,
awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think
it not a reality, but a vision. — STEEVENS,
9 Comfortable as giving comfort, not as feeling it. The passive form
with an active sense. The word is often used thus.
1
158
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Poison,
see,
h been his timeless 10 end.
O churl ria all, and leave no friendly drop
I will kiss thy lips ;
:
iter ↳
To help
Haply souf
•
·
1. on yet doth hang on them,
To make me with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm!
I Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy: which way?
Jul. Yea, noise? then I'll be brief.- O happy dagger!
[Snatching ROMEO's dagger.
This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rest, and let me
die.
[Falls on ROMEO's body, and dies.
[Kisses him.
Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS.
Page. This is the place; there, where the torch doth burn.
I Watch. The ground is bloody; search about the church-
yard.
Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.
Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain ;
And Juliet bleeding; warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain these two days buried.
Go, tell the Prince; run to the Capulets;
Raise up the Montagues ; some others search.
[Exeunt some of the Watch.
[Exeunt others of the Watch.
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.
Re-enter some of the Watch with BALTHAZAR.
2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man; we found him in the
churchyard.
10 Timeless for untimely. Repeatedly so.
SCENE III.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
159
1
I Watch. Hold him in safety, till the Prince come hither.
Re-enter others of the Watch, with Friar LAURENCE.
3 Watch. Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs, and weeps:
We took this mattock and this spade from him,
As he was coming from this churchyard side.
I Watch. A great suspicion: stay the friar too.
Enter the Prince and Attendants.
Prince. What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning's rest?
Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, and others.
Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?
L. Cap. The people in the street cry Romeo,
Some Juliet, and some Paris; and all run,
With open outcry, toward our monument.
Prince. What fear is this which startles in our ears?
I Watch. Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;
And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm, and new kill'd.
Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder
comes.
I Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man ;
With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.
Cap. O Heaven!—O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
This dagger hath mista'en, - for, lo, his house.
Is empty on the back of Montague,11-
11 The words "for, lo, his house is empty on the back of Montague,"
are parenthetical. It appears that the dagger was anciently worn behind
160
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom !
L. Cap. O me! this sight of death is as a bell,
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
Enter MONTAGUE and others.
Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.
Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;
Grief of my son's exíle hath stopp'd her breath :
What further woe conspires against my age?
Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.
Mon. O thou untaught ! what manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?
Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage 12 for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent;
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death: meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.13
Fri. L. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder;
the back. So in Humor's Ordinarie: "See you yon huge bum dagger at
his back?" And in The Longer Thou Livest The More Fool Thou Art,
1570: "Thou must wear thy sword by thy side, and thy dagger handsumly
at thy backe."
12 Outrage appears to have been used as a strong word for clamour or
outcry. See Critical Notes.
13 "The parties of suspicion" are, of course, the suspected parties.
The ending -cion is here meant to be dissyllabic; as patience, in the pre-
ceding line, is also meant to be a trisyllable. Such was the old usage,
which was passing away in the Poet's time.
SCENE III.
161
ROMEO AND JULIET.
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemnèd and myself excused.
Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
Fri. L. I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet ;
And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife :
I married them; and their stol'n marriage-day
Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death.
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth'd, and would have married her perforce,
To County Paris: then comes she to me;
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
A sleeping potion; which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stay'd by accident; and yesternight
Return'd my letter back. Then all alone,
At the prefixèd hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;
Meaning to keep her closely 14 at my cell
14 Closely is secretly. So the adjective close very often.
162
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo :
But when I came,
some minute ere the tune
here untimely lay
Of her awaking,
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
And bear this work of Heaven with patience:
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
Her nurse is privy: and, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?
Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;
And then in post 15 he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father ;
And threaten'd me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.
G
15 In post is in haste; with the speed of a postman.
16 "What did your master?" or, "what was he doing?"
Prince. Give me the letter; I will look on it.
Where is the county's page, that raised the watch?
Sirrah, what made 16
your master in this place?
Page. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;
And by-and-by my master drew on him;
SCENE III.
163
ROMEO AND JULIET.
And then I ran away to call the watch.
Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? - Capulet, - Montague,
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen : 17 all are punish'd.
Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand :
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.
Mon.
But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie ;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!
Prince. A gloomy peace this morning with it brings ;
The Sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: 18
17 Mercutio and Paris. Mercutio is expressly called the Prince's kins-
man in iii. 4; and that Paris was also the Prince's kinsman, may be inferred
from what Romeo says: "Let me peruse this face. Mercutio's kinsman,
noble County Paris."
18 This line has reference to Brooke's poem; in which the Nurse is
banished for concealing the marriage; Romeo's servant set at liberty; bc-
cause he had only acted in obedience to his master's orders; the Apothecary
is hanged; while Friar Laurence was permitted to retire to a hermitage
164.
ACT V.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
臻
​For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
[Exeunt.
near Verona, where he ended his life in penitence and tranquility. — The
story of Romeo and Juliet is held at Verona to be true. A tradition lives
there, that the lovers were buried in the crypt of the Franciscan convent of
Fenne Maggiore; and a stone sarcophagus, which was removed from the
ruins of that building after its destruction by fire, is still shown at Verona
as Juliet's tomb.
,
י
CRITICAL NOTES.
ACT I., SCENE I.
Page 35. When I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the
maids, &c. So the undated quarto. The other old copies have civil
instead of cruel.
P. 38. Thou villain Capulet, Hold me not, let go. - The old text
reads "let me go." As this and the following line were evidently
meant to be a rhyming couplet, Walker is clearly right in proposing to
omit me.
S
P. 38. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained soil, &c. -The second of
these lines is not in the first quarto, and the other old copies have steele
instead of soil. But what can be the sense or the application of steel
here? The reading in the text was proposed by Mr. P. A. Daniel.
P. 40. I—measuring his affections by my own,
That are most busied when they're most alone
Pursued my humour, &c.
The second of these lines is from
the first quarto. The other old copies have, instead, two lines, as
follows:
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Which then most sought, wher most might not be found:
Being one too many by my weary selfe.
This is, to say the least, exceedingly obscure. The late Professor Allen,
of Philadelphia, proposed to substitute more for the second most. This
would perhaps rectify the logic of the passage.
P. 41. Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the Sun. - The old text has same in-
stead of Sun. As the word was probably written sunne, the misprint
was easy. Corrected by Theobald.
166
ROMEO AND JULIET.
P. 42. Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms. So the undated
quarto. The first has "best seeming thinges"; those of 1599 and
1609, and also the folio, have "welseeing formes."
A
P. 43. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes. — Johnson
proposed urged instead of purged, and Collier's second folio substitutes.
puff'd. I see no need 、、 change. See foot-note 17.
P. 43. Tell me in sadness, who 'tis that you love.
-The first quarto
reads “whom she is you love "; the other old copies, "who is that you
love." The reading in the text is Singer's.
P. 43. From Love's weak childish bow she lives encharm'd. — So
Collier's second folio. The first quarto reads “Gainst Cupids childish
bow she lives unharm'd." The other old editions read "From loves
weake childish Bow she lives uncharm'd." Lettsom thinks the right
text to be, "Gainst Love's weak childish bow she lives encharm'd."
But surely from may here be taken as equivalent to against. See foot-
note 19.
P. 44. O, she is rich in beauty; only poor,.
That, when she dies, with her dies beauty's store. — So Theobald.
The old copies read "with beautie dies her store."
ACT I., SCENE 2.
P. 45. And too soon marr'd are these so early married.
So the
first quarto and Collier's second folio. The other old copies have made
instead of married. Singer, who adopts married, quotes from Putten-
ham's Arte of Poesy: 'The maid that soon married, soon marrèd is."
Also from Flecknoe's Epigrams: "You're to be marr'd, or marryed,
as they say." Of course, in all these cases, a jingle on the words is in-
tended; and it is but fair to add that marred and made were often used
together with a like intent.
P. 45. The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she. So the un-
dated quarto. The other old copies have "Earth hath swallowed all
my hopes but she." But the line cannot be made to run rhythmically
by retaining the -ed in swallow'd.
Ką
CRITICAL NOTES.
167
P. 46. And like her most whose merit most shall be :
In the sec-
Whilst, on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
ond of these lines, the first quarto reads “Such amongst view of many,"
&c.; the other old copies, "Which on view," &c.
Whilst for Which, is Mason's, and appears much the
rectifying the passage that has been proposed.
The correction,
simplest way of
P. 48. County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters. — The old copies
have Anselme. Of course, the slight change is for metre's sake. In
the originals the whole list is printed as prose; but Capell justly ob-
serves that, with this change and the one next to be noted, "it resolves
itself into nine as complete Iambicks as any in Shakespeare, nor can it
be made prose without a great deal more altering than goes to making
it verse."
P. 48. My fair niece Rosaline and Livia. -The old copies lack
and, which is inserted for the reason stated in the preceding note.
P. 48. Rom. Whither?
Serv. To our house to supper. In the old copies, the words
to supper are misplaced at the end of the preceding speech. They
were transferred to the Servant by Warburton; and rightly, beyond
question.
P
P. 49. Tut, tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself poised with herself in either eye:
/
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd
Your lady-love against some other maid, &c. In the first of
these lines, the originals are without the second tut. Inserted in the
second folio. Also, in the fourth line, the old copies have Ladies love.
Corrected by Theobald.
S
ACT I., SCENE 3.
P. 53. The fish lives in the shell; and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide. The old copies read
"The fish lives in the Sea"; which Farmer explains thus: "The fish is
not yet caught. Fish-skin covers to books anciently were not uncom-
168
ROMEO AND JULIET.
mon." Still the old text seems to me little better than stark nonsense;
nor can I see any more fitness in the explanation than in the allusion
itself. The reading here given is Mason's; who notes upon the pas-
sage as follows: "The purport of the remainder of this speech is to
show the advantage of having a handsome person to cover a virtuous
mind. It is evident therefore that, instead of 'the fish lives in the sea,'
we should read 'the fish lives in the shell. For the sea cannot be said
to be a beautiful cover to a fish, though a shell may." This appears so
just, that I could not bear to retain the old reading, which has no con-
ceivable relevancy to the context.
ACT I., SCENE 4.
P. 56. If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire,
save your reverence love, wherein thou stick'st
Or
Up to the ears. So the folio. The first quarto has "Of this
surreverence, love"; the other quartos, "Or save you reverence love."
Recent editors print variously: Collier, "the mire Of this save-rever-
ence love"; Singer, "the mire Of this surreverence love"; White,
"the mire Of this sir-reverence Love"; Dyce,
Dyce, "the mire Of this sir-
reverence love"; Staunton, "the mire, Or (save your reverence) love."
P. 56. Five times in that, ere once in our five wits. The old edi-
tions read "our fine wits." Corrected by Malone.
M
P. 57. O, then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairy midwife; &c. The old copies have " the
Fairies Midwife." As the word was probably written Fairie, it might
easily be printed Fairies. The correction was proposed by Thomas
Warton. See foot-note 14.
P. 57. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coachmakers:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs; &c. In the
old copies, the first three of these lines are placed down after the sev
enth line below the last, thus:
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
CRITICAL NOTES.
169
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, &c.
I make the transposition in accordance with the excellent judgment of
Lettsom, who observes that “it is preposterous to speak of the parts of
the chariot (such as the wagon-spokes and cover) before mentioning
the chariot itself." Perhaps I ought to add that all the old copies ex-
cept the first quario print this speech as prose. Pope dressed it into
verse.
P. 58. Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit. - Collier's second
folio substitutes counsellor's for courtier's; perhaps rightly, as we have
in the fifth line above "O'er courtiers' knees." The first quarto has "a
lawyers lap"; and Pope reads "a lawyer's nose" but we have “O'er
lawyers' fingers" in the fourth line above: besides, the suit which the
courtier "dreams of smelling out" is, as Warburton remarks, "not a
suit at law, but a Court-solicitation."
W
S
P. 58. Tickling a parson's nose that lies asleep.-So the first quarto
and Lettsom. The other old copies, "a Parsons nose as 'a lies asleep."
ACT I., SCENE 5.
P. 60. Let the porter let in Susan Grindstone, and Nell. - Anthony
So Dyce. The old copies have "Anthonie and Potpan."
Potpan!
Probably the and crept in here by mistake from the preceding clause.
At all events, as only one servant replies, it is clear enough that only
one is meant.
M
P. 60. Gentlemen, welcome! ladies that have toes, &c. - Here, and
also in the fifth line below, the old text reads "Welcome, Gentlemen."
In both places I transpose the words for metre's sake. Lettsom would
read "You're welcome, gentlemen," in both places. This would make
the next foot an anapest in either verse; but is not so simple a way of
rectifying the metre as the transposition made by Hanmer.
170
ROMEO AND JULIET.
P. 62. Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear. So the second folio.
The earlier editions read "It seems she hangs," &c. The later reading
is surely enough better to warrant its retention. And, as Steevens
notes, that reading is sustained by the occurrence of beauty in the sec-
ond line after.
P. 63. You will set cock a-whoop! you'll be the man! — The old
copies have "set cocke a hoope." Modern editions print "cock-a-
hoop," but fail to give any intelligible and fitting explanation of its
meaning. Probably hoop is but an instance of phonographic spelling
for whoop. White suggested the change. See foot-note 8.
P. 63.
But this intrusion shall
Now-seeming sweet convert to bitterest gall.—So the quarto of
1599. The other old copies have bitter instead of bitterest. I here
adopt the reading proposed by Lettsom, taking sweet as a substantive,
and convert as a transitive verb. So that the meaning is, "this intru-
sion shall convert what now seems sweet to bitterest gall." The passage
is commonly printed "this intrusion shall, Now seeming sweet, convert
to bitter gall."
P. 64. If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this, &c. -The old copies
have sinne and sin instead of fine. Corrected by Warburton.
ACT II., SCENE I.
P. 67. Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover! - Mr. P. A.
Daniel says, "Read 'Romeo! humorous madman! passionate lover!'"
Possibly so; but it rather strikes me that, to say the least, there is not
need enough of the change to warrant it.
•
P. 67. Young abram Cupid, he that shot so trim,
When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid! The old copies
have "Young Abraham Cupid." But in Coriolanus, ii. 3, we have the
form Abram; and both are apparently used in the same sense.
As
CRITICAL NOTES.
171
Cupid's archery is specially remarked in the text, Upton was confident
we ought to read "Young Adam Cupid"; taking it as an allusion to
Adam Bell, because "this Adam was a most notable archer, and his
skill became a proverb." Accordingly most editors since have printed
"Adam Cupid," Dyce, amongst others, in his last edition, though in his
first he substituted “auburn Cupid," which White adopts. But I have
no doubt that abram, or abraham, is the right word, notwithstanding
the strong comments that have been penned against it. See foot-note
3. I must add that the Poet evidently had in mind the old ballad of
King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid:
The blinded boy that shootes so trim
From heaven down did hie,
He drew a dart, and shot at him
In place where he did lye.
ACT II., SCENE 2.
P. 69. Her vestal livery is but pale and green,
And none but Fools do wear it. — So the first quarto. The other
old copies have sicke instead of pale. See foot-note 2.
P. 70. O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, &c. Theobald
reads "to this sight"; perhaps rightly; at least the context rather
favours that reading: yet, if the Poet had intended it so, it seems most
likely that he would have written "to my sight." Singer follows
Theobald.
P. 70. When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds.
quarto. The later editions have “lazie puffing clouds."
ond folio substitutes passing for puffing.
M
So the first
Collier's sec-
P. 71. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose, &c.— Here the
editors are in a manner forced to give a composite text, as no one of
the old copies has it complete. Instead of the four lines, the first
quarto has three, thus:
172
ROMEO AND JULIET.
P. 74.
Whats Mountague? It is nor hand nor foote,
Nor arme, nor face, nor any other part.
Whats in a name? That which we call a Rose, &c.
The other old copies have a strange piece of confusion.
the first folio:
I quote from
What's Mountague? it is nor hand nor foote,
Nor arme, nor face, O be some other name
Belonging to a man.
What? in a names that which we call a Rose, &c.
Do not swear at all;
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry, &c.
So all the old copies
but the first quarto, which has "thy glorious selfe." The latter reading
may well be preferred, as being nearer to Juliet's mood of mind. I
dare not decide the point, and must leave it to the Juliets of our time, if
there be any such foolish girls, to say which is the fitter epithet of the
two.
ACT II., SCENE 3.
P. 78. Two such opposèd kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, Grace and rude Will. Instead
of kings, the first quarto has foes, which may well be thought the better
reading. So in The Misfortunes of Arthur, 1587:
Peace hath three foes encamped in our breasts,
Ambition, wrath, and envie.
P. 78. But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign. Collier's
second folio substitutes unbusied for unbruised. Perhaps rightly.
—
ACT II., SCENE 4.
P. 81. Why, where the Devil should this Romeo be?
Came he not home to-night? All the old copies, except the
first quarto, are without Why at the beginning of this speech.
P. 82. These pardonnez-mois, who stand so much on the new form
that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O, their bons, their
CRITICAL NOTES.
173
bons! — The old copies print pardonnez-mois variously, pardonmees,
pardons mees, and pardonamees. They also have bones, bones instead
of bons, bons. Corrected by Theobald.
P. 87. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-Fills; I am none of
his skains-mates. Walker thinks we ought to read "scurvy mates,"
on the ground that skuruie, as it was sometimes written, might easily
get misprinted skuin. But Staunton apparently justifies the old read-
ing: "The word skain, I am told by a Kentish man, was formerly a
familiar term in parts of Kent to express what we now call a scape-grace
or ne'er-do-well; just the sort of person the worthy Nurse would enter-
tain a horror of being considered a companion to. Even at this day,
my informant says, skain is often heard in the Isle of Thanet, and
about the adjacent coast, in the sense of a reckless, dare-devil sort of
fellow."
M
P. 88. Truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman,
and very weak dealing. Collier's second folio has "very wicked deal-
ing." A plausible change; but it is dangerous to meddle with the
Nurse's language. Her idiom is a law unto itself.
P. 88. Bid her devise some means to come to shrift
This afternoon at Friar Laurence' cell;
And there she shall be shrived and married.
Here
Is for thy pains. — The old copies have the latter part of the
second line misplaced thus: "And there she shall at Friar Lawrence
Cell Be shriv'd and married." This is clearly wrong, as it leaves there
without any thing to refer to. From this circumstance Dyce not un-
naturally concludes the speech to be mutilated. It seems to me that
the transposition I have made fairly cuts off the theory of mutilation.
Nor is the change a violent one.
P. 89. I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel. — So the second
folio. The earlier editions omit I.
P. 89. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for thee? no; 1
know it begins with some other letter: &c. The old copies read “R.
is for the no, I know," &c. I adopt Warburton's reading, which ap
—
}
174
ROMEO AND JULIET.
pears to me the simplest way of rectifying the passage. Tyrwhitt gave
it thus: "R is for the dog: no; I know," &c.; and his reading is
adopted by Staunton and Dyce. See foot-note 33.
ACT II., SCENE 5.
P. 90. But old folks move, i'faith, as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and dull as lead. In the first of these
lines, the old copies read "old folkes, many faine as they were dead."
This comes pretty near being nonsense, and divers corrections have
been made or proposed; such as, "old folks, marry, feign as they
were dead," by Johnson; and "old folks, marry, fare as they were
dead," by White, who takes fare in the sense of go. The reading in
the text was proposed by Dyce, who suggests that "moue y faith” may
have been corrupted into many faine. That there is some corruption,
who can doubt ? It scarce need be said that move, i'faith accords well
with the speaker's state of mind; better, I think, than either of the other
readings quoted. In the second line, also, the old copies have pale
instead of dull, which is from Collier's second folio. What should pale
have to do there?
ACT II., SCENE 6.
P. 93. Here comes the lady: 0,
So light a foot ne'er hurts the trodden flower!
Of love and joy, see, see the sovereign power! Instead of this
couplet, the old editions, all but the first quarto, have "so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint." This forced anti-hyperbole
is so inferior to the fine hyperbole of the first quarto, that I cannot
choose but adopt the latter. Perhaps it were better to omit the last
line; but the couplet is so good in itself, that I think the whole should
be retained.
P. 93. A lover may bestride the gossamer. So the fourth folio.
The earlier editions have Gossamours.
P. 94. I cannot sum up
reads "I cannot sum up sum
instead of the second sum.
half my sum of wealth. The old text
of halfe my wealth." The folio has some
Corrected by Capell.
M
CRITICAL NOTES.
175
ACT III., SCENE 1.
P. 96. Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart. So Capell and Collier's second folio. The
old copies have "Or reason." The mistake was doubtless caused by
Or in the next line.
P. 98. A plague o' both your Houses! I am sped: &c.
So Dyce.
The old text has "both the Houses" here; but "both your Houses"
twice afterwards. One of the quartos reads "A poxe of your Houses."
P. 99.
With Tybalt's slander.
The correction is Walker's.
My reputation's stain'd
The old text has "reputation stain'd."
P. 101. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!
O Prince! O husband!
O, the blood is spilt
Of my dear kinsman! In the second of these lines, the old
copies read "O Prince, O Cozen, husband, O the bloud is spild." Of
course Cozen strayed in from the line above.
—
ACT III., SCENE 2.
P. 103. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phœbus' lodging. So all the old editions except the
first, which has mansion instead of lodging. The latter accords better
with the sense of what was added to the speech in the second edition.
P. 103. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms untalk'd-of and unseen. — This passage has
been more worried with comment and controversy than any other in
Shakespeare. Nearly all the editors have quarrelled with runaway's;
yet it seems that no two of them can agree upon a substitute for it.
Changes have been made, or proposed, too numerous to be mentioned
here. I must be content with referring to the thorough and scholarly
176
ROMEO AND JULIET.
digest of the matter by Mr. H. H. Furness in his Variorum edition of
the play. Heath thought rumour's to be the right word; and this
seems to me the best of all the substitutes offered. We have no less
than three proposed by Dyce, who at last prints rude day's; which
appears to me not at all happy. But I am thoroughly satisfied that the
old text is right. The use of wink for sleep is very common; Shake-
speare uses "perpetual wink" for the sleep of death. And we have a
like use of runaway in the The Merchant of Venice, ii. 5, where the
nocturnal elopement of Jessica takes place; Lorenzo urging her to
hasten, because "the close night doth play the runaway." The differ-
ence of the two cases is that Lorenzo fears the night will run away too
fast for his purpose, while Juliet is impatient to have the day pass off
quickly; but this does not touch either the sense or aptness of the
image. I take the use of runaway in the text to be merely a rather
bold prolepsis. But the Poet has many like instances of proleptical
language. There are no less than four such in Macbeth. So in i. 5:
"The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
under my battlements; " that is, the raven has made himself hoarse
with croaking, or has croaked so loud and long as to become hoarse
over the fatal, &c. Again, in i. 6: "The air nimbly and sweetly re-
commends itself unto our gentle senses; " which means that the air,
by its purity and sweetness, attempers our senses to its own state, and
so makes them gentle, or sweetens them into gentleness. Also in iii. 4:
"Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal; where the meaning is,
ere humane statute made the commonwealth gentle by purging and
cleansing it from the wrongs and pollutions of barbarism. And in v. 4:
"Let our just censures attend the true event; " which means, let our
judgments wait for the actual result, the issue of the contest, in order
that they may be just. For other like instances of prolepsis, see vol. xi.
page 262, note 1; especially the one there quoted from Spenser. Dr.
C. M. Ingleby, however, takes the original runaways as being the pos-
sessive plural, runaways' not runaway's, and as meaning vagabonds or
runagates; persons "who haunt the streets towards dusk for dishonest
purposes," and "who, but for darkness, might spy out the approach of
the lover, and betray the secret to parties interested in the frustration
of his design." But surely the word so applied is not general enough;
in that case there needs a word that would include all the people of
Verona, or at least all who are liable to be in the streets after dark, and
""
CRITICAL NOTES.
177
not merely the vagabond or runagate portion of them. Or, if we take
runaways to mean spies, as I see Mr. Crosby does, still, perhaps, we
shall come off no better. For spies are just the persons of all others
whose eyes would be least likely to wink on the coming of darkness;
in fact, we should then have Juliet longing for the very time when
"runaways' eyes" would be most open and vigilant. Surely spies do
not commonly go to sleep when the best hours for espionage are upon
them. On the other hand, if we take runaway as referring to day, then
it does in effect include all the people of Verona; since time, or a word
signifying time, may be, and often is, put for the contents of time
when Lady Macbeth says to her husband, "To beguile the time, look
like the time." See foot-note 1.
; as
P. 104.
Think true love
grow instead of grown.
Till strange love, grown bold,
acted simple modesty. - The old copies have
Corrected by Rowe.
-
P. 104. For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. - So the second
folio. The undated quarto reads "Whiter than snow upon the raven's
back"; the other old editions, "than new snow upon," &c.
P. 106. Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical !
Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb ! - In the first
of these lines, Mr. P. A. Daniel suggests “Pitiful tyrant," and remarks
that "Thackeray, in Vanity Fair, makes a country serving-girl pro-
nounce beautiful bitiful.” In the second line, the old copies have
"Ravenous dovefeathered raven." A curious instance of the author's
mistake and correction being both printed together.
Theobald.
Corrected by
-
P. 107. All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. —— A most unmetri-
cal line, where, apparently, such a line ought not to be. The metre
might be mended thus: "All naught, forsworn, dissemblers all." But
this reduces it to four feet. As it is, dissemblers was probably meant to
be four syllables.
178
ROMEO AND JULIET.
P. 108. But with a rear-word following Tybalt's death. — The old
copies have ward instead of word, which is Collier's conjecture, and is
right, surely.
ACT III., SCENE 3.
P. 110. Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exile is death: then banishment
Is death mis-term'd: calling death banishment,
Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe. — In the second and
third of these lines, the old copies, except the first, have banished in-
stead of banishment. In the third line, the quarto of 1597 has "calling
death banishment," which is clearly right; and the same word is as
clearly required in both places.
P. 110. And steal immortal blessings from her lips.
folio. The earlier editions have blessing instead of blessings
P. 110. But Romeo may not, he is banishéd.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix'd, &c.
of these lines is placed after the third, thus:
In the old copies, the first
And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death?
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
So the fourth
The second and later quartos also repeat, with slight variation, the sec-
ond line, and then add still another, between the third and fourth, thus:
Flies may do this, but I from this must flie :`
They are freemen, but I am banished.
Hadst thou no poyson mixt, &c.
So the quar-
Here
P. III. Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.
tos, except the first, which reads "hear me but speak a word."
word is not so good, because it occurs in the line before, and also closes
the second line after. The folio has only "hear me speak."
P. III. Fri. L.
O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament ! The old copies make this a part of the
Nurse's speech. Farmer proposed giving it to Friar Laurence, and his
proposal has been generally, and doubtless rightly, adopted.
CRITICAL NOTES.
179
P. 114. Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.
So the quarto
of 1637. The first quarto reads "Thou frownst upon thy Fate that
smiles on thee." The quartos of 1599 and 1609 have "Thou puts up
thy Fortune," &c.; the undated quarto, "Thou pouts upon thy For-
tune," &c.; the folio, "Thou puttest up thy Fortune," &c.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
ACT III., SCENE 5.
P. 118. 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's bow. So both Collier's
and Singer's second folios. The old text has brow instead of bow. To
speak of the crescent Moon as Diana's bow, is classical; as Diana's
brow, is not so. Moreover, the context apparently supposes the Moon
to be in the East, and far gone in her last quarter, when only a rim of
her disc is visible; in which case the word brow, as a part put for the
whole face, is not properly applicable to her. See foot-note 5.
P. 119. Some say the lark and loathed toad changed eyes. The old
copies have change instead of changed. The correction is Rowe's.
P. 121. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you do weep for. So Theobald.
omit do, which is necessary to the metre.
_____
P. 119. Art thou gone so? my lord, my love, my friend! - So the
first quarto. The other old copies read " Art thou gone so, Love, Lord,
husband, friend." A very inferior reading, surely.
ay
The old editions
P. 122. To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt. — So the sec-
ond folio. The earlier editions lack Tybalt.
P. 122. And joy comes well in such a needful time. So the first
quarto. Instead of needful, the other old copies have needy, which
does not give so fitting a sense.
P. 123. L. Cap.
These are news indeed!
Here comes your father; tell him so yourself, &c. So Collier's
second folio. In the old text, "These are news indeed!" is printed as
a part of Juliet's preceding speech. The words seem quite out of place
there, as they ought, evidently, to go along with " tell him so yourself."
180
ROMEO AND JULIET.
P. 123. When the Sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew.
So the un-
dated quarto. The other old copies have earth instead of air.
P. 124. How now, how now, chop-logic!
now, chop-logic! What is this?
Proud, and yet not proud, and, I thank you not;
And yet I thank you. Mistress minion, you, &c.
- So Lett-
The old text has the last two of these lines badly confused, thus:
Proud, and I thanke you and I thanke
And yet not proud :
you not;
som.
Here Lettsom observes, " A transposition has taken place, and one yet
fallen out." Printers might well stumble in a passage of this sort.
P. 124. But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next. So the
first folio and all the quartos. The second and later folios have settle
instead of fettle. See foot-note 18.
P. 125.
Wife, we scarce thought us bless'd
That God had sent us but this only child. So the first quarto.
The other old copies have lent instead of sent.
C
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
A
P. 125. Nurse. May not one speak?
Cap.
Peace, peace, you mumbling fool! —
The old copies lack the second peace. Inserted by Theobald.
P. 125. God's bread! it makes me mad: day, night, late, early,
At home, abroad, alone, in company,
Waking, or sleeping, still my care hath been
To have her match'd. Such is the composite reading arranged
by Pope, and given in some of the best modern editions. Taking both
sense and metre duly into the account, I do not see how the passage
can be made any better. The first quarto gives it thus:
Gods blessed mother wife it mads me,
Day, night, early, late, at home, abroad,
Alone, in company, waking or sleeping,
Still my care hath beene to see her matcht.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
In the other old editions, the passage stands as follows:
Gods bread, it makes me mad.
Day, night, houre, tide, time, worke, play,
Alone in companie, still my care hath bene
To have her matcht.
¿
CRITICAL NOTES.
181
P. 127. Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
As living hence, and you no use of him. So Hanmer. The
old copies have here instead of hence. In the third scene of this Act,
in the line, “Hence from Verona art thou banishéd," the second and
third quartos, and also the folio, have “Here in Verona." See, also,
the note on "We never valued this poor seat of England," &c., vol. xii.
page 136, where we have an instance of the converse misprint.
"
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
P. 128. Ancient damnation ! O most cursèd fiend! — So the first
quarto. The other old copies have "wicked fiend." "Almost as flat,"
says Walker, "as deadly murder,' King Henry V., iii. 2," which is
Capell's reading instead of "heady murder."
ACT IV., SCENE 1.
P. 128. My father Capulet will have it so ;
And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste. - There may be some
corruption here, as the words express just the reverse of the speaker's
meaning; and Johnson thought the true reading might be "back his
haste." But the text is probably right. See foot-note 1.
P. 131. From off the battlements of yonder tower. So the first
quarto. The other old copies have "the battlements of any tower."
The reasons for preferring yonder are obvious enough.
P. 132. In thy best robes, uncover'd, on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Caputets lie. Here the old text
has the following:
S
In thy best Robes uncover'd on the Beere,
Be borne to buriall in thy kindreds grave:
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault, &c.
The right explanation of this probably is, that the Poet first wrote the
second of these lines, and then substituted the third; and that both
lines were printed together.
P. 133. Give me, O, give me! tell not me of fear. The old copies
read “Give me, give me, O tell," &c. Corrected by Pope.
W
182
ROMEO AND JULIET.
ACT IV., SCENE 2.
P. 135. Go thou to Juliet, help to deck her up. — The old copies read
"deck up her." A few lines after, we have "prepare him up," and,
in the next scene but one, "trim her up." Lettsom asks, “Should not
the preposition come last in all these cases, the pronoun not being
emphatic?"
ACT IV., SCENE 3.
P. 137. Must I of force be married to the county? So the first
quarto. The other old copies read " Shall I be married then to-morrow
morning?" Surely the other is much the better reading.
P. 138. O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, &c. - So the undated
quarto. The other old copies have walke; doubtless a misprint for
wake.
P. 138. Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee. So the first quarto.
The later editions read "Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, heeres drinke, I drink
to thee." The words heeres drinke were no doubt intended as a stage-
direction. but got printed as part of the text; a thing that often.
happened.
P. 139. L. Cap.
ACT IV., SCENE 4.
Go, go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; faith, you'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching. The old copies assign this speech
to the Nurse. I concur with Walker and Singer in transferring it to
Lady Capulet. Can there be any doubt about it? Is it likely that a
nurse would use such freedom with her master as to call him a cot-
quean, and order him off to bed? Besides, the Nurse has just been sent
forth by her mistress to "fetch more spices." The second go was in-
serted by Theobald.
J
S
ACT IV., SCENE 5.
P. 142. O son! the night before thy wedding-day
Hath Death lain with thy bride: see, there she lies,
}
CRITICAL NOTES.
183
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
see are from the first quarto, which gives the passage thus:
Hath Death laine with thy bride, flower as she is,
Deflowerd by him, see, where she lyes.
The words bride and
P. 143. Dead art thou, dead! —alack, my child is dead; &c.
Theobald. The second dead is wanting in the old copies.
· So
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
P. 143. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lies not
In these confusions. The old copies read "confusions care
lives not." Theobald corrected care to cure; the correction of lives to
lies is Lettsom's. We have repeated instances of live and lie con-
founded.
P. 143. For though fond nature bids us all lament, &c. So the
second folio. The earlier editions have some instead of fond.
C
P. 145. Pet. Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you
with my iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. — Some of the old copies
make the first of these clauses a part of the preceding speech, and all
of them have "with an iron wit," instead of "with my iron wit." The
latter reading is from Collier's second folio.
P. 146. Because such fellows as you have seldom gold for sounding.
- So the first quarto. The other old copies read "Because Musitions
have no gold for sounding."
ACT V., SCENE I.
P. 146. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand. - So the first
quarto. The later editions have "flattering truth of sleepe." It is
rather curious to note what changes have been made in order to avoid
eye: Warburton substitutes ruth for truth; White, sooth; Collier's
second folio, death; — surely none of them so good, either for sense or
poetry, as eye. Otway, in his Caius Marius, which is partly taken
from this play, reads "the flattery of sleep," and Pope adopted that
reading; a much better one, I think, than either of the others quoted
above. Singer proposes "the flattering soother, sleep."
184
ROMEO AND JULIET.
P. 149. Need and oppression stareth in thine eyes. So Rowe. The
corresponding passage in the first quarto reads thus: "And starved
famine dwelleth in thy cheekes." The other old copies have starveth
instead of stareth. Pope reads "Need and oppression stare within
thine eyes." Otway copied the line in his Caius Marius, merely chang-
ing starveth to stareth. Ritson thinks, as he well may, that ““ Need
and oppression' cannot properly be said to starve in his eyes."
ACT V., SCENE 3.
P. 151. Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along. — The first quarto
has "Under this Ew-tree"; the other old copies, "Under yond young
trees." So that here there is no escaping a composite reading.
P. 151. I am almost afraid to stay alone
Here in the church-yard.
text has stand instead of stay.
So Collier's second folio. The old
P. 153. I do defy thy conjurations,
And apprehend thee for a felon here. So the first quarto. In-
stead of conjurations, the second quarto has commiration, which in the
later editions is changed to commiseration. Of course conjurations
means earnest requests or entreaties, the usual sense of the verb to
conjúre.
P. 154. Dead, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd. - The old
copies read "Death lie thou there." As Romeo is apostrophizing the
dead Paris, he surely cannot mean to call him Death. The latter word
occurs twice in the next three lines; hence, perhaps, the error. The
happy correction is Lettsom's.
P. 155. Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
That unsubstantial Death is amorous; &c.— Here we have,
probably, another instance of the first writing and the subsequent cor-
rection both printed together, in the old copies, thus:
Why art thou yet so faire? I will beleeve,
Shall I beleeve, that unsubstantiall death is amorous ; &c.
CRITICAL NOTES.
185
P. 155. And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; &c.-So the undated
quarto. The first quarto has the matter in a very different shape. The
quartos of 1599 and 1609 make a strange botching of it, thus:
And never from this pallat of dym night
Depart againe, come lye thou in my arme,
Heere's to thy health, where ere thou tumblest in.
O true Appothecarie!
Thy drugs are quicke. Thus with a kisse I die.
Depart againe, here, here will I remaine,
With wormes that are thy Chambermaides: &c.
I
With this agrees the text of the folio, except that, in the first line, it has
Pallace instead of pallat, and, in the second, armes instead of arme.
must add that all three repeat the fourth and fifth lines a little further
on, where the present text has them.
P. 155. Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks my sea-sick weary bark. So Pope. The
old copies have thy instead of my. As Romeo is apostrophizing the
drug, thy cannot be right. Walker says, “My surely."
P. 156. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here. The old copies
have yong tree and young tree. Corrected by Pope.
P. 158. O churl! drink all, and leave no friendly drop
To help me after? — So the quartos 1609 and undated, and the
folio, except that they have left instead of leave. The first quarto has
"drinke all, and leave no drop for me." The second has drunke in-
stead of drink.
P. 158. This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself.] there rest, and let me
die. — The word rest is from the first quarto; the other old copies hav-
ing rust. Collier's second folio also has rest instead of rust. Surely,
as Dyce says, "at such a moment, the thoughts of Juliet were not likely
to wander away to the future rusting of the dagger."
186
ROMEO AND JULIET.
P. 159. What fear is this which startles in our ears? — So Johnson.
The old copies have your instead of our.
P. 160. Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath:
What further woe conspires against my age? Here the first
quarto has a line that ought, perhaps, to be inserted between these two,
"And young Benvolio is deceasèd too." This would account for
Benvolio's absence from the present scene.
M
P. 160. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while. "Set up the
mouth of outrage" sounds harsh, almost un-English indeed, and some
would change it to outcry. But outcry is hardly strong enough for the
occasion; and the radical meaning of outrage, as expressed in the verb,
is to rage excessively, whether by speech or otherwise. And the Poet's
use of outrage in other places shows it to be the right word here, prob-
ably. Thus in 1 King Henry VI., iv. 1, when Vernon and Basset are
urging their quarrel before the King, and rasping each other with
abusive terms, Gloster exclaims: "Are you not ashamed with this im-
modest clamorous outrage to trouble and disturb the King and us?"
So too in The Merchant of Venice, ii. 7: "I never heard a passion so
confused, so strange-outrageous, and so variable." And Dyce aptly
quotes from Settle's Female Prelate, 1680: "Silence his outrage in a
jayl, away with him! ”
P. 163. A gloomy peace this morning brings..
The other old editions have glooming instead of gloomy.
A
So the first quarto
=
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