On pain of torture, from those bloody hands [Exeunt Prince, and Attendants; CAPULET LA. CAP. TYBALT, Citizens and Servants. 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 prepar'd; Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears, He swung about his head, and cut the winds, 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. La. Mon. O, where is Romeo?-saw you him to-day? Right glad I am, he was not at this fray. Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,3 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 are most alone, Pursu'd 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 furthest 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. 1 i. e. angry weapons. So in King John: This inundation of mistemper'd humour,' &c. 2 The poet found the name of this place in Brooke's Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562. It is there said to be the castle of the Capulets. 3 The same thought occurs in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. 10: Early before the morn with cremosin ray Again in Summa Totalis, or All in All, 4to. 1607:-'Now heaven's bright eye (awake by Vesper's Shrine) Peepes through the purple windowres of the East. 4 The old copy reads:- 'Or dedicate his beauty to the same.' The emendation is by Theobald; who states, with great plausibility, that sunne might easily be mistaken for same. Malone observes, that Shakspeare has evidently imitated the Rosamond of Daniel in the last act of this play, and in this passage may have remembered the following lines in one of the Sonnets of the same writer, who was then extremely popular : And whilst thou spread'st into the rising sunne Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause? Mon. I neither know it, nor can learn of him. Ben. Have you importun'd 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 trueBut to himself so secret and so close, So far from sounding and discovery, As is the bud bit with an envious 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. Enter ROMEO, at a distance. Ben. See, where he comes; So please you, step aside; I'll know his grievance, or be much denied. Ben. Good morrow, cousin. Ben. But new struck nine. Is the day so young? 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. Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here's much to do with hate, but more with love: Ben. These lines add great support to Theobald's emendation. There are few passages in the poet where so great an improvement of language is obtained by so slight a deviation from the text of the old copy. 5 i. e. should blindly and recklessly think he end surmount all obstacles to his will. 6 Every ancient sonnetteer characterised Love by contrarities. Watson begins one of his canzonet :'Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe, A living death, and ever-dying life,' &c. Turberville makes Reason harangue against it in the same manner; 'A fierie frost, a flame that frozen is with ise! A heavie burden light to beare! A vertue fraught with vice &c. 7 The old copy reads, Being purgid a fire,' &c.—The emendation I have admitted into the text was suggested by Dr. Johnson. To urge the fire is to bindle or excite it. So in Chapman's version of the twentyfirst Iliad : So And as a cauldron, under put with store of fire, Bavins of sere-wood urging it,' &c. Akenside, in his Hymn to Cheerfulness :Haste, light the tapers, urge the fire, And bid the joyless day retire.' [Going. Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears: But sally tell me who. Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will: Ben. I aim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd. Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit. hit With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit; Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste; For beauty, starv'd with her severity, Ben. Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her. Rom. 1 i. e. tell me gravely, in seriousness. Show me a mistress that is passing fair, SCENE II. A Street. Enter CAPULET, PARIS, Cap. And Montague is bound as well as I, Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both; Cap. By saying o'er what I have said before : Par. Younger than slie are happy mothers made. The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she, And like her most, whose merit most shall be: My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. 'Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, duil earth, and find thy centre out. So in Shakspeare's 146th Sonnet: 'Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth. 8 i. e. in comparison to. 2 As this play was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, these speeches of Romeo may be regarded as an oblique compliment to her majesty, who was not liable to be displeased at hearing her chastity praised after she was suspected to have lost it, or her beauty commended in the sixty-seventh year of her age, though she never possessed any when young. Her declaration that she would continue unmarried increases the pro-reader may convince himself by turning to Spelman's bability of the present supposition.'-Steevens. 3 The meaning appears to be, as Mason gives it, She is poor only, because she leaves no part of her store behind her, as with her all beauty will die :- For beauty starv'd with her severity yeomen. Ritson has clearly shown that young men 9 For lusty young men' Johnson would read 'lusty was used for yeomen in our elder language. And the Glossary in the words juniores and yeoman. possess. 11 By a perverse adherence to the first quarto copy of 1597, which reads, Such amongst view of many,' &c. this passage has been made unintelligible. The subse 4 i. e. to call her exquisite beauty more into my mind,quent quartos and the folio read, Which one [on] and make it more the subject of conversation. Question is used frequently with this sense by Shakspeare. 5 This is probably an allusion to the masks worn by the female spectators of the play: unless we suppose that these means no more than the. 6 The quarto of 1597 reads: And too soon marr'd are those so early married.' Puttenham, in his Arte of Poesy, 1559, uses this expression, which seems to be proverbial, as an instance of a figure which he calls the Rebound :-- more,' &c.; evidently meaning, Hear all, see all, and The maid that soon married is, soon marred is.' Oh! he is murr'd, that is for others made ! Spenser introduces it very often in his different poems. 7 Fille de terre is the old French phrase for an heiress. Earth is likewise put for lands, i. e. landed estate, in other old plays. But Mason suggests that earth may here mean corporal part, as in a future passage of this play : Among a number one is reckon'd none, It will be unnecessary to inform the reader that which Which on more view,' &c here? It is written-that the shoemaker should | But in those crystal scales, let there be weigh'd meddle with his yard,-and the tailor with his last, Your lady's love against some other maid the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his That I will show you, shining at this feast, nets; but I am sent to find those persons, whose And she shall scant show well, that now shows best. names are here writ, and can never find what names Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, the writing person hath here writ. I must to the But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt learned :-In good time. SCENE III. A Room in Capulet's House. Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse. Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO. Ben. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ; One desperate grief cures with another's languish: Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.2 Rom. For your broken skin. Serv. God gi' good e'en.-I pray, sir, can you read? Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. 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. [Reads. Signior Martino, and his wife and daughters; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena. A fair assembly; [Gives back the Note.] Whither should they come ? Serv. Up. Rom. Whither? Serv. To supper; to our house. Serv. My master's. Rom. Indeed, I should have asked you that before. Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye 1 The quarto of 1597 adds, And yet I know not who are written here: I must to the learned to learn of them that's as much as to say, the tailor,' &c. 2 The plantain leaf is a blood-stancher, and was formerly applied to green wounds. So in Albumazar:Help, Armellina, help! I'm fallen i' the cellar : Bring a fresh plantain-leaf, I've broke my shin.' 3 This cant expression seems to have been once common; it often occurs in old plays. We have one still in use of similar import :-To crack a bottle. 4 Heath says, 'Your lady's love, is the love you bear to your lady, which, in our language, is commonly used for the lady herself. Perhaps we should read, 'Your lady love. 5 In all the old copies the greater part of this scene was printed as prose. Capell was the first who exhibited it as verse; the subsequent editors have followed him, but perhaps erroneously. I Madam, I am here, La. Cap. This is the matter:-Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again, Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, La. Cap. And since that time it is eleven years: For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, and said--Ay. 6 i. e. to my sorrow. This old word is introduced for the sake of the jingle between teen, and four, and fourteen. 7 Mr. Tyrwhitt thinks that Shakspeare had in view the earthquake which had been felt in England in his own time, on the 6th of April, 1580; and that we may from hence conjecture that Romeo and Juliet was wri ten in 1591. 8 The nurse means to boast of her retentive facultyTo bear a brain was to possess much mental capacity either of attention, ingenuity, or remembrance. Thus in Marston's Dutch Courtezan : My silly husband, alas! knows nothing of It, Tis I that must bear a braine for all.' 9 To stint is to stop. Baret translates Lachrymas La. Cap. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy | This precious book of love, this unbound lover, peace. Nurse. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot choose but' To think it should leave crying, and say-Ay: Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd: La. Cap. Marry, that marry is 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 hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat. La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger than you, Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Are made already mothers: by my count, Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, As all the world-Why, he's a man of wax.2 La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower. Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.3 La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gen tleman? 1. de cire.' 3 After this speech of the Nurse, Lady Capulet, in the old quarto, says only : "Well, Juliet, how like you of Paris' love?" She answers, I'll look to like,' &c.; and so concludes the scene, without the intervention of that stuff to be found in the later quartos and the folio. 4 Thus the quarto of 1599. The quarto of 1609 and the folio read, several lineaments. We have, The unity and married calm of states,' in Troilus and Cressida. And in his eighth Sonnet : 'If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, 5 The comments on ancient books were generally printed in the margin. Horatio says, in Hamlet, I knew you must be edified by the margent,' &c. So in The Rape of Lucrece : But she that never cop'd with stranger eyes Could pick no meaning from their parling looks, Nor read the subtle shining secrecies Writ in the glassy margent of such books.' 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. To beautify him, only lacks a cover: men. La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love? Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move; Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight. La. Cap. We follow thee.-Juliet, the county stays. Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Street. Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLI0, with five or six Maskers, TorchBearers, 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.❞ But, let them measure us by what they will, Rom. Give me a torch,12-1 am not for this ambling: Being but heavy, I will bear the light. 6 Dr. Farmer explains this, "The fish is not yet caught. Mason thinks that 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.' The poet may mean nothing more than that those books are most esteemed by the world where valuable contents are embellished by as valuable binding. 7 The quarto of 1597 reads, engage mine eye. 8 Shakspeare appears to have formed this character on the following slight hint: Another gentleman, called Mercutio, which was a courtlike gentleman, very well beloved of all men, and by reason of his pleasant and courteous behaviour was in al companies wel entertained.'-Painter's Palace of Pleasure, tom. ii. p. 221. 9 In King Henry VIII., where the king introduces himself at the entertainment 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. In Histriomastix, 1610, a man expresses his wonder that the maskers enter without any compliment-What, come they in so blunt, without device? Of this kind of masquerading, there is a specimen in Timon, where Cupid precedes a troop of ladies with a speech. 10 The Tartarian bows resemble in their form the old Roman or Cupid's bow, such as we see on medals and bas-relief. Shakspeare uses the epithet to distinguish it from the English bow, whose shape is the segment of a circle. 11 See King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6. 12 A torch-bearer was a constant appendage to every troop of maskers. 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 on a Sunday evening Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. Rom. Not I, believe me: you have dancing With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead, Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft, Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love, Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Prick love from pricking, and you beat love down. [Putting on a Mask. Rom. A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart, word: If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mires true. Mer. O, then, I see, queen Mab hath been with Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 13 1 Let Milton on this occasion keep Shakspeare in unable to do it, and call for more assistance. The game countenance. Par. Lost, book iv. 1. 180: in contempt At one slight bound high over-leap'd all bound.' 2 To quote is to note, to mark. See Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 1. 3 Middleton (the author of The Witch) has borrowed this thought in his play of Blurt Master Constable, 1602: bid him, whose heart no sorrow feels, Tickle the rushes with his wanton heels, I have too much lead at mine." It has been before observed that the apartments of our ancestors were strewed with rushes, and so it seems was the ancient stage. On the very rushes when the Comedy is to dance.'-Decker's Gull's Hornbook, 1609. Shakspeare does not stand alone in giving the manners and customs of his own times to all countries and ages. Marlowe, in his Hero and Leander, describes Hero as fearing on the rushes to be flung.' 4 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 proves a good gamester,' This is the grandsire phrase' with which Romeo is proverbed. There is another old prudential maxim subsequently alluded to, which advises to give over when the game is at the fairest. continues till all the company take part in it, when das is extricated of course; and the merriment arises from the awkward and affected efforts of the rustics to lift the log, and sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one another's toes.' perfluous actions in general, occurs again in The Merry 6 This proverbial phrase, which was applied to se Wives of Windsor. 7 The quarto of 1597 reads, Three times a day; and right wits instead of fire wits. 8 The fairies' midwife does not mean the midwife to the fairies, but that she was the person among the feines whose department it was to deliver the fancies of sleep ing men of their dreams, those children of an idle brain. When we say the king's judges, we do not mean per. to judge his subjects-Steerens. Warburton, with sens sons who judge the king, but persons appointed by him plausibility, reads, the fancy's midwife." 9 The quarto of 1597 has, of a burgomaster." The citizens of Shakspeare's time appear to have worn this ornament on the thumb. So Glapthorne in his comedy of Wit in a Constable:- And an alderman, as I may say to you, he has no more wit than the rest of the bench; and that lies in his thumb ring? Shakspeare compares his fairy to the figure carved on the agate stone of a thumb ring. 10 Atomies for atoms. Windsor. 5 Dun is the mouse is a proverbial saying to us of vague signification, alluding to the colour of the mouse; 11 There is a similar fanciful description of Queen but frequently employed with no other intent than that of Mab's chariot in Drayton's Nymphidia, which was quibbling on the word done. Why it is attributed to a written several years after this tragedy. constable we know not. It occurs in the comedy of 12 This probably alludes to the kissing comfits,' menPatient Grissel, 1603. So in The Two Merry Milk-tioned by Falstaff in the last act of the Merry Wives of maids, 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, suposed to be stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the persons who played, at others by a log of wood. Mr. Gifford has described the game, at which he remembers often to have played, in a note to Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas, vol. vii. p. 282: A log of wood is brought into the midst of the room; this is dun, (the cart horse,) and a cry is raised that he is stuck in the mire. Two of the company advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. After repeated attempts, they find themselves 13 This speech received much alteration after the first edition in the quarto of 1597: and Shakspeare basical vertently introduced the courtier twice. Mr. Tyrs bit finding countries knees' in the first instance printed in the second folio, would read counties' (i. e. noblexes :) knees. Steevens remarks that the whole speech bears a resemblance to a passage of Claudian in Sextum Col sulatum Honorii Augusti Præfatio. 14 A place in court. 15 The quarto of 1597 reads, 'counter mines. Sparish blades were held in high esteem. A sword was called a Toledo, from the excellence of the Toletan steel. |