It strains me past the compass of my wits:
I hear thou must, and nothing must 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,"

Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,
Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
"Twixt iny 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.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

Fri. 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 cop'st with death himself to 'scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

Jul. O bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,

4 The seals of deeds formerly were appended on distinct slips or labels affixed to the deed. Hence in King Richard II. the Duke of York discovers a covenant, which his son the Duke of Aumerle had entered in o, by the depending seal.

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 hide me nightly in a charnel-house,

O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reek; shanks, and yellow chapless skulls ;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,

And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;' Things that, to hear them told, have made mo tremble;

And I will do it without fear or doubt,

To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.

Fri. Hold, then go home, be merry, give con

sent

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 phial, being then in bed,

And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Sha'l keep his native progress, but surcease:"

So the first quarto; the other old copies, "any tower." the second line below, the first quarto reads thus:

"Or chain me to some steepy mountain's top,
Where roaring bears and savage lions are."

So the undated quarto: the folio of 1623 has grave instead shroud: the quartos of 1599 and 1609 have nothing after his, thus leaving the sense incomplete. The first quarto gives the line thus: "Or lay me in a tomb with one new dead."— Instead of the last line in this speech, the quarto of 1597 has the following: "To keep myself a faithful unstain'd wife To my dear lord, my dearest Romeo."

H.

7 In the first quarto, where this whole speech extends only to fourteen lines, we have the following, which is in some respecta better than the reading of the other old copies :

No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'st;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes' windows fall,

8

Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt remain full 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,"
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;
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 unconstant toy nor womanish fear

Abate thy valour in the acting it.

Jul. Give me, give me! O, tell me not of fear! Fri. Hold; get you gone; be strong and pros. perous

"A dull and heavy slumber, which shall seize

Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep
His natural progress, but surcease to beat.'

8.

So the undated quarto: the other old copies have many instead of paly; except the second folio, which has mealy. H.

The Italian custom here alluded to, of carrying the dead body to the grave richly dressed, and with the face uncovered, Shakespeare found particularly 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 wrapt in winding sheete"

In this resolve: I'll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

Jul. Love, give me strength! and strength shall help afford.

Farewell, dear father!

[Exeunt

SCENE II. A Room in CAPULET'S House.

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, the Nurse, and Servants.

Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ. [Exit Servant.

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.' 2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick their fingers.

1 Cooking was an art of great esteem in Shakespeare's time, as indeed it is likely to be, so long as men keep up the habit of eating. Ben Jonson's description of "a master cook," too long to be quoted here, is a specimen of the humourous sublime not apt to be forgotten by any one that has feasted upon it. The Poet has been suspected of an oversight or something worse, in making Capulet give order here for so many "cunning cooks;" whereupon the pictorial edition defends him thus: "Old Capulet, in his exuberant spirits at his daughter's approaching marriage, calls for twenty of these artists. The critics think this too large a number. Ritson says, with wonderful simplicity, - Either Capulet had altered his mind strangely, or our author forgot what he had Just made him tell us.' This is indeed to understand the Poet with admirable exactness. The passage is entirely in keeping with Shakespeare's habit of hitting off a character almost by a word. Capulet is evidently a man of ostentation; but his ostentation, as is most generally the case, 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 indications of the pride which apes humility' were not inconsistent with the twenty cooks,' the regret that we shall be much unfurnish'd for this time,' and the solicitude expressed in, Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica.'"

-

H.

Cap. How canst thou try them so?

2

2 Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore, he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.

Cap. Go, begone.

[Exit Servant.

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 harlotry it is.

Enter JULIET.

Nurse. See, where she comes from shrift with merry look.

Cap. How now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding?

Jul. Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin 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 rul'd 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;
And
gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.

3

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."

Becomed for becoming. The old writers furnish many such instances of the active and passive forms used interchangeably.

H.