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SMAIKSFEmiEc
C 0 N T E N T S.
PACE
ROMEO AND JIJMKT . 1
HAMLET 85
CYMBELINE . 177
OTHELLO 253
T I M O N O F A 1' II E N S 329
KING LEAR 3b9
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. L
TRAGEDIES.
TITLE-PAGE TO VOLUME.
Sliakspcre spaicd between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting. From an Alio Kelievo by Banlis in the front of the liiitish Institution, formerly the Shaksj ere Gallery, Pall Mall.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
Page
1. Title page — The Masquerade Scene: an original
design by W. Harvet. . , '
IN'lKODUCTORY NOTICE.
2. Tragic Mask S
3. Costume of Senators anil Ladies, from a drawing by
Giotto 10
4. Costume of a young Venetian Nobleman, from
Vecellio 1 1
DRAMATIS PERSON.l!.
5. Funeral Garland, composed from specimens of the
principal funei-eal flowers of Shakspere — " Vio- lets blue," " Marigold," " Azure hare-bell," " Kosemary," " Eglantine," &c 12
6. Verona 13
7. Maskers 23
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT I.
s. Bills and Partizans, from specimens 25
9 . Grove of Sycamore 25
10. Lady masked, from Vecellio 26
U. Fete Champetre; designed from an illumination
in the " Roman de la Rose," Harl. MS. 4425... 27
12. Plantain Leaf, from specimens, and a group in
Gerarde's Herbal 27
13. Tlie ' ' Measure," from a drawing by R. W. Buss. . , 28
14. " Court Cupboard" and Plate, selected from speci-
mens in private collections, and from old prints. 30
l.'j. Capulet's Garden 31
16. Nurse and Peter 40
Page ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT II.
17. Cupid, from an engraving after Francesco Albano. . 41
18. Falconry 42
19. " Nimble-pinioned Doves," from Raffaelle 44
ACT III.
20. Juliet and Nurse 45
21 . Juliet and Romeo (Loggia) 55
ILLUSTRATIONS OP ACT III.
22. Old Stage and Balcony, from the title-page to Dr.
W. Alabaster's Tragedy of Roxana, 1632 56
23. Friar Laurence's Cell ...,..,., 58
24. Verona, from an original sketch — the Funeral Pro-
cession of Juliet, from an old Italian engraving of a " Funeral Pomp."...,., 64
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT IV.
25. Costume of Servants, from Vecellio 66
26. Musicians, from the " Roman de la Rose." (Harl.
MS. 4425) 66
ACT V.
27. Mantua 67
28. Tomb of the Capulets 73
ILLUSTRATION OF ACT V.
29. Tomb of the Scaligeri, Verona, from an original
sketch 75
SUPPLEMENTARV NOTICE.
30. Juliet's Tomb, from an original drawing by J. P.
Brocbedon, Esq 76
31. Cupid and Psyche, from an antique gem K4
V
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. L— TRAGEDIES. HAMLET.
Fase
Title-page. From a di'sign by W. Harvey 85
INTROnUCl'OHY NOTICK.
Dauish Lutes **7
Canute and his Wife 98
* Smote the sledded PolacUs.' W. IIahvey 99
OHAMATIS PERSON.*:.
Holder: Ophelia's Flowers 100
ACT I,
Platform at Elsiuore. G. F. Sargent 101
Danish Standard and Arms 113
ILLUSTRATION OF ACT I.
• Hyperion to a satyr' 114
Palace of Rosenberg. G. F. Sargent 116
ViewofElsinore. Ditto 125
LLUSTBATION of act II.
42. Choppines ,
Kronberg Castle. G. F. Saroent 128
• The herald Mercury' 140
ILLUSTRATION OF ACl III.
45. Pictures on arras 141
ACT IV.
46. A Plain in Denmark. G. F. Saeoent 142
47. Danish Sliips
150
ILLrSTR.vrlONS of act IV.
48. CoeUle Hat and Staff 151
49. Pelicans '^4
50. Monumental Trophy '54
51. Church and Churchyard at Elsinorc. G. F. Sar-
oent '55
52. Hamlet's Grave. Ditto 164
illustrations of act v.
53. 'To stop a flaw' — a Rude House 165
54. ' Anon, as patient as the female dove' 166
55. • Sword-belts or Hangers' 167
supplementary notice.
56. Kemble as Hamlet, from Sir T. I,awrence. 168
57. 'There is a willow grows aslant a brook.' W.
Harvey 176
CYMBELINE.
58. Title-page. From a design by T. Creswick 177
INTRomjCTORY NOTICE.
Stonehenge. The high Altar, from a drawing by
S. Sly 179
Coin of Cuno\>elinus. From a specimen in British
Museum 18
Gaulish Captive, wearing the Torque 185
Spear-head and Celt 186
British Shield in British Museum 186
Ditto, in Meyrick Collection 186
Conflict between Romans and Barbarians. From the Column of Trajan 187
dramatis person*;. Border. — Fidele's flowers
188
act I.
The Garden. T, Creswick 189
' This diamond was my mother's : take it, heart.' , T. Che.swick 199
ACT II.
' Hark 1 hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings.' T.
Creswick 201
' Sleep hath seized me wholly' 208
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT II.
Sleeping Children. From Chantrey's Monument in
Lichfield Cathedral .......;............ 209
Andirons. From originals at Knowle, Kent 210
73. Restoration of the Roman Forum 211
74. ' Well, madam, we must take a short farewell.' T.
Creswick 222
illustration of act iii. 76. Coin of Augustus. From a gold specimen in British
Museum 223
70. The Cave. T. Creswick 226
77. The Forest. Ditto 234
ILLUSTRATION OF ACT IV.
78. Roman Eagle. Enlarged from a Coin of Domitian,
in the British Museum 335
ACT V.
79. Combat of Posthumus and lachirao 236
ILLUbTR.vnON OF ACT V.
80. Roman General, Standard Beaier, &c., landing from
a bridge of boats. From Column of Trajan 247
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE.
81. View near Milford. T. Creswick 248
82. Roman and British Weapons. From engraved spe-
cimens in Mevrick and Monlfaucon 252
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.— TRAGEDIES.
OTHELLO.
83. Titlepage. The scene in the Council Chamber, Act I., Scene iir. The ajiartment represents the Senate Hall, engraved in Brustolini's ' Vedute tli Vene?,ia,' lifter a drawing by Canalletti. — Drawn by W. Harvky 253
INTBODrcrORY NOTICE.
S4. A General of Venice in time of War. From Vecellio. 255
85. Moriims. From the Meyrick Collection 258
86. Venetian Soldier off Guard. From Vecellio 259
DR.IMATIS PERSON.^.
87. Central portion of the canal front of the Ducal
Palace 260
88. Court of the Ducal Palace, Venice. From an ori-
ginal drawing 3C1
89. The Arsenal at Venice. From an engraving by
Marieschi 272
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT I.
90. The Harbour of Rhodes. From a view in Le Bnm's
' Voyage en Orient' 273
91. .Xnthropophagi. &c. From Hondiiis's Latin transla-
tion of Raleigh's ' Voyage to Guiana" 275
Pnge
ACT 11.
92. The Citadel at Famagusta, Cyprus. From a sketch
by F. Arunoale 27fi
93. An Estradiol. From Boissard 286
ILLUSTRATION OF ACT II.
94. View of Cerini. From a sketch by F. Arundalf. . . 287
ACT III.
95. Venetian Remains at Famagusta — being a Gothic
Cathedral, now converted into a Turkish Mosque. From a sketch by F. Arunoale 289
96. Venetian General. From ' Habiti d' Huomini e
Donne Venetiane.' 1609 300
act IV.
97. Piazza of the Mosque at Famagusta, with Venetian
Remains (the sculpture on the keystone of the central arch represents the Lion of St. Mark). From a sketch by F. Arundale 302
ACT V.
98. General view of Famagusta. From Le Brun's
' Voyage en Orient' . ,'. 313
99. Venetian Glaive, Halberds, and Sword of an Estra-
diot. From the Meyrick Collection 321
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE.
100. View of Famagusta, from the Ramparts. From .i
sketch bv F. Arunpalv 323
TIMON OF ATHENS.
101. Title page. From a design by W. Harvey ,
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
102. Athenian Coin. From a specimen in the British
Museum 331
103. Pericles. From an antique Bust 343
DRAMATIS PERSoN.r..
104. Ornamental Border 344
105. View of Athens. From a sketch by F. Arundale . 345
106. Ancient Triclinium 353
illustrations of ACT I.
107. Rake's Levee. From Hogarth 354
108. Marriage a-la-Mode. Ditto 355
ACT II.
109. Athens, from the Pnyx. From a sketch by F.
Arundale 356
110. Remains of the Propylaea. From Stuart's ' Athens' 360
ACT III.
111. .Mhens. Tlie Pnyx .361
112. The Parthenon. From a sketch by F. Arundale. 368
ACT IV.
113. Walls of Athens : restored 370
114. Temple of Theseus. From a sketch by F. Arundale 379
ACT V.
115. Timon's Cave. From a drawing by G. F. Sargent 380
116. Timon's Grave. Ditto 385
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT V.
117. Alcibiades. From an antique Bust 386
118. Temperance. From Raffaelle 387
ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.— TRAGEDIES.
KING
Page
119. Title-page — (Act v. Scene hi.) From a design by
W. Harvey 369
INTBODUCTOBY NOTICE.
120. Country neiir Dover. From .an original sketch ... 391
121. • My good biting fauleliion.'' 399
DRAMATIS PEBS0N;K.
122. Border: Lear's Garland.
" Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds. With liarlocks, lieralocks, nettles, cuckoo flowers. Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn." 400
ACT I.
123. Scene iv. From a design by W. Harvey 401
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT I.
124. Henry VIII. and Will Sommers 415
125. The Coxcomb. From ' Catzii Emblemata.' 416
ACT II.
126. Edgar. — ' I hoard myself yjroolaim'd.' From a
design by W. Harvey 417
127. Prometheus. — ■ Sharp-tooth'd nnkindiiess, like a
vulture here.' 426
LEAR.
Page ILLUSTRATION OF ACT II.
128. Sarum Plain. From an orii;inal sketch 427
ACT III.
129. I.ear in the Storm. From a design by VV. Harvev. 430
130. Design by W. Harvey.
" This night wherein the cub-drawn bear would c.iuch. The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf," &c 4.39
ACT IV.
131. Dover CliflF. From an original sketcli 444
ILLUSTRATION OF ACT IV.
132. Samphire 456
ACT V.
133. Dover Castle in the time of Elizabeth 457
134. Norman Gateway, Dover Castle 403
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE.
135. Lear. After a Study by Sir Jushua Reynolds 464
136. Sophocles From a Bust in the Hritish Museum. . . 471
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INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
State of the Text, and Chronology, of Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet was first printed in the year 1597, under the following title : — " An excel- lent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. As it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely, by the right honourable the L. of Hunsdon his Seruants." This edition, a copy of which is of great rarity and value, was reprinted by Steevens, in his collection of twenty of the plays of Shakspere.
The second edition of Romeo and Juliet was printed in 1599, under the following title : — "The most excellent and lamentable Tragedie, of Romeo and Juliet. Newly corrected, augmented, and amended : As it hath bene sundry times publiquely acted, by the right Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his Seruants." This edition is also rare ; but we have had the advantage of using a copy in the British Museum.
The subsequent original editions are, — an undated quarto; a quarto in 1607; a quarto in 1609, which has also been reprinted by Steevens ; and the folio of 1623. All these editions are founded upon the quarto of 1599, from which they differ very slightly.
We have taken the folio of 1 623 as the basis of our text, indicating the differences between that text and the quartos subsequent to that of 1597, whenever any occur. But we have not at- tempted to make up a text, as was done by Pope, and subsequently by Steevens, out of the amended quarto of 1599 and the original of 1597. In some instances, indeed, the quarto of 1597 is of importance in the formation of a text, for the correction of typographical errors, which have run through the subsequent editions. Wherever our text differs from that commonly received, we state the difference, and the reasons for that difference. Our general reasons for founding the text upon the folio of 1623, which is, in truth, to found it upon the quarto of 1599, are as follows : — The quarto of 1599 was declared to be " Newly corrected, augmented, and amended." There can be no doubt whatever that the corrections, augmentations, and emendations were those of the author. There are typographical errors in this edition, and in all the editions, and occasional confusions of the metrical arrangement, which render it more than probable that Shakspere did not see the proofs of his printed works. But that the copy, both of the first edition and of the second, was derived from him, is, to our minds, perfectly certain. We know of nothing in literary history more curious or more instructive than the example of minute attention, as well as consummate skUl, exhibited by Shakspere in correcting, augmenting, and amending the first copy of this play. We would ask, then, upon what canon of criticism can an editor be justified in foisting into a copy Tragedies Vol. I. B 3
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
so corrected, passages of the original copy, which the matured judgment of the author had re- jected ? Essentially the question ought not to be determined by any arbitrement whatever other than the judgment of the author. Even if his corrections did not appear, in every case, to be im- provements, we should be still bound to receive them with respect and deference. We would not, indeed, attempt to establish it as a rule implicitly to be followed, that an author's last corrections are to be invariably adopted ; for, as in the case of Cowper's Homer, and Tasso's Jerusalem, the corrections which these poets made in their first productions, when their faculties were in a great degree clouded and worn out, are properly considered as not entitled to supersede what they pro- duced in brighter and happier hours. Mr. Southey has admirably stated the reason for this in the advertisement to his edition of Cowper's Homer. But in the case of Shakspere's Romeo and Juliet, the corrections and augmentations were made by him at that epoch of his life when he exhibited " all the graces and facilities of a genius in full possession and habitual exercise of power."* The augmentations, with one or two very trifling exceptions, are amongst the most masterly passages in the whole play, and include many of the lines that are invariably turned to, as some of the highest examples of poetical beauty. These augmentations, further, are so large in their amount, that in Steevens' reprint, the first edition occupies only seventy-three pages; while the edition of 1609, in the same volume, printed in the same type as the first edition, occupies ninety-nine pages. The corrections are made with such exceeding judgment, such marvellous tact, that of themselves they completely overthrow the theory, so long submitted to, that Shak- spere was a careless writer. We have furnished abundant evidence of this in our foot notes, in which we have exhibited some of the more remarkable of the amended passages, and have indi- cated the most important augmentations. Such being the case, we consider ourselves justified in treating the labour of Steevens and other editors, in making a patchwork text out of the author's first and second copies, as utterly worthless ; and we have, therefore, in nearly every instance, rejected the passages from the first copy, wliich these editors, to use their own word, have recovered to swell out the second copy, as mere surplusage which the author had himself rejected. We have, of course, indicated these changes from the commonly received text; but we will just present one example here, and we purposely select a familiar one.
In the scene where the Nurse and Peter encounter Romeo and his friends in the street, their first words are thus given in the editions of Johnson and Steevens, of Reed, and of Malone, and are copied, of course, in all the popular editions : —
" Nurse. Peter! Peter. Anon! Nurse. My fan, Peter. Mercutio. Pr'ythee, do, good Peter, to hide her face."
In Shakspere's own corrected edition of 1599, there is no '■'■ pr'ythee, do." How comes it, then, into Johnson and Steevens ? Through an adulteration of two texts. In the original copy of 1597, the Nurse, instead of "Peter, my fan," says, "Peter, pr'ythee, give me my fan," and Mercutio, in raillery, adds, " Pr'ythee, do, good Peter." Each of Shakspere's own readings is obviously good : but the mixing up of the two readings by the modern editors is obviously nonsense. But this is not all that Steevens has "recovered" in the matter of this fan. In the first copy the scene concludes with,
" Nurse. Peter, take ray fan and go before."
In the second copy, Shakspere wisely thought that it was enough to make the people laugh once at Peter and the fan, and he, therefore, substitutes for the above line,
" Nurse. Before and apace."
The modern editors do not agree with Shakspere, and they "recover" out of the first quarto the line which Shakspere rejected. But enough of this. We have no wish to depreciate the labours of our predecessors. We thoroughly agree with Southey, that "though in their cumbrous annotations the last labourer always added more rubbish to the heaps which his predecessors had accumulated, they did good service by directing attention to our earlier literature. "f We most readily acknowledge our own particular obligations to them ; for, unless they had collected a great mass of materials, the
* t'olci'idgc's Literary Remains. t Life of Cowpcr, vol. ii. p. 178.
4
ROMEO AND JULIET.
present edition could not have been undertaken. But we, nevertheless, cannot conceal our opinion, that as editors they were rash, and as critics they were cold and unimaginative; and we hold it to be the highest duty to attempt to undo what they have done, when they approach their author, as in their manufacture of a text for Romeo and Juliet, "without reverence." We believe, as they did not, " that his own judgment is entitled to more respect than that of any or all his critics;"* and we shall attempt to vindicate that judgment on every occasion, upon the great prin- ciple laid down by Bentley : — " The point is not what he might have done, but wliat he has done." In attempting to settle the Chronology of Shakspere's plays, there are, as in every other case of literary history, two species of evidence to be regarded — the extrinsic and the intrinsic. Of the former species of evidence we have the one important fact that a Romeo and Juliet by Shakspere, however wanting in the completeness of the Romeo and Juliet which we now possess, was published in 1597. The enumeration of this play, therefore, in the list by Francis Meres, in 1598, adds nothing to our previous information. In the same manner, the mention of this play by Marston, in his tenth satire, first published in 1599, only shows us how popular it was : —
" Luscus, what 's plaid to-day ? i' faith now I know; I see thy lips a broach, from whence doth flow Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo."
The "corrected, amended, and augmented" copy of Romeo and Juliet was printed in 1599 ; and as Marston's tenth satire did not appear in his " Three Books of Satires," first printed in 1598, it is by no means improbable that his mention of the play referred to the improved copy which was in that year being acted by "The Lord Chamberlain his servants." We might here dismiss the extrinsic evidence ; but Malone thinks, contrary to his original opinion of the date of the play, that the statement in the title page of the original quarto, " that it had been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely by the right honourable the Lord Hunsdon his servants," decides that it was first played in 1596. His reasons are these: — Henry Lord Hunsdon, and George Lord Hunsdon, his son, each filled the ofliice of Lord Chamberlain under Elizabeth. Henry, the father, died on the 22nd July, 1596, Shakspere's tompany, during the life of this lord, were called the "Lord Chamberlain's men;" but, according to Malone, they bore this designation, not as being attached to the Lord Chamberlain officially, but as the servants of Lord Hunsdon, whose title, as a nobleman, was merged in that of his office. George Lord Hunsdon was not appointed Lord Chamberlain till April, 1597 ; and in the interval after the death of his father his company of comedians were not the Lord Chamberlain's servants, but Lord Hunsdon's servants. This, no doubt, is decisive as to the play being performed before George Lord Hunsdon ; but it is not in any degree decisive as to the play not having been performed without the advantage of this nobleman's patronage. The first date of the printing of any play of Shakspere goes a very short way to determine the date of its theatrical production. We are very much in the dark as to the mode in which a play passed from one form of publica- tion, that of the theatre, into another form of publication, that of the press. We have no evi- dence to show, in any case, that the original publication through the press, of any of Shakspere's separate plays had the sanction of their author. The editors of the first collected edition of his works call these original publications, "stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors." They would scarcely have ventured so to have designated any of the works if they had been originally published under the author's superintend- ence ; for their assertion could have been easily contradicted, if it had been untrue, by living witnesses. The great probability is, that, when a play had become very popular, it was printed by some means or other — by the people connected with the theatre, or by persons who took down the words at the theatre. It is no evidence, therefore, to our minds, that because the Romeo and Juliet first printed in 1597 is stated to have been publicly acted by the Lord Hunsdon his servants, it was not publicly acted long before, under circumstances that would appear less attractive in the bookseller's title page.
Of th<i positive intrinsic evidence of the date of Romeo and Juliet, the play, as it appears to us, only furnishes one passage, to which we shall presently more particularly advert. Chalmers has, indeed, given three passages from Daniel's "Complaint of Rosamond," first printed in 1592,
* Southey (speaking of Cowper).
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
which appear a little like imitations either of Daniel by Shakspere, or of Shakspere by Daniel. Malone has also given another passage from the old comedy of "Doctor DodipoU," which has some similarity to the speech of Juliet, " take him and cut him out in little stars." If the Romeo and Juliet were produced before these pieces, which we believe, the resemblances Avould not be close enough to justify us in saying that their authors borrowed from Shakspere ; and they con- sequently have as little weight with us to fix the date of the play after their production.
The one piece of intrinsic evidence to which we have referred is this. The Nurse, describing the time when Juliet was weaned, says,
" On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen ; That shall she, marry ; I remember it well. 'T is since the earthquake now eleven years ;
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall,
jn « * « « * * Shake, quoth the dove-house; 'twas no need, I trow, To bid me trudge. And since that time it is eleven years."
All this particularity with reference to the earthquake,
I never shall forget it, —
Of all the days of the year" —
was for the audience. The poet had to exhibit the minuteness with which unlettered people, and old people in particular, establish a date, by reference to some circumstance which has made a particular impression upon their imagination ; but in this case he chose a circumstance which would be familiar to his audience, and would have produced a corresponding impression upon themselves. Tyrwhitt was the first to point out that this passage had, in all probability, a refe- rence to the great earthquake which happened in England in 1580. Stow has described this earthquake minutely in his Chronicle, and so has Holinshed. " On the sixth of April, 1 580, being Wednesday in Easter week, about six o'clock toward evening, a sudden earthquake happening in London, and almost generally throughout all England, caused such an amazedness among the people as was wonderful for the time, and caused them to make their earnest prayers to Almighty God !" The circumstances attendant upon this earthquake show that the remembrance of it would not have easily passed away from the minds of the people. The great clock in the palace at West- minster, and divers other clocks and bells, struck of themselves against the hammers with the shaking of the earth. The lawyers supping in the Temple "ran from the tables, and out of their halls, with their knives in their hands." The people assembled at the theatres rushed forth into the fields lest the galleries should fall. The roof of Christ Church near to Newgate-market was so shaken, that a large stone dropt out of it, killing one person, and mortally wounding another, it being sermon time. Chimneys toppled down, houses were shattered. Shakspere, therefore, could not have mentioned an earthquake with the minuteness of the passage in the Nurse's speech without immediately calling up some associations in the minds of his audience. He knew the double world in which an excited audience lives, — the half belief in the world of poetry amongst which they are placed during a theatrical representation, and the half conscious, ness of the external world of their ordinary life. The ready disposition of every audience to make a transition from the scene before them to the scene in which they ordinarily move, — to assimilate what is shadowy and distant with what is distinct and at hand, — is perfectly well known to all who are acquainted with the machinery of the drama. Actors seize upon the principle to perpetrate the grossest violations of good taste ; and authors who write for present applause invariably do the same when they offer us, in their dialogue, a passing allusion, which is techni- cally called a clap-trap. In the case before us, even if Shakspere had not this principle in view, the association of the English earthquake must have been strongly in his mind when he made the Nurse date from an earthquake. Without reference to the circumstance of Juliet's age,
" Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen ;
he would naturally, dating from the earthquake, have made the date refer to the period of his 6
ROMEO AND JULIET.
writing the passage instead of the period of Juliet's being weaned : — "Then she could stand alone." But, according to the Nurse's chronology, Juliet had not arrived at that epoch in the lives of children till she was three years old. The very contradiction shows that Shakspere had another object in view than that of making the Nurse's chronology tally with the age of her nursling. Had he written —
" 'T is since the earthquake ao^just thirteen years,"
we should not have been so ready to believe that Romeo and Juliet was written in 1593 ; but as he has written —
" 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years,"
in defiance of a very obvious calculation on the part of the Nurse, we have no doubt that he wrote the passage eleven years after the earthquake of 1580, and that the passage being also meant to fix the attention of an audience, the play was produced, as well as written, in 1591.
Reasoning such as this would, we acknowledge, be very weak if it were unsupported by evi- dence deduced from the general character of the performance, with reference to the maturity of the author's powers. But, taken in connexion with that evidence, it becomes important. Now, we have no hesitation in believing, although it would be exceedingly difficult to communicate the grounds of our belief fully to our readers, that the alterations made by Shakspere upon his first copy of Romeo and Juliet, as printed in 1597 (which alterations are shown in his second copy as printed in 1599), exhibit differences as to the quality of his mind— differences in judgment— difiierences in the cast of thought — differences in poetical power — which cannot be accounted for by the growth of his mind during two years only. If the first Romeo and Juliet were produced in 1591, and the second in 1599, we have an interval of eight years, in which some of his most finished works had been given to the world ; — all his great historical plays, except Henry V. and Henry VIII., the Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Merchant of Venice. Duiing this period his richness, as well as his sweetness, had been developed ; and it is this development which is so remarkable in the superadded passages in Romeo and Juliet. We almost fancy that the " Queen Mab" speech will of itself furnish an example of what we mean.
" Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut. Made by the joiner Squirrel, or old Grub, , Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers."
These lines are not in the first copy ; but how beautifully they fit in after the description of the spokes — the cover — the traces — the collars — the whip — and the waggoner ; while, in their pecu- liarly rich and picturesque effect, they stand out before all the rest of the passage. Then, the " I have seen the day — * * * 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone," of old Capulet, seems to speak more of the middle-aged than of the youthful poet, of whom all the passages by which it is sur- rounded are characteristic. Again, the lines in the friar's soliloquy, beginning
" The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb,"
look like the work of one who had been reading and thinking more deeply of nature's mys- teries, than in his first delineation of the benevolent philosophy of this good old man. But, as we advance in the play, the development of the writer's powers is more and more displayed in his additions. The examples are far too numerous for us to particularize many of them. The critical reader may trace what has been added by our foot notes. We would especially direct attention to the soliloquy of Juliet in the fifth scene of Act II. ; — to her soliloquy, also, in the second Scene of Act III. ; — and to her great soliloquy, before taking the draught, in the fourth Act. We have given this last passage as it stood in the original copy ; and we confidently believe that whoever peruses it with attention will entertain little doubt that the original sketcli was the work of a much younger man than the perfect composition which we now possess. The whole of the magnificent speech of Romeo in the tomb may be said to be re-written : and it produces m us precisely the same impression, that it was the work of a genius much more mature than that which is exhibited in the original copy.
Tieck, who, as a translator of Shakspere, and as a profound and beautiful critic, has done very much for cultivating the knowledge, built upon love, which the Germans possess of our poet, has
7
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
not been trammelled by Malone and Chalmers, buthas placed Romeo and Juliet amongst Shakspere's early plays. We have no exact statements on this subject by Tieck ; but, in a very delightful imaginary scene between Marlowe and Greene, he has made Marlowe describe to his brother dramatist the first performance of Romeo and Juliet to which he had been witness.* Tieck has made this imaginary conversation a vehicle for the most enthusiastic praise of this play. Marlowe describes the performance as taking place at the palace of the Lord Hunsdon. He had expected, he says, that one of his own plays would have been performed ; but he found that it was " that old poem, which we have all long known, worked up into a tragedy." After Marlowe has run through the general characteristics of the play, with an eloquent admiration, mingled with deep regret that he himself had been able to approach so distantly the excellence of that " out-sounding mouth, which a god-like muse has herself inspired with the sweetest of her kisses," he thus replies to Greene's inquiry as to who was the poet : — " Wilt thou believe ? — one of Henslow's common comedians, who has already served him many years on very low wages." " And now, if thy fever has passed," said Greene, " let us look on this thing in the broad light. This is merely such a passing apparition as we have seen many of before — admired, gaped at, praised without limit, — but full of faults and imperfections, and soon to be altogether forgotten." " The same thing," said Marlowe, " the same words were whispered to me by my base envy, Avhen I observed the universal delight, the deep emotion, of every spectator. I endeavoured to comfort myself therewith, and again to recover my lost honours in tliis miserable manner. I fled from the company ; and the house-steward, who had acted as an assistant, gave me the manuscript of the play. In my lonely chamber I sat and read the whole night, and read again, — and each time admu-ed the more ; for much that had appeared to me episodical or superfluous, acquired, on more exact examination, a significancy and needful fulness. The good house-steward gave me also another poem, which the author has not yet quite completed, Venus and Adonis, that I might read it in my nightly leisure. My friend, even here, even in this sweet narrative, — even in this soft speech and voluptuous imagery, — in this intoxicating realm, where I, till now, only looked upon likenesses of myself, — I am completely, completely, beaten. O this man, this more than mortal, to him (I feel as if my life depends on it) I must become the most intimate friend or the most bitter enemy. Either I will yet find my way to him, or I will succumb to this Apollo, and he may then speak over my out- stretched corpse the last words of praise or blame." We have given this account of Tieck's dialogue on the Romeo and Juliet, — first, that we might have the pleasure of making this lover of Shakspere known to those of our readers who are unacquainted with his works ; and, secondly, that we might corroborate our own views of the Chronology of Romeo and Juliet by his autho- rity. He has decidedly placed the date of its performance before 1592, — for Greene died in that year, and Marlowe in the year following. The Venus and Adonis, which is here mentioned as not quite completed, was published in 1593. Tieck built his opinion, no doubt, upon internal evidence ; and upon this evidence we must be content to let the question rest.
Supposed Source op the Plot. When Dante reproaches the Emperor Albert for neglect of Italy, — ■
" Thy sire and thou have suffer'd thus.
Through greediness of yonder realms detain'd, The garden of the empire to run waste," —
He adds, —
" Come, see the Capulets and Montagues, The Filippeschi and Monaldi, man. Who car'st for nought! those sunk in grief, and these With dire suspicion rack'd."t
The Capulets and Montagues were amongst the fierce spirits who, according to the poet, had rendered Italy " savage and unmanageable." The Emperor Albert was murdered in 1308 ; and
* Dichterleben, von Tieck. Berlin, 1828, p. 128, &c. f Purgatory, Canto G. Cari/s translation.
8
ROMEO AND JULIET.
the Veronese, who believe the story of Romeo and Juliet to be historically true, fix the date of this tragedy as 1309. At that period the Scalas, or Scaligers, ruled over Verona.
If the records of history tell us little of the fair Capulet and her loved Montague, whom Shak- spere has made immortal, the novelists have seized upon the subject, as might be expected, from its interest and its obscurity. Massuccio, a Neapolitan, who lived about 1470, was, it is sup- posed, the writer who first gave a somewhat similar story the clothing of a connected fiction. He places the scene at Sienna, and, of course, there is no mention of the Montagues and Oapulets. The story, too, of Massuccio varies in its catastrophe ; the bride recovering from her lethargy, produced by the same means as in the case of Juliet ; aud the husband being executed for a mur- der which had caused him to fiee from his country. Mr. Douce has endeavoured to trace back the ground-work of the tale to a Greek romance by Xenophon Ephesius. Luigi da Porto, of Vicenza, gave a connected form to the legend of Romeo and Juliet, in a novel, under the title of " La Giuletta," which was published after his death in 1535. Luigi, in an epistle which is pre- fixed to this work, states that the story was told him by " an archer of mine, whose name was Peregrine, a man about fifty years old, well practised in the military art, a pleasant companion, and, like almost all his countrymen of Verona, a great talker." Bandello, in 1554, published a novel on the same subject, the ninth of his second collection. It begins " when the Scaligers were lords of Verona," and goes on to say that these events happened " under Bartholomew Scaliger" (Bartolomeo della Scala). The various materials to be found in these sources were embodied in a French novel by Pierre Boisteau, a translation of which was published by Painter in his Palace of Pleasure, in 1567 ; and upon this French story was founded the English poem by Arthur Brooke, published in 1562, under the title of " The tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, written first in Italian by Bandell, and nowe in Englishe by Ar. Br." It appears highly pro- ^able that an English play upon the same subject had appeared previous to Brooke's poem ; for a copy of that poem, which was in the possession of the Rev. H. White, of Lichfield, contains the following passage, in an address to the reader: "Though I saw the same argument lately set forth on the stage with more commendation than I can look for : being there much better set foorth than I have or can dooe, yet the same matter penned as it is may serve to lyke good effect, if the readers do brynge with them lyke good myndes, to consider it, which hath the more in- couraged me to publish it, suche as it is." We thus see that Shakspere had materials enough to work upon. But in addition to these sources, there is a play by Lope de Vega in which the in- cidents are very similar; and an Italian tragedy also by Luigi Groto which Mr. Walker, ui his Historical memoir of Italian tragedy, thinks that the English bard read with profit. Mr. Walker gives us passages in support of his assertion, such as a description of a nightingale when the lovers are parting, which appear to confirm this opinion.
To attempt to shew, as many have attempted, what Shakspere took from the poem of the Romeus and Juliet, and what from Painter's Palace of Pleasure — how he was "wretchedly misled in his catastrophe," as Mr. Dunlop has it, because he had not read Luigi da Porto — and how he invented only one incident throughout the play, that of the death of Paris, and created only one character, that of Mercutio, according to the sagacious Mrs. Lenox — appears to us somewhat idle work. At any rate, we have not space to attempt such illustrations, beyond giving one or two examples of the old poem in our notes.
Period of the Action, and Manners.
The slight foundation of historical truth which can be established in the legend of Romeo and Juliet— that of the "civU broils" of the two rival houses of Verona— would place the period of the action about the time ofDante. But this one circumstance ought not, as it appears to us, very strictly to limit this period. The legend is so obscure, that we may be justified in carrying its date forward or backward, to the extent even of a century, if anything may be gained by such a free- dom. In this case, we may venture to associate the story with the period which followed the times of Petrarch and Boccaccio — verging towards the close of the fourteenth century — a period full of rich associations. Then, the literary treasures of the ancient world had been rescued out of the dust
Tragedies. — Vol. I. C 9
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
and darkness of ages, — the language of Italy had been formed, in great part, by the marvellous " Visions" of her greatest poet; painting had been revived by Giotto and Cimabue ; architecture had put on a character of beauty and majesty, and the first necessities of shelter and defence had been associated with the higher demands of comfort and taste ; sculpture had displayed itself in many beautiful productions, both in marble and bronze ; and music had been cultivated as a science. All these were the growth of the freedom which prevailed in the Italian republics, and of the wealth which had been acquired by commercial enterprise, under the impulses of freedom. To date the period of the action of Romeo and Juliet before this revival of learning and the arts, would be to make its accessories out of harmony with the exceeding beauty of Shakspere's drama. Even if a slight portion of historical accuracy be sacrificed, his poetry must be surrounded with an appropriate atmosphere of grace and richness.
Of the Manners of this play we have occasionally spoken in our Illustrations. With the exception of a few English allusions, which are introduced for a particular object, they are thoroughly Italian. Mrs. Jameson has noticed the " sunny brilliance of effect," with which the whole of this drama is lighted up ; and she adds, with equal truth and elegance, " the blue sky of Italy bends over aU."
Costume.
Assuming, as we have done, that the incidents of this tragedy took place (at least traditionally) at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the costume of the personages represented would be that exhibited to us in the paintings of Giotto and his pupils or contemporaries.
From a drawing of the former, now in the British Museum (Payne Knight's Collect.), and pre- sumed to have been executed by him at Avignon, in 1313, we give the accompanying engraving, and our readers will perceive that it interferes sadly with all popular notions of the dress of this play.
The long robes of the male personages, so magisterial or senatorial in their appearance, would, perhaps, when composed of rich materials, be not unsuitable to the gravity and station of the elder Montague and Capulet, and of the Prince, or Podesta, of Verona himself: but, for the younger and lighter characters, the love-lorn Romeo, the fiery Tybalt, the gallant gay Mercutio, &c., some very diff'erent habit would be expected by the million, and, indeed, desired by the artist. Caesar Vecellio, in his " Habiti Antichi e Moderni," presents us with a dress of this time, which he distinctly describes as that of a young nobleman in a love-making expedition.
" Habito Anlico di Giovani nobile ornato per far Vamore^
10
ROMEO AND JULIET.
He assigns no particular date to it, but the pointed cowl, or hood, depending from the shoul- ders, the closely-set buttons down tlie front of the super-tunic, and up the arms of the under- garment, from the wrist to the elbow, with the peculiar lappet to the sleeve of the super-tunic, are all distinctive marks of the European costume of the early part of the fourteenth century, and to be found in any illuminated French or English MS. of the time of our Edward II., 1307-27, and still earlier, of course, in Italy, from whence the fashions travelled northward, through Paris to London.
The coverings for the head were, at this time, besides the capuchon, or cowl here seen, caps and hats of various fantastic shapes, and the chaperon, or turban-shaped hood, began to make its appearance (vide second male figure in the engraving after Giotto). No plumes, however, adorned them till near the close of the century, when a single feather, generally ostrich, appears placed upright in front of the cap, or chaperon. The hose were richly fretted and embroidered with gold, and the toes of the shoes long and pointed.
The female costume of the same period consisted of a robe, or super-tunic, flowing in graceful folds to the feet, coming high up in the neck, where it was sometimes met by the wimple, or gorget, of white linen, giving a nun-like appearance to the wearer ; the sleeves terminating at the elbow, in short lappets, like those of the men, and shewing the sleeve of the under-garment (the kirtle, which fitted the body tightly), buttoned from the wrist to the elbow also, as in the male costume.
The hair was gathered up into a sort of club behind, braided in front, and covered, wholly or partially, with a caul of golden net-work. Garlands of flowers, natural, or imitated in gold- smiths' work, and plain filets of gold, or even ribbon, were worn by very young females. We shall say no more respecting the costume of this play, as the introduction of such a masquerade as is indispensable to the plot, would be inconsistent with the dressing of the other characters correctly. Artists of every description are, in our opinion, perfectly justified in clothing the dramatis personse of this tragedy in the habits of the time in which it was written, by which means all serious anachronisms would be avoided.
11
PROLOGUE.
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 fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life ; Whose misadventur'd 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.
ACT I.
SCENE I.— A Public Place,
Enter Sampson and Gregory, armed with swords and bucklers.
Sam. Gregory, o'my word, we'll not carry coals.*
Gre. No, for then we should be colliers.
Sam. I mean, if we be in choler, we '11 draw.
Crre. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of the collar.
Sam. I strike quickly, being moved.
Ch-e. 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 mov'd, thou run'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 shews thee a weak slave ; for the weakest goes to the wall.
Sam. True ; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall : — therefore I will push Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.
Gre. The quarrel is between our masters, and us their men.
» The first quarto of 1597, which we mark as (A), " Stand to it."
13
Act I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene I,
Sam. 'Tisall one, I will shew myself atyrant : when I have fought with the men, I will be civil * with the maids, and cut off their heads.
Gre. The heads of the maids ?
Sam. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads ; take it in what sense thou wilt.
Gre. They must take it sense, •• that feel it.
Sam. Me they shall feel, while I am able to stand: and 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
Gre. 'T is well, thou art not fish ; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John.^ Draw thy tool ; here comes'* of the house of the Monta- gues.'^
Enter Abram and Balthasar.
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 !
Sam. Let us take the law of our sides ; 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 f which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.
Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. I do bite my thumb, sir.
Abr, Do you bite your thumb at us, sir ?
Sam. Is the law of our side, if I say — ay ?
Ch-e. No.
Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.
Crre. Do you quarrel, sir ?
Abr. Quarrel, sir ? no, sir.
Sam. If you do, sir, I am for you ; I serve as good a man as you.
Abr. No better.
Sam. "Well, sir.
Enter Benvolio, at a distance.
Ch-e. Say — better; here comes one of my master's kinsmen.
Sam. Yes, better.
Abr. You lie.
Sam. Draw, if you be men. — Gregory, re- member thy swashing blow." [^Theyjight.
Ben. Part, fools ; put up your swords ; you know not what you do.
\^Beats down their swords.
» The undated quarto, which we mark as (D), cruel.
^ {A), In sense.
' Poor John. Hake, dried and salted.
^ {A), two of the house.
14
Enter Tybalt,
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, draw,^ and talk of peace? I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee : Have at thee, coward. [They fight.
Enter several partizans of both houses, who Join the fray ; then enter Citizens, with clubs. 1 at. Clubs, bUls, and partizans!* strike! beat them down ! Down with the Capulets ! down with the Mon- tagues !
EnterCKWJSET, inhisgown; and Lady Cavulet, Cap. What noise is this ? — Give me my long
sword, ho ! La. 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 me go. La. Mon. Thou shalt not stir a foof" to seek
a foe.
Enter Prince, with Attendants. Prin. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel, — 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 Throw yourmistemper'd weapons to the ground, And hear the sentence of your moved prince. Three civil broils,'' 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 partizans, in hands as old. Canker' d with peace, to part your canker'd
hate: If ever you disturb our streets again, Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
» The quarto of 1609, which we mark as (C), drawn, ^ (C), one foot. "^ (C), brawls.
Act I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene I.
For this time, all the rest depart away : You, Capulet, shall go along with me ; And, Montague, come you this afternoon. To know our farther* pleasure in this case, To old Free-town, our common judgment-place. Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. lExeunt Prince and Attendants; Capulet, Lady Capulet, 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 adver- sary, 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. Tin the prince came, who parted either part.
La. 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 this 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, — "^ 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;
» So (^). The folio and (C),/atter's. ^ (,A), I am.
" So {A). The folio and (C) have
" By my own. Which then most sought, where most might not be found. Being one too many by my weary self, Pursued my humour."
The restoration of the first reading is clearly an improvement.
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. Ben. Have you importun'd him by any
means? Mon. Both by myself, and many others, friends : But he, his own affections' counsellor, Is to himself — I wiU 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 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 '11 know liis grievance, or be much denied.
Mon. 1 would thou wert so happy by thy stay, To hear true shrift. — Come, madam, let's away! [Exeunt Montague and Lady. Ben. Good morrow, cousin. Bom. Is the day so young ?
Ben. But new struck nine. Bom. Ah me ! sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast? Ben, It was : — What sadness lengthens Ro- meo's hours? Bom. Not having that, which, having, makes
them short. Ben. In love? Bom. Out — Ben. Of love?
Bom. Out of her favour, where I am in love.
Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
Bom. Alas, that love, whose view is muflled
still.
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will !
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 wfth hate, but more with love : —
^ The first ten beautiful lines of Montague's speech are not in the original quarto ; neither is Beuvolio's question, " Have you importun'd him ?" nor the answer. We find them in (B), the quarto of 1 599.
•> The folio and (C) read Sfljrec. Theobald gave us swn y and we could scarcely wish to restore the old reading, even if the probability of a typographical error, satne for sunne, were not so obvious.
15
Act I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene 11.
Why then, O brawling love ! O loving hate ! ? O any thing, of nothing first created ! * O heavy lightness ! serious vanity ! Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms ! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick
health ! Still- waking sleep, that is not what it is ! — This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh ?
Ben. No, coz, I rather weep.
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 prest With more of thine : this love, that thou hast
shewn, Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke made ^ with the fume of sighs ; Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes ; Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with loving' tears : What is it else ? a madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. Farewell, my coz. [ Going.
Ben. Soft, I will go along ;
An 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, who is thaf^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 urg'd to one that is so ill ! — In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
Ben. I aim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd.
Rom. A right good mark's-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 '11 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 un-
harm'd.*' She will not stay the siege of loving terms, Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes, Nor open her lap to saint-seducing gold :
* (A), create. The modern editors have adopted this : but it introduces, improperly, a couplet amidst the blank verse.
•> {A), raised. "^ (A), raging with a lover's tears.
d (A), who?n she is.
' So (A). The folio and (C), "A sick man in sadness makes."
f So (,A). The folio and (,€), uncharm'd.
16
O, she is rich in beauty ; only poor.
That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store."
Ben. Then she hath sworn, that she will still live chaste ?
Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste ; For beauty, starv'd 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 rul'd 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 : These 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 : Shew 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? Farewell : thou canst not teach me to forget.
Ben. I '11 pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
l^Exeunt. SCENE 11.—^ Street. Enter Cai'TJlet, Paris, and Servant.
Cap. And*" Montague is bound as well as I, In penalty alike ; and 't is not hard, I think. For men so old as we to keep the peace.
Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both ; And pity 't is, you liv'd 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 made. Earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she, She is the hopeful lady of my earth :'
» The scene ends here in (A) ; and the first three lines in the next scene are also wanting. {B) has tliem.
b So ID). The folio omits And.
<^ Ladi/ of my earth. Fille de terre, being the French phrase for an heiress, Steevens thinks that Capulet speaks of Juliet in this sense; but Shakspere uses earth for the mortal part, as in the 146th Sonnet: —
" Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth," and in this play,
" Turn back, dull earth."
Act I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene II.
But WOO her gentle Paris, get her heart, 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
light: Such comfort, as do lusty young men feel When well apparell'd April on the heel Of limping winter treads,'" even such delight Among fresh female buds shall you this night Inherit at my house ; hear all, all see, And like her most, whose merit most shall be : Which on more'' view of many, mine, being
one, May stand in number, though in reckoning none. Come, go with me ; — (io, sirrah, trudge about Through fair Verona ; find those persons out. Whose names are written there, [^(jives a paper.^
and to them say. My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. [£Jzeunt Capulet and Pauis. 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 per- sons, whose names are 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.
lien. Tut, man ! one fire burns out another's burning.
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desj)erate grief cures with another's lan- guish:
• My wiU to her consent. In proportion to, or with refer- ence to, her consent.
^ Earth-treading stars, Sgc. Warburlon calls this line nonsense, and would read,
" Earth-treading stars that make dark even light." Monck Mason would read,
" Earth-treading stars that make dark, heaven's lipht," that is, stars that make the light of heaven appear dark in comparison with them. It appears to us unnecessary to alter the original reading, and espt^cially as passages in the masquerade scene would seem to indicate that the banquet- ting room opened into a garden— as,
" Her beauty hangs upon the cheek <if night."
' So the folio and (C), with the exception of one for on. (A), Such, amtmgst view of many.
Tracedies. — Vol. I. 1)
Take thou some new infection to the cj^e, And the rank poison of the old will die.
Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for
that.'' Ben. For what, I pray thee ? Horn. 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-e'en,good fellow. 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 lan- guage. Serv. Ye say honestly ; Rest you merry ! Rom. Stay, fellow: I can read. [Reads. Signor Martino, and his wife and daugliler ; Count}/ Anselme, and his beauteous sisters ; the lady widow «/" Vitruvio ; Sigimr Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine ; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters ; My fair niece Rosaline ; Livia ; Signor 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 to supper?* Serv. To our house. Rom. Whose house ? 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 Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry.
[Kxit. Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st; With all the admired beauties of Verona: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall shew. And I will make thee think thy swan a crow. Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye Mainttiins such falsehood, then turn tears to fires!
" So all the early editions, to the servant.
'ITieobald gives " To supper''
17
Act 1.3
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene 111.
And these, — who, often (Irown'd, could never die, —
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars ! One faii-er than my love ! the all-seeing sun Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.
Ben. Tut! you saw her fan-, none else being
by,
Herself pois'd with herself in either eye : But in that crystal scales," let there be weigh'd Your lady's love against some other maid That I will shew you, shining at this feast. And she shall scant shew well, that now shews best. Rom. I '11 go along, no such sight to be shewn, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.
\^Exeunt.
SCENE III.— -4 Room in Capulet's House. Enter Lady Capxtlet and Ntjbsb. La. Cap. Nurse, where 's my daughter ? call
her forth to me. Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead, — at twelve year old, — I bade her come. — What, lamb ! what, lady- bird !— God forbid! — 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 ?
La. Cap. This is the matter: — Nurse, give leave awhile. We must talk in secret. — Nurse, come back
again ; I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our
counsel. Thou know'st, my daughter 's of a pretty age.
Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
La. Cap. She 's not fourteen.
Nurse. I '11 lay fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen*" be it spoken, I have but
four, — She is not fourteen. — How long is it now To Lammas-tide ?
La. Cap. A fortnight and odd days.
Nurse. ^ Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen . Susan and she, — God rest all Christian souls ! —
' Scales — used as'a singular noun.
b Teen. Sorrow.
■^ The speeches of the Nurse, from hence, are given as prose in all the early editions. Capell had'the great merit of first printing them as verse ; and not ' erroneously,' as Boswell appears to think, for there is not in all Shakspere a passage in which the rhythm is more happily characteristic.
18
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 it well. 'T is 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 the 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 with the dug. Shake, quote the dove-house : 't was no need, I
trow, 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. For even the day before, she broke her brow : And then my husband — God be with his soul! 'A was a merry man ! — took up the child : Yea, quoth he, dost thou fall upon thy face ? Thou wilt fall backward, when thou hast more
wit; Wilt thou not, Jule? and, by my holy dam. The pretty wretch left crying, and said — Ay: To see now, how a jest shall come about ! I warrant, an I should live a thousand years, I never should forget it ; Wilt thou not, Jule ?
quoth he : And, pretty fool, it stinted, '' and said — Ay. La. Cap. Enough of this ; I pray thee, hold
thy peace. Nurse. Yes, madam; yet I cannot choose but laugh, To think it should leave crying, and say — Ay: And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow A bump as big as a young cockrel's stone ; A parlous*^ knock; and it cried bitterly. Yea, quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face ? Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com'st to
age; Wilt thou not, Jule? it stinted, and said — Ay.
» Bear a brain. Have a memory — a common expression, b It stinted. It stopped. Thus (iascoigne, —
" Then stinted she as if her song were done." To stmt is used in an active sigiiification for to stop. Thus in those tine linos in Titus Andronicus, which it is diflficult to believe any other than Shakspere wrote, " The eagle suffers little birds to sing.
And is not careful what they mean thereby. Knowing that with the shadow of his wing He can at pleasure stint their melody." What a picture of a despot in his intervals of self-satisfying forbearance!
<^ Parlozis. A corruption of the word perilous, which word is given in the folio. The parlous of the earlier copies is more in the Nurse's manner.
Act 1.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene IV.
Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd : An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.
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, I was a 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.
La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he 's a flower ; in faith, a very flower.
La. Cap. ''What say you? can you love the gentleman ? This night you shall behold him at our feast : Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,'^ And find delight Avrit there with beauty's pen ; Examine every several": lineament. And see how one another lends content; And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies. Find written in the margin of his eyes. This precious book of love, this unbound lover, To beautify him, only lacks a cover : The fish lives in the sea ; and 't is much pride, For fair without the fair within to hide : That book in mauy'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.
Nurse. No less? nay, bigger; women grow by men.
La. Cap. Speakbriefly, canyon like of Paris' love ?
Jul. I '11 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.
* So {A). The folio and (C) have hmtr, both in Juliet's and the Nurse's speeches.
*> The next seventeen lines are wanting in (A).
' (B) married; which reading has been adopted by Stee- vens and Malone, in preference to several, in the folio and (Q.
Enter a Servant.
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.— ^ Street.
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with Five or Six Maskers, Torch-Bearers, and others.
Horn. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse ? Or shall we on without apology ?
Ben. The date is out of such prolixity : We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'dwith a scarf," Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath. Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper ; Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke After the prompter, for our entrance : * But, let them measure us by what they will. We '11 measure them a measure, ^^ and be gone. Rom. Give me a torch,!'' — 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.
Mer. You are a lover ; borrow Cupid's wings. And soar with them above a common bound.
Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft, To soar with his light feathers ; and to bound — '» I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe : Under love's heavy burthen do I sink. Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burthen love : Too great oppression for a tender thing.
Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough.
Too rude, tooboist'rous; 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 These two lines in (^A), are omitted in the subsequent old editions, b To bound, in folio; so bound, in (C).
19
Act I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene IV.
A visor for a visor! — what care I, What curious eye doth quote* deformities? Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me. Ben. Come, knock, and enter ; and no sooner in, But every man betake him to his legs.
Rom, A torch for me : let wantons, light of heart. Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels ;^' For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase, — I '11 be a candle-holder, and look on, — The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done. Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse,'* the constable's own word: If thou art dun, we '11 draw thee from the mire Of this, sir reverence,'^ love,*" wherein thou
stick' st Up to the ears. — Come, we burn day-light, ho. Rom. Nay, that 's not so. Mer. I mean, sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, lights, lights, by
day.^ Take our good meaning; for our judgment sits Five times in that, ere once in our five wits. Rom. And we mean well in going to this mask; But 't is no wit to go.
Mer. Why, may one ask ?
Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.
Mer. And so did I.
Rom. Well, what was yours ?
Mer. That dreamers often lie.
Rom. In bed, asleep, wliile they do dream
things true. Mer. O, then, I see, queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife ; and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman,'^ Drawn with a team of little atomies'^ Athwart^ men's noses as they lie asleep: Her waggon- spokes made of long spinners' legs, The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers ; Her traces of the smallest spider's web ; Her collars of the moonshine's watery beams ; Her whip of cricket's bone ; the lash of film: Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid :^ Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut. Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
» Quote. Observe. b Thus {A).
<= {A), like lamps, by day. <i (A), burgmnasler.
° \A), atomy. f Thus {A). )C), and folio, over. B {A), maid; folio and (C), »ja/2,— clearly an error in the latter.
20
Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and then they dream
of love: On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies
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 as 'a lies asleep. Then dreams he of another benefice : Sometimes 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 ears ; at which he starts, and wakes ; And, being thus frighted, swears aprayer 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 hau-s, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs. That presses them, and learns them first to bear. Making them women of good carriage. This is she ''
* A suit. A court solicitation was called a suit ; — a process, a suit at law.
b It is desirable to exhibit the first draft of a performance so exquisitely finished as this celebrated description, in which every word is a study. And yet it is curious, that in the quarto of 1609, and in the folio (from which we print), and in both of which the corrections of the author are apparent, the whole speech is jriven as if it were prose. The original quarto of 1597 gives the passage, as follows : —
" Ah then I see queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife, and doth come In shape no bigger than an agate.stone On the forefinger of a burgomaster. Drawn with a team of little atomy. Athwart men's noses when they lie asleep. Her waggon spokes are made of spinners' webs. The cover of the wings of grasshoppers. The traces are the moonshine watery beams. The collars cricket bones, the lash of films. Her waggoner is a small gray-coated fly Not half so big as is a little worm, Pick'd from the lazy finger of a maid. And in this sort she gallops up and down Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love ; O'er courtiers' knees, who straight on courtesies dream; O'er ladies' lips who dream on kisses straight, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometimes she gallops o'er a lawyer's lap. And then dreams he of smelling out a suit ; And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, Tickling a parson's nose that lies asleep. And then dreams he of another benefice. Sometimes she gallops o'er a soldier's nose. And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats. Of breaches, ambuscadoes, countermines. Of healths five fathom deep, and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
AOT I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene V.
Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace,
Thou talk'st of nothing.
Mer. True, I talk of dreams,
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.
Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves ; Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
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 the term Of a despised life, clos'd 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.
SCENE \,—A Hall in Capulet's House. Musicians ivaiting. Enter Servants.
1 Sei-v. 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 alF in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 't is a foul thing.
\ Sei'v. Away with the joint-stools, remove tlie court- cupboard,-' look to the plate: — good thou, save me a piece of marchpane ;■' and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone, and Nell. — Antony ! and Potpan !
2 Serv. Ay, boy ; ready.
1 Serv. You are looked for, and called for, asked for, and sought for, in the great chamber.
2 Serv. We cannot be here and there too. — Cheerly, boys ; be brisk a while, and the longer liver take all. {They retire behind.
Enter Capulet, ^c. with the Guests, and the Maskers. Cap. Welcome, gentlemen ! ladies that have their toes
And swears a prayer or two, and sleeps again :
This is that Mab that makes maids lie on their backs,
And proves them women of good carriage.
This is the very Mab,
That plaits the manes of horses in the night.
And plaits the elf-locks in foul sluttish hair,
Which once untangled much misfortune breeds."
• Thus (A). (C), and the folio side.
>■ Thus [A). (C), and the folio, suit.
" Thus (C). Folio omits all.
'I Marchpane. A kind of sweet cake or biscuit, some- times called almond cake. Our maccaroons are diminutive marchpanes.
Unplagued witli corns, will have* a bout with
you :— Ah ha, my mistresses ! which of you all Will now deny to dance ? she that makes
dainty, she, I '11 swear, hath corns ; Am I come near ye
now? Welcome, gentlemen ! *' 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 ; — 't is gone, 't is gone,
't is gone : You are welcome, gentlemen! — Come, mu- sicians, play. A hall ! a hall ! give room, and foot it, girls.
{Music plays, and they dance. More light, ye knaves ; and turn the tables up. 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*^ 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.
1 Cap. What, man ! 't is not so much, 't is not
so much : 'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio, Come Pentecost as quickly as it will. Some five -and-t wen ty years; and then we
mask'd.
2 Cap. 'T is more, 't is more: his son is elder,
sir; His son is thirty.
1 Cap. Will you tell me that ?
His son was but a ward two years ago. '
Rom. What lady 's that, which doth enrich the hand 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
* Thus [A). (C) and folio, walk about,
•> This passage, to "More light, ye knaves," is wanting in (A).
"^ Good cousin Capulet. The word cousin, in Shakspere, was applied to any collateral relation of whatever degree ; thus we have in this play "Tybalt, my cousin. Oh my brother's child." Richard the Third calls his nephew York, cousin, while the boy calls Richard, uncle. In the same play, York's grandmother calls him cousin, while he replies grandam.
J Her beauty hangs. All the ancient editions which can be considered authorities — the four quartos and the first folio — read It seems she hangs. The reading of her beauty is from the second folio. Why then, it may be asked, do we depart from our usual principle, and reject an undoubted ancient reading ? Because the reading which we give has become familiar, — has passed into common use wherever our Ian. guagc is spoken, — is quoted in books as frequently as any of the other passages of Shakspere which constantly present themselves as examples of his exquisite power of description.
21
Act I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene V.
As" a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear : Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear ! So shews a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shews. The measure done, I '11 watch her place of stand. And touching hers, make blessed'' my rude
hand. Did my heart love till now ? forswear it, sight ! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
Tyh. This, by his voice, should be a Mon- tague : — 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.
1 Cap. Why, how now, kinsman? where- fore storm you so ?
Tyh. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe ; A villain, that is hither come in spite, To scorn at our solemnity this night.
1 Cap. Young Romeo is't?
Tyb. 'T is he, that villain Romeo.
1 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 the town, Here in my house, do him disparagement : Therefore be patient, take no note of him. It is my wiU ; the which if thou respect, Shew a fair presence, and put off these frowns, An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
Tyh. It fits, when such a villain is a guest; I '11 not endure him.
1 Cap. He shall be endur'd.
What, goodman boy! — I say, he shall; — Go
to ; — Am I the master here, or you? go to. You '11 not endure him ! — God shall mend my
soul — You '11 make a mutiny among my guests ! You will set cock-a-hoop ! * you '11 be the man !
Here, it appears to us, is a higher law to be observed than that of adherence to the ancient copies. It is the same with the celebrated passage,
" Or dedicate his beauty to the sun." All the ancient copies read the same. We believe this to be a misprint : but, even if that could not be alleged, we should feel ourselves justified in retaining the sun. Such instances, of course, present but very rare exceptions to a general rule. » (A), Like. b go (C) and folio. {A), happy.
" Set cock-a-hoop. The origin of this phrase, which ap- pears always to be used in the sense of hasty and violent excess, is very doubtful. The received opinion is, that on some festive occasions the cock, or spigot, was taken out of the barrel and laid on the /looj), and that the uninterrupted flow of the ale naturally led to intemperance.
22
Tyb. Why, uncle, 't is a shame. 1 Cap. Go to, go to,
You are a saucy boy: Is 't so indeed ? This trick may chance to scath* you ; — I know
what. You must contrary'" me ! — marry, 't is time — Well said, my hearts! — You are a princox;*'
go:— Be quiet, or — More light, more light. — For
shame ! I'll make you quiet; What! — Cheerly, my hearts. Tyh. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting Makes my flesh tremble in their different greet- ing. I will withdraw : but this intrusion shall, Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.
[Exit. Mom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand
[To Juliet. This holy shrine, the gentle sin •* is this, — My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a ten- der kiss, Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much. Which mannerly devotion shews in this ; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. Mom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers
too? Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in
prayer. Mom. 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' sake. Mom. Then move not, while my prayers' effect I take. Thus from my lips, by thine "^ my sin is purg'd.
[Kissing her, Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they
have took. Mom. Sin from my lips ? O trespass sweetly urg'd ! Give me my sin again.
°- To scath. To injure.
b ContrAry. Sir Philip Sidney, and many other old writers, use this as a verb.
■= Princox. Coxcomb.
li So all the old copies. Warburton changed sin tojine.
" (A), yours.
Act I.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene V
Jill. You kiss by the 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 nurs'd her daughter, that you talk'd withal; I tell you, — he, that can lay hold of her, Shall have the chinks.
Rom. Is she a Capulet ?
0 dear account ! my life is my foe's debt. Ben. Away, begone ; the sport is at the best. Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest. 1 Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be
gone; We have a trifling foolish banquet towards. » Is it e'en so ? Why, then I thank you all ;
1 thank you, honest gentlemen ; good night : — More torches here! — Come on, then let's to bed. Ah, sirrah, [To 2 Cap.] by my fay, it waxes
late; I '11 to my rest.
\_Ezeunt all but Juliet and Nurse.
* Tozimrds. Ready ; at hand.
Jul. Come hither, nurse : What is yon gen- tleman ? Nurse. The son and lieir of old Tiberio. Jul. What 's he, that now is going out of
door? Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Pe-
truchio. 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 Eomeo, and a Montague ; The only son of your great enemy.
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 loathed enemy. Nurse. What's this? What's this? Jul. A rhyme I learn'd even now
Of one I danc'd withal.
[07ie calls within, "Juliet." Nurse. Anon, anon: —
Come, let 's away ; the strangers all are gone.
\_£xeunf.
Enter Chorus.
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, and would die.
With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair. Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again.
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks; But to his foe suppos'd 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-beloved any where :
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet, Terap'ring extremities with extreme sweet.
[Exit.
2ti
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT L
Verona, the city of Italy, where, next to Rome, the antiquary most luxuriates ; — where, blended with the remains of theatres, and amphitheatres, and tri- umphal arches, are the palaces of the factious nobles, and the tombs of the despotic princes of the Gothic ages ; — Verona, so rich in the associations of real history, has even a greater charm for those who would live in the poetry of the past : —
" Are these the distant turrets of Verona ? And shall I sup where Juliet at the masque Saw her lov'd Montague, and now sleeps by him ?"
So felt our tender and graceful poet, Rogers. He adds, in a note, " The old palace of the Cappelletti, with its uncouth balcony and irregular windows, is still standing in a lane near the market-place ; and what Englishman can behold it with indifference ? When we enter Verona, we forget ourselves, and are almost inclined to say with Dante,
' Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappelletti.' "
' Scene I. — " Gregory, o' my word, tve 'II not carry coals."
To carry coals was to submit to servile oiBces. GiflFord has a note upon a passage in Ben Jonson's " Every man out of his Humour," where Puntarvolo, wanting his dog held, exclaims, " Here comes one that will carry coals," in which note he clearly enough shews the origin of the reproach of carrying coals. " In all great houses, but particularly in the royal residences, there were a number of mean and dirty dependants, whose office it was to attend the wood- yards, sculleries, &c. Of these (for in the lowest deep there was a lower still) the most forlorn wretches seem to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchens, halls, &c. To this smutty regiment, who attended the progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, which, with every other article of furni- ture, were then moved from palace to palace, the people, in derision, gave the name of black guards, a term since become sufficiently familiar, and never pro- perly explained," In the passage here quoted from Ben Jonson, we find the primary meaning of the ex- pression— that of being fit for servile offices ; but in a subsequent passage of the same play, we have also the secondary meaning — that of tamely submitting to an affront. Puntarvolo, having lost his dog, insults Shift, who he supposes has taken it ; upon which another character exclaims : — " Take heed. Sir Puntarvolo, what you do, he '11 bears no coals, I can tell you." Gifford has given a quotation in illustration of this meaning (which is the sense in which Shakspere here uses it), worth all the long list of similar passages in the Shaksperean commentators : " It remayneth now 24
that I take notice of Jaspar's arryvall, and of those let- ters with which the queen was exceedingly well satis- fied : saying that you were too like somebody in the world, to whom she is afrayde you are a little kin, to be content to carry coales at any Frenchman's hand." — Secretary Cecyll to Sir Henry Neville, March 2, 1559.
* Scene I. — " Here comes of the house of the Mon- tagues." How are the Montagues known from the Capulets? naturally occurs to us. They wore badges, which, in all countries, have been the outward manifestations of party spirit. Gascoigne, in " a device of a masque," written in 1575, has,
" And for a further proof he shewed in hys hat . Thys token which the Mounlacutes did beare alwaies, for that They covet to be knowne from Capels."
^ Scene I. — " / will bite my thumb at them."
There can be little doubt, we apprehend, that this mode of insult was originally peculiar to Italy, and was perhaps a mitigated form of the greater insult of making the fig, or fico, that is, thrusting out the thumb in a peculiar manner between the fingers. Douce has bestowed much laborious investigation upon this difficult, and somewhat worthless subject. The commentators have not distinctly alluded to what appears to us the identity of biting the thumb and the fico ; but a passage in Lodge's " Wit's Mise- rie" clearly shews, that the customs were one and the same : — " Behold, I see contempt marching forth, giving mee the fico with his thumbein his mouth." The practice of biting the thumb was naturalized amongst us in Shakspere 's time ; and the lazy and licentious groups that frequented " Paul's" are thus described by Dekker, in 1608: " What swearing is there, what shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what biting of thumbs to beget quarrels !"
*SceneI. — *' Gregory, remember thy swashing blow."
Sampson and Gregory are described as armed with swords and bucklers. The swashing blow is a blow upon the buckler ; the blow accompanied with a noise ; and thus a swasher came to be synonymous with a quarrelsome fellow, a braggart. In Henry V., Bar- dolph. Pistol, and Nym, are called by the boy three " swashers." Holinshed has — " a man may see how many bloody quarrels a brawling swash-buckler may pick out of a bottle of hay ;" and Fuller, in his " Wor- thies," after describing a swaggerer as one that endea- vours to make that side to swagger, or weigh down, whereon he engages, tells us that a swash-buckler is so called from swashing, or making a noise on bucklers.
ROMEO AND JULIET.
* Scene I. — "Clubs, bills, and partizans." The cry of " clubs" is as thoroughly of English origin as the " bite my thumb" is of Italian. Scott has made the cry familiar to us in " The Fortunes of Nigel ;" and when the citizens of Verona here raise it, we involuntarily think of the old watch-maker's hatch- door in Fleet-street, and Jin Vin and Tunstall darting off for the affray. " The great long club," as de- scribed by Stow, on the necks of the London appren- tices, was as characteristic as the flat cap of the same quarrelsome body, in the days of Elizabeth and James. The use by Shakspere of home phrases, in the mouths
of foreign characters, was a part of his art. It is the same thing as rendering Sancho's Spanish proverbs into the corresponding English proverbs instead of literally translating them. The cry of clubs by the citizens of Verona, expressed an idea of popular movement, which could not have been conveyed half so emphatically in a foreign phrase. VVe have given a group of ancient bills and partizans, viz., a verv early form of bill, from a specimen preserved in the Town Hall of Canterbury ; — bills of the times of Henry Y\., VIL, and VIH. ; — and partizans of the times of Edward IV., Henry VII., and James I.
* Scene L — " Underneath the grove of sycamore."
When Shakspere has to deal with descriptions of natural scenery, he almost invariably localizes himself
with the utmost distinctness. He never mistakes the sycamore groves of the south for the birch woods of the north. In such cases he was not required to employ familiar and conventional images, for the sake
Tragediks— Vol. I. E
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT T.
of presenting an idea more distinctly to his audience than a rigid adherence to the laws of costume (we employ the word in its larger sense of manners) would have allowed. The grove of sycamore
" That westward rooteth from this city's side,''
takes us at once to a scene entirely different from one presented by Shakspere's own experience. The syca- more is the oriental plane (little known in England, though sometimes found),spreading its Sroac? branches — from which its nsime, platanus — to supply the most delightful of shades under the sun of Syria or of Italy. Shakspere might have found the sycamore in Chau- cer's exquisite tale of the Flower and the Leaf, where the hedge that
" Closed in alle the green arbere.
With sycamore was set and eglantere."
' Scene I. — " O braioling love ! O loving hateT'
This antithetical combination of contraries ori- ginated in the Proven 9al poetry, and was assidu- ously cultivated by Petrarch. Shakspere, in this pas- sage, may be distinctly traced to Chaucer's translation of the " Romaunt of the Rose," where we have love described as a hateful peace — a truth full of falsehood — a despairing hope— a void reason — a sick heal, &c.
« Scene I. — " These happy masks, that kiss fair ladies' brows. Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair"
Steevens says that the masks here meant were those worn by female spectators of the play ; but it appears scarcely necessary so to limit the use of a lady's mask. In the Two Gentlemen of Verona we have the "sun-expelling mask.'' In Love's La- bour 's Lost the ladies wear masks in the first inter-
view between the king and the princess : — " Now fair befall your mask," says Biron to Rosaline. We 26
subjoin a representation of an Italian lady in her black mask. The figure (without the mask) is in Vicellio's Habiti Antichi e Moderni.
^ Scene II. — " This night I hold an old accustom'd feast."
In the poem of Romeus and Juliet the season of Capulet's feast is winter: —
" The wery winter nightes restore the Christmas games, And now the season doth invite to banquet townish dames. And fyrst in Cappel's house, the chief of all the kyn Sparth for no cost, the wonted use of banquets to begin."
Shakspere had, perhaps, this in his mind when, at the ball, old Capulet cries out —
" And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot ;"
but in every other instance, the season is unques- tionably summer. " The day is hot," says Benvolio. The Friar is up in his garden,
" Now ere the sun advance his burning eye."
Juliet hears the nightingale sing from the pomegra- nate tree. During the whole course of the poem, the action appears to move under the " vaulty heaven" of Italy, with a soft moon
" That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,"
and " day's pathway" made lustrous by
" Titan's fiery wheels."
10 Scene II. — "Such comfort as do lusty young men feel," ^c.
Dr. Johnson would read yeomen, and make Capu- let compare the delight of Paris "among fresh female buds" to the joy of the farmer on the return of spring. But the spirit of Italian poetry was upon Shakspere when he wrote these lines ; and he thought not of the lusty yeomen in his fields,
" While the plow-man near at hand Whistles o'er the furrow'd land,"
but of such gay groups as Boccaccio has painted, who,
" Sat down in the high grass, and in the shade Of many a tree sun proof."
Shakspere has,indeed,explained his own idea of " well- apparell'd April" in that beautiful Sonnet beginning
" 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."
Douce has well observed, that, in this passage of Romeo and Juliet, Shakspere might " have had in view the decorations which accompany the above month in some of the manuscript and printed calen- dars, where the young folks are represented as sitting together on the grass ; the men ornamenting the girls with chaplets of flowers." We have adapted one of these representations from a drawing in the beautiful manuscript of the Roman de la Rose in the British Museum.
^If^.
»> SgENE II. — " Your plantain leaf is excellent for that."
The leaf of the broad-leafed plantain was used as a blood stancher. Of course, Shakspere did not al- lude to the tropical fruit-bearing plant, but to the common plantain of our English marshy grounds and ditches. The plantain was also considered as a preventive of poison ; and to this supposed virtue Romeo first alludes.
*^ Scene III. — "'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years."
We have shewn in our Introductory Notice the importance of this line, as affording a probable date for the composition of Romeo and Juliet. The earth- quake that was within the recollection of Shakspere's audience happened in the year 1580. The principle of dating from an earthquake, or from any other remarkable phenomenon, is a very obvious one. We have an example as old as the days of the prophet Amos : — " The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake." Tyrwhitt says, " But how comes the Nurse to talk of an earthquake upon this occasion ? There is no such circumstance, I believe, mentioned in any of the novels from which Shakspere may be supposed to have drawn his story.'' But it appears to us by no means improbable that Shakspere might have been acquainted with some description of the great earthquake which happened at Verona, in 1348, when Petrarch was sojourning in that city ; and that with something like historical propriety, there- fore, he made the Nurse date from that event, while at the same time the supposed allusion to the earth- quake in England of 1580 would be relished by his audience.
27
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT I,
'■' Scene III. — " Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face"
This passage furnishes a very remarkable example of the correctness of the principle laid down in Mr. Whiter's very able tract, — "An Attempt to explain and illustrate various Passages of Shakspere, on a nevir Principle of Criticism, derived from Mr. Locke's Doc- trine of the Association of Ideas." Mr. Whiter's most ingenious theory would lose much in being jDresented in any other than his own words. We may just men- tion that his leading doctrine, as applied to Shakspere, is, that the exceeding warmth of his imagination often supplied him, by the power of association, with words, and with ideas, suggested to the mind by a principle of union unperceived by himself, and independent of the subject to which they are applied. We readily agree with Mr. Whiter that " this propensity in the mind to associate subjects so remote in their meaning, and so heterogeneous in their nature, must, of neces- sity, sometimes deceive the ardour of the writer into whimsical or ridiculous combinations. As the reader, however, is not blinded by this fascinating principle, which, while it creates the association, conceals like- wise its effects, he is instantly impressed with the quaintness or the absurdity of the imagery, and is inclined to charge the writer with the intention of a foolish quibble, or an impertinent allusion." It is in this spirit of a cold and literal criticism, here so well described, that Mr. Monck Mason pronounces upon the passage before us, — " this ridiculous speech is full of abstruse quibbles." But the principle of associa- tion, as explained by Mr. Whiter, at once reconciles us to the quibbles. The " volume" of young Paris'
face suggests the "beauty's pen" which hath "writ" there. Then the obscurities of the fair " volume" are written in the "margin of his eyes," as comments of ancient books are always printed in the margin. Lastly, this "book of love" lacks "a cover" — the " golden story" must be locked in with " golden clasps." The ingenious management of the vein of imagery is at least as remarkable as its " abstruse quibbles."
"Scene IV, — "We'll have no Cupid hood-wink' d with a scarf," &c. The mask of ladies, or amazons, in Shakspere 's Timon, is preceded by a Cupid, who addresses the company in a speech. This "device" was a practice of courtly life, before and during the time of Shak- spere. But here he says,
" The date Is out of such prolixity." The " Tartar's painted bow of lath" is the bow of the Asiatic nations, with a double curve ; and Shakspere employed the epithet to distinguish the bow of Cupid from the old English long bow. The " crow-keeper" who scares the ladies, had also a bow : — he is the shuffle or mawkin — the scarecrow of rags and straw, with a bow and arrow in his hand. " That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper," says Lear. The " without-book prologue faintly spoke after the promp- ter," is supposed by Warton to allude to the boy-actors that we afterwards find so fully noticed in Hamlet.
*^ Scene IV. — " We HI measure them a measure,"
The " measure" was the courtly dance of the days
of Elizabeth ; not so solemn as the pavan — the " doleful
pavan," as Davenant calls it, in which princes in their
28
ROMEO AND JULIET.
mantles, and lawyers in their long robes, and courtly dames with enormous trains, swept the rushes like the tails of peacocks. From this circumstance came its name, the pavan — the dance of the peacock. The " measure" may be best described in Shakspere's own words, in the mouth of the lively Beatrice, in Much ado about Nothing :— " The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not woo'd in good time; if the prince be too important, tell him there is measure in every thing, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero : wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a tneasicre, and a cinque-pace : the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical: the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry ; and then comes repentance, and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque- pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave."
16 Scene IV. — " Give me a torch."
Romeo declares that he will not dance : " I am not for this ambling." He subsequently says,
" I '11 be a caudle-holder, and look on." Anciently, all rooms of state were lighted by waxen torches borne in the hands of attendants. Froissart thus describes the feasting of Gaston de Foix : — " At midnight when he came out of his chamber into the hall to supper, he had ever before him twelve torches brennyng, borne by twelve varlettes standing before his table all supper." To hold the torch was not, however, a degrading office in England ; for the gentlemen pensioners of Elizabeth held torches while a play was acted before her in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge.
'^ Scene IV. — "Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels."
Carpets, though known in Italy, were not adapted to the English habits in the time of Elizabeth ; and even the presence-chamber of that queen was, ac- cording to Hentzner, strewed with hay, by which he meant rushes. The impurities which gathered on the floor were easily removed with the rushes. But the custom of strewing rushes, although very general in England, was not peculiar to it. Mr. Brown, in his work on Shakspere's auto-biographical poems, has this observation : " An objection has been made," im- puting an error, in Grumio's question, ' Are the rushes strewed?' But the custom of strewing rushes in England belonged also to Italy; this may be seen in old authors, and their very word, ffiuncare, now out of use, is a proof of it."
'' Scene IV. — " Tut ! dim's the mouse."
We have a string of sayings here which have much puzzled the commentators. "When Romeo exclaims, " I am done," Mercutio, playing upon the word, cries " dun 's the mouse." This is a proverbial phrase, con- stantly occurring in the old comedies. It is probably something like the other cant phrase that occurs in Lear, "the cat is grey." The following line " If thou art dun, we '11 draw thee from the mire,"
was fully as puzzling, till GifFordgave us a solution : — " Dun is in the miVe/ then, is a Christmas gambol, at which I have often played. 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 unable to do it, and call for more assistance. — The game continues till all the company take part in it, when dun is extricated, of course ; and the merriment arises from the awkward and affected efforts of the rustics to lift the log, and from sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one another's toes. This will not be thought a very ex- quisite amusement ; and yet I have seen much honest mirth at it, and have been far more entertained with the ludicrous contortions of pretended struggles, than with the real writhing, the dark scowl of avarice and envy, exhibited by the same description of persons, in the genteeler amusement of cards, the universal sub- stitute for all our ancient sports." — (Ben Jonson's Works, vol. vii. page 282.)
19 Scene IV. — " Sir reverence." This was the old mode of apology for the introduc- tion of a free expression. Mercutio says, he will draw Romeo from the " mire of this love," and uses, paren- thetically, the ordinary form of apology for speaking so profanely of love. Gifford has given us a quotation from an old tract on the origin of tobacco, which is exactly in point: — "The time hath been when if we did speak of this loathsome stuff, tobacco, we used to put a ' Sir reverence' before, but we forget our good manners." In another note on the same word, Gif- ford says, "there is much filthy stuff on this simple interjection, of which neither Steevens nor Malone appears to have known the import, in the notes to Romeo and Juliet." — (Ben Jonson's Works, vol. vi. page 149 ; vol. vii. page 337.)
^^ Scene IV. — " This is that very Mob
That plats the manes of horses in the night."
We extract the following amusing note from Deuce's Illustrations : —
" This line alludes to a very singular superstition, not yet forgotten in some parts of the country. It was believed that certain malignant spirits, whose delight was to wander in groves and pleasant places, assumed occasionally the likenesses of women clothed in white ; that in this character they sometimes haunted stables in the night-time, carrying in their hands tapers of wax, which they dropped on the horses' manes, there- by plaiting them in inextricable knots, to the great annoyance of the poor animals, and the vexation of their masters. These hags are mentioned in the works of William Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, in the thirteenth century. There is a very uncommon old print by Hans Burgmair, relating to this subject. A witch enters the stable with a lighted torch ; and previously to the operation of entangling the horse's mane, prac- tises her enchantments on the groom, who is lying asleep on his back, and apparently influenced by the nightmare. The belemnites, or elf-stones, were re- garded as charms against the last-mentioned disease
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT I.
and against evil spirits of all kinds ; but the ceraunise, or boetuli, and all perforated flint stones, were not only used for the same purpose, but more particularly for the protection of horses and other cattle, by sus- pending them in stables, or tying them round the necks of the animals." The next line,
" And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs," seems to be unconnected with the preceding, and to mark a superstition, which, as Dr. Warburton has ob- served, may have originated from the plica Polonica, which was supposed to be the operation of the wicked elves, whence the clotted hair was called elf-locks, and elf-knots. Thus Edgar talks of " elfing all his hair in knots."
^' Scene V. — " Remove the court cujjboard."
The court cupboard was the ornamental sideboard, set out with salvers and beakers on days of festivity. We have in a play of 1599, " accomplished the court cupboard;" and in another by Chapman, in 1606, " Here shall stand my court cupboard with its furni- ture of plate." In Italy the art of Benvenuto Cellini was lavished upon the exquisite ornaments of the court cupboard. In the following engraving is exhi- bited one of the rich court cupboards of the period of Elizabeth, set out with many of those vessels of antique Italian workmanship which had found their way into this country.
^^£^L^swai#r
30
'■r^:-My^K^-
i-"'^^!l^^=>5^^^A:
* r"- -^i^.
ACT II.
SCENE I. — An npenPlace adjoining C&Tpulet's Garden.
Enter Romeo. Rom. Can I go forward, when my heart is liere ? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out. [ffi? 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 stolen him home to bed.
Ben. He ran this way, and leapt this orchard wall: Call, good Mercutio.
Mer. Nay, I '11 conjure too.
Romeo 1 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 nick-name for her purblind son and heir, Young Abraham *• Cupid, he that shot so trim. When kingCophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.' —
' (A) hpia pronounce ; the subsequent quartos and the first f oVio, p}-ovaunt ; the second folio couply, which has become the received reading of couple. Steepens desired to retain provant. to provide, from the noun provant, provision.
•> All the old copies have " Abraham." Upton changed it to " Adam," which all the modem editors have adopted, sup- posing the allusion " he that shot so trim," was to the Adam Bell of the old Ballad, to whom Shakspere has also alluded in Much ado about Nothing: "he that hits me, let him be clapt on the shoulder and called Adam.' But the word
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not ; The ape* is dead, and I must conjure him. — I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes. By her high forehead, and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering
thigh, And the demesnes that there adjacent lie, That in thy likeness thou appear to us.
Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.
Mer. This cannot anger him : "t would anger him To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle Of some strange nature, letting it there stand Till she had laid it, and conjur'd 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:
" trim," which is the reading of the first quarto (the subse- quent editions giving us ^^ trite"), is distinctly derived from the " Ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid." " The blinded boy that shoots so Irim, From heaven down did hie. He drew a dart, and shot at him. In place where he did lie." With all submission to the opinion of Percy, who adopts the reading of Upton, we think that the change of Abraham into Adam was uncalled for. Abraham conveys another idea than that of Cupid's archery, which is strongly enough conveyed. The " Abraham " Cupidis the cheat — the " Abraham man" — of our old statutes.
» The ape, -an expression of kindly familiarity applied to a young man. 1) Humorous, dewy, — vaporous.
31
Act 11.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene I.
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark. Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree. And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit, As maids call medlars, when they laugh
alone.* — Romeo, good night: — I'll to my truckle-bed j^ This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep : Come, shall we go ?
Ben. Go, then ; for 't is in vain
To seek him here, that means not to be found.
\^Exeunt.
SCENE II.— Capulet's Garden. Enter Romeo.
Rom. He jests at scars, that never felt a
wound. — [Juliet appears above, at a windoin. 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 : Be not her maid, ^ since she is envious ; Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it ; cast it off. — It is my lady : O, it is my love : O, that she knew she were ! She speaks, yet she says nothing ; What of
that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it. — I am too bold, 't is not to me she speaks :
^ There are two lines here omitted in the text of Steevens' edition, which Malone has restored to the text. In every popular edition of our poet they are omitted. The lines are gross, — but the grossness is obscure, and, if it were under- stood, could scarcely be called corrupting. The freedoms of Mercutio arise out of his dramatic character; his exuberant spirits betray him into levities which are constantly opposed to the intellectual refinement which rises above such baser matter. But Pope rejected these lines — Pope, who, in the Rape of the Lock, has introduced one couplet, at least, that would have disgraced the age of Elizabeth. We do not print the two lines of Shakspere, for they can only interest the verbal critic. But we distinctly record their omission. As far as we have been able to trace — and we have gone through the old edi- tions with an especial reference to this matter — these two lines constitute the only passage in the original editions which has been omitted by modem editors. With this exception, there is not a passage in Shakspere which is not reprinted in every edition except that of Mr. Bowdler. And yet the writer in Lardner's Cyclopaedia (Lives of Literary and Sci- entific Men), has ventured to make the following assertion : " Whoever has looked into the original editions of his dramas will be disgusted with the obscenity of his allusions. They absolutely teem with the grossest improprieties— more gross by far than can be found in any "contemporary "dramatist." The insinuation that the original editions contain impro- prieties that are not to be found in modern editions, is difficult to characterise without using expressions that had better be avoided.
^ Be not a votary to Diana, — the
" Queen and huntress, chaste and fair," of Ben Jonson's beautiful hymn. 32
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 eye 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 !
Jul. Ah me !
Mom. She speaks : —
0, speak again, bright angel ! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wond'ring 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 '11 no longer be a Capulet.
Mom. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? [Aside.
Jul. 'T is but thy name that is my enemy ; — Thou art thyself though, •» not a Montague. 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. By any other name"^ would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd. Retain that dear perfection which he owes, Without that title : — Romeo, doff thy name ; And for thy^ name, which is no part of thee. Take all myself.
Mom. I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I '11 be new baptiz'd; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
Jul. What man art thou, that, thus bescreen'd in night, ' So stumblest on my counsel?
Mom. By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am ;
» So (A). The folio and (C), pvffing.
^ Juliet places his personal qualities in opposition to what she thought evil of his family.
■^ There is a confusion in the folio and (C), which Malone here appears to have put right, by making out a line, with the aid of (J). The folio omits " O, be some other name!"
<i So U). The folio and (C), tvord.
' So (C) and folio. (A), that.
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene II.
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 thy tongue's uttering,' yet I know the sound ; Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?
Rom. Neither, fair maid,'' if either thee dis- like." Jul. How cam'st thou hither, teU me ? and wherefore? The orchard waUs 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'er- perch these waUs ; For stony limits cannot hold love out : And what love can do, that dares love attempt ; Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop^ to me. Jul. If they do see thee, they will murtherthee. 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 eyes ; ^ And, but thou love me,^ let them find me here : My life were better ended by their hate. Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love. Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out
this place ? Rom. By love, that first did prompt me to inquire ; He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes. I am no pUot ; 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. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke. But farewell compliment \^ Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say — Ay ; And I will take thy word: yet, if thou swear' st. Thou may'st prove false ; at lovers' perjuries, They say, Jove laughs. O, gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully :
* The folio and (C), thy tongue's uttering. (A), that tongue's utterance. •> In (/i), saint.
' Dw/*f —Displease. ^ In (A), let. ° In [A), sight.
' But thou love me So thou do but love me.
« So (A). In folio and (C), should.
^ Farewell compliment — farewell respect for forms.
Or, if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I '11 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 behaviour
light : . But trust me, gentleman, I '11 prove more true Than those that have more cunning* to be
strange, I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou over-heard'st, ere I was ware. My true love's passion : therefore pardon me ; And not impute this yielding to light love, Wliich the dark night hath so discovered.
Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,'' That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops, — Jul. O swear not by the moon, the incon- stant moon That monthly changes in her circled orb. Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. Rom. What shall I swear by ? Jul. Do not swear at all :
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self. Which is the god of my idolatry, And I '11 believe thee.
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 unadvis'd, 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 ! Rom. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied ? Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to- night? Rom. The exchange of thy love's faithful
vow for mine. Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst re- quest it : And yet I would it were to give again.
Rom. Would'st 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.
» So {A). In folio and {€), coying. •> So {A), In folio and {C), vow.
Tragedies, — Vol. I.
F
33
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene III.
The more I have, for both are infinite.
[Nurse calls within. I hear some noise within ; Dear love, adieu ! Anon, good nurse ! — Sweet Montague, be true. Stay but a little, I will come again. {Exit, Rom. O blessed blessed 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 '11 procure to come to thee, Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite ; And all my fortunes at thy foot I '11 lay. And follow thee my lord throughout the world. Nurse. \_Within.'\ Madam. Jul. I come, anon : — But if thou mean'stnot well, I do beseech thee — Nurse. \_Within.'\ Madam. Jul. By and by, I come : —
To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief : To-morrow will I send.
Rom. So thrive my soul, —
Jul. A thousand times good night ! [Exit.
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 slowly.
Re-enter Juliet, above.
Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! — 0, for a falconer's voice. To lure this tassel-gentle back again ! ' Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud ; Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies. And make her airy tongue more hoarse than
mine With repetition of my Romeo.*
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 —
Nurse. {Within.'\ Madam.
Jul. What o'clock to-morrow''
Shall I send to thee ?
a In {A), my RoTneo's name. '' This passage is ordinarily printed thus: — Jul. Romeo.
Rom. My sweet.
Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow —
^ft/ sweet was substituted by the editor of the second folio
34
Rom. By the hour of nine.
Jul. I will not fail ; 't is twenty years till then . I have forgot why I did call thee back.
Rom. Letme stand here till thou remember it. JuL I shall forget, to have thee still stand there, Rememb'ring how I love thy company.
Rom. And I '11 still stay, to have thee still forget. Forgetting any other home but this. Jul. 'T is 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. 1 would, I were thy bird. Jul. Sweet, so would I :
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.
[Exit.
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 friar's close'* cell ;
His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell. [Exit.
SCENE III.— Friar Laurence'* Cell.
Enter Friar Laurence, with a basket.
Fri. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frown- ing night, Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of
light; And flecked'' 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,
for My neece, which is the reading of the first folio, and of the second and third quartos. In the first quarto we have Madam, which Malone adopts. But in the first quarto, there is no interruption at all by the Nurse ; whilst in the second quarto, she has twice before used the word Madam-; — and, consequently, the poet, in his amended copy, avoided the use by Romeo of a title which had just been used by the Nurse. We believe that the word Necce is altogether a mistake, — that the word Nurse was written, as denoting a third interruption by her — and that Madam, the use of which was the form of the interruption, was omitted acci- dentally, or was supposed to be, implied by the word iVMr^e. As we have printed the passage the metre is correct ; and it is to be observed that in the second quarto and the sub. sequent copies, at before " what o'clock," which was in the first quarto, is omitted, shewing that a word of two syllables was wanted after my when at was rejected. Zachary Jack- son, instead of niece, would read novice.
a {A), " ghostly father's cell."
i" Flecked — dapplec^.
■^ So {A). It is remarkable that in the folio and (C), these four lines, with a slight alteration, are also introduced before the two last lines of Romeo's previous speech. It appears to us that the poet was making experiments upon the margin
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene III.
I must up-fiU this osier cage of ours, With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers. The earth, that 's nature's mother, is her tomb;^ "What is her burying grave, that is her womb : And from her womb children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find : Many for many virtues excellent. None but for some, and yet all difierent.* O, mickle is the powerful grace, that lies In plants, herbs, stones, and their true quali- ties: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some special good doth give ; 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 weak*" flower Poison hath residence, and medicine power : For this, being smelt, with that part cheers
each part ; Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings'^ encamp them still In man as well as herbs, — grace, and rude
will; And, where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Enter Romeo.
Rom. Good morrow, father !
Fri. 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 in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie ; But where unbruised youth with unstufi^d brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth
reign : Therefore thy earliness doth me assure, Thou art up-rous'd by some distemp'rature, 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.
of the first copy of the change of a word or so, and leaving the MS. upon the page, without obliterating the original passage, it came to be inserted twice. The lines, as given to
Romeo, stand thus in the quarto of 1609, and in the folio:
"The grey-ey'd mom smiles on the frowning night, Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And darkness fleckel'd, like a drunkard reels From forth day's path-way, made by Titan's wheels." a Six lines, ending with this line, are not in {A). •> In (A), small.
1° (^)> foes. In the other ancient editions, kings. Opposed /oes has not the propriety of opposed kings — a thoroughly Shaksperean phrase.
Fri. God pardon sin ! wast thou with Rosa- line?
Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no ; I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.
Fri. That's my good son: But where hast thou been then ?
Rom. I '11 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 ;6 I bear no hatred, blessed man ; for, lo, My intercession likewise steads my foe.
Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
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 combin'd, save what thou must combrae By holy marriage : When, and where, and how, We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow, I '11 tell thee as we pass ; but this I pray. That thou consent to marry us to-day.
Fri. Holy Saint Francis ! what a change is here ! Is Rosaline, that 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 I 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 chang'd ? pronounce this sentence
then — Women may fall, when there 's no strength in men.
Rom. Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rosa- line.
Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Rom. And bad'st me bury love.
Fri. 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. O, she knew well,
35
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene IV.
Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell. But come, young waverer, come, go with me, In one respect I '11 thy assistant be ; For this alliance may so happy prove. To turn your households' rancour to pure love. Ram. O, let us hence; I stand on sudden
haste. Fri. Wisely, and slow ; They stumble, that run fast. {^Exeunt.
SCENE IV.— ^ Street. Enter Benvolio and Meecutio.
Mer. 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. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, 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.
Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is abeady dead ! stabbed with a white wench's black eye ; run^ thorough the ear with a love-song ; the very pin*" of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft ; And is he a man to encounter Ty- balt?
Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?
Mer. More than prince of cats," I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of com- pliments. 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 duellist ;' a gentleman of the very first house, — of the first and second cause : Ah, the immortal passado ! the puncto reverse ! the hay !
Ben. The what?
Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affect- ing fantasticoes ! these new tuners of accents ! — By Jesu, a very good blade ! — a very tall man ! — a very good whore ! — Why, is not this a lament-
» Run. This is the readingof the folio and {€). Shot in {A).
* The centre of the target, where the pin fastened the clout.
'^ Tybert is the name given' to the cat in the story of Reynard the Fox.
d Prick-song, music pricked, or noted down, so as to read according to rule ; in contradistinction to music learnt by the ear, or siuig from memory.
36
able thing, grandsLre, that we should be thus afilicted with these strange flies, these fashion- mongers, \he?,e pardon-mes, who stand so much on the new form, that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O, their bons, their bons !
Enter Romeo.
Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Ro- meo.
Mer. Without his roe, like a dried her- ring : — O, flesh, flesh, how art thou fisliified ! — Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch 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 grey eye or so,* but not to the pur- pose.— 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 I give you ?
Mer. The slip, sir, the slip;* 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 constrains a man to bow in the hams.
Rom. Meaning — to court'sy.
Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.
Rom. A most courteous exposition.
Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
Rom. Pink for flower.
Mer. Right.
Rom. Why, then is my pump well flowered.''
Mer. Sure wit."^ Follow me this jest now, till thou hast worn out thy pump ; that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may re- main, after the wearing, sole singular.
Rom. O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness !
Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint."^
Rom. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs ; or I '11 cry a match.
Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase,^ I am 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 ?
* The grey eye — the blue eye — was the most beautifuL In the Venus and Adonis, Venus says, "Mine eyes are grey."
b The pump was the shoe. We retain the word. The ribbons in the pump were shaped as flowers.
" In {A), Well said.
<^ Faint in folio and {€}. In {A), fail.
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene IV.
R<mi. Thou wast never with me for anything, 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.
Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting f it is a most sharp sauce.
Rom. And is it not well served in to a sweet goose ?
Mer. O, here's a wit of cheverel, b 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, isnot this better now than groan- ing for love ?'o 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, that runs lolling up and do'wn to hide his bauble in a hole.
Ben. Stop there, stop there.
Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
Ben. Thou would' st 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 oc- cupy the argument no longer.
Rom. Here's goodly gear !
Enter NuRSE and Peter.
M'ei-. A sail, a sad, a sail !
Ben. Two, two ; a shirt, and a smock.
Nurse. Peter!
Peter. Anon?
Nurse. My fan, Peter, u
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, fair gentlewoman.
Nurse. Is it good den V^
Mer. 'T is no less, I tell you ; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
Nurse, Out upon you ! what a man are you ?
Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made himself to mar.
Nurse, By my troth, it is well said : — For liimself 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
* The name of an apple.
•> Kid leather— from ckevreuiU — a roebuck.
' See Introductory Notice.
was when you sought him : I am the youngest of that name, for 'fault of a worse.
Nurse. You say well.
Mer. Yea, is the worst well ? very well took, r faith; wisely, wisely.
Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desu-e some con- fidence with you.
Ben. She will indite him to some supper.
Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd ! So ho !
Rom. ^Yliat hast thou found?
Mer. No hare, sir ; unless a hare, sir, in a lenteu pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
An old hare hoar.
And an old hare hoar. Is very good meat in Lent :
But a hare that is hoar.
Is too much for a score, When it hoars ere it be spent —
Romeo, will you come to your father's ? we '11 to dinner thither.
Rom. I wiU follow you.
Mer, Farewell, ancient lady ; farewell, lady, lady, lady. {^Exeunt Mebcutio and Benvolio.
Nurse. Marry, farewell! — I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant' ^ was this, that was so full of liis ropery ?
Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk ; and wUl speak more in a minute, than he will stand to in a month.
Nurse. An 'a speak anything against me, I '11 take him down an 'a were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks ; and if I cannot, I '11 find those that shall. Scurvy knave ! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates : — And thou must stand by too, and sufier every knave to use me at his pleasure ?
Pet. 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 vexed, 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 gentle- woman 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, —
37
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene V.
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 me.
Nurse. I will tell her, sir, — that you do pro- test; which, as I take it, 'is a gentlemanlike offer. Rom. Bid her devise some means to come to shrift This afternoon ;
And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell Be shriv'd, 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 ; 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 '11 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. Nurse. Well, sir ; my mistress is the sweetest lady — Lord, lord ! — when 't was a little prating thing, — O, there 's a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard ; but she, good soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man: but I '11 warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the varsal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter ?
Rom. Ay, nurse ; What of that ? both with an R.
Nurse. Ah, mocker ! that 's the dog's name. R is for the dog." 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. [Exit.
' All this dialogue, from " Commend me to thy mistress," is not in (A).
38
Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. — Peter !
Pet. Anon ?
Nurse. Before, and apace.* [Exeunt,
SCENE v.— Capulet'5 Garden. j
Enter Juliet.
Jul. The clock struck nine, when I did send
the nurse ; In half an hour she promis'd to return. Perchance she cannot meet him : — that 's not
so. — O, she is lame ! love's heralds should be
thoughts, b Which ten times faster glide than the sun's
beams, Driving back shadows over low'ring hills : Tlierefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,'' And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon tlie highmost hdl 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, many feign as they were dead ; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.
Enter Nubse and Peteb.
O God, she comes! — O honey nurse, what
news? Hast thou met with him ? Send thy man away. Nurse. Petei", 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 sham'st the music of sweet news By playing it to me with so sour a face.
Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave a while ; — Fie, how my bones ache ! What a jaunt have I had ! Jul. 1 would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news: Nay, come, I pray thee, speak ; — good, good nurse, speak. Nurse. Jesu, wh^t haste ? can you not stay a while ? Do you not see that I am out of breath ?
' See Introductory Notice.
•> In (A), Juliet's soliloquy ends here.
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene VI.
Jul. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath To say to me — that thou art out of breath? The 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 '11 stay the circumstance : 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 talked on, yet they are past compare : He is not the flower of courtesy, — but, I '11 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 am sorry that thou art not well: Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love ? Nurse. Your love says like an honest gen- tleman, 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 oddly thou reply 'st: 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, — 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 '11 be in scarlet straight at any news. 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 deUght ; But you shall bear the burthen soon at night. Go, I '11 to dinner ; hie you to the cell. Jul. Hie to high fortune ! — honest nurse, farewell. \_Exeunt.
SCENE \l.— Friar Laurence's Cell.
Enter Friar Laurence and Romeo."
Fri. 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 the 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. 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 confounds the appetite : Therefore, love moderately ; long love doth so ; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Enter Juliet.
Here comes the lady ; — O, so light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint : A lover may bestride the gossamers That idle in the wanton summer air. And yet not fall ; so light is vanity.
Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor.
Fri. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.
Jul. As much to him, else are 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 the imagin'd happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.
Jul. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words. Brags of his substance, not of ornament : They are but beggars that can count their worth;
» This scene was entirely re-written, after the first copy.
89
Act II.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene VI.
But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth. Fri. Come, come, with me, and we will make short work ;
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone. Till holy church incorporate tsvo in one.
{^Exeunt.
40
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT IL
' Scene I. — "WhmKing Cophetualov'dthe beggar- maid.'''
The ballad of King Cophetua and the beggar-maid was amongst the most popular of old English bal- lads, allusions to which were familiar to Shakspere's audience. Upon the authority of learned Master " Moth " in Love's Labour 's Lost, it was an ancient ballad in Shakspere's day :
" Armado. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar ?
Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since ; but, I think, now 't is not to be found, or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.
Arm. I will have that subject newly writ o'er."
We have two versions of this ballad : — the one pub- lished in a " A Collection of Old Ballads," 1765 ; the other in Percy's Reliques. Both of these compo- sitions appear as if they had been " newly writ o'er " not long before, or, perhaps, after Shakspere's time : we subjoin a stanza of each.
FHOM PERCY'S RELIQUES.
" I read that cnce in Africa
A princely wight did reign. Who had to name Cophetua,
As poets they did feign : From nature's laws he did decline. For sure he was not of my mind, He cared not for womankind.
But did them all disdain. But mark, what happen'd on a day, As he out of his window lay, He saw a beggar all in grey,
The which did cause him pain. The blinded boy, that shoots so trim,
From heaven down did hie. He drew a dart and shot at him.
In place where he did lie."
FROM A COLLECTION OF OLD BALLADS.
" A king once reign'd beyond the seas, As we in ancient stories find. Whom no fair face could ever please. He cared not for womankind. He despis'd the sweetest beauty, And the greatest fortune too ; At length he married to a beggar; See what Cupid's dart can do. The blind boy, that shoots so trim. Did to his closet- window steal. And made him soon his power feel. He that never cared for women, But did females ever hate. At length was smitten, wounded, swooned. For a beggar at his gate." Tragedies Vol. I. G
^ Scene L — "I'll to my truckle-bed,"
The original quarto has " I '11 to my trundle-hed." It appears somewhat strange that Mercutio should speak of sleeping in a truckle-bed, or a trundle-bed, both which words explain the sort of bed — a running- bed. The furniture of a sleeping chamber in Shak- spere's time consisted of a standing-bed and a truckle-bed, " There 's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed," says mine host of the Garter, in The Merry Wives of Windsor. The standing-bed was for the master ; the truckle-bed, which ran under it, for the servant. It may seem strange, therefore, that Mercutio should talk of sleeping in the bed of his page ; but the next words will solve the difficulty :
" This Jield-bed is too cold for me to sleep."
The field-bed, in this case, was the ground ; but the field-bed, properly so called, was the travelling-bed ; the lit de champ, called, in old English, the "trus- syng-bedde." The bed next beyond the luxury of the trussyng-bed was the truckle-bed; and therefore Shakspere naturally takes that in preference to the standing-bed.
^ Scene II. — " Well, do not swear," Sec. Coleridge has a beautiful remark on this passage, and on the whole of the scene, which we extract : — " With love, pure love, there is always an anxiety for the safety of the object, a disinterestedness, by which it is distinguished from the counterfeits of its name. Compare this scene with Act II L Scene I.
41
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT II.
of the Tempest. I do not know a more wonderful instance of Shakspere's mastery in playing a dis- tinctly rememberable variety on the same remem- bered air, than in the transporting love confessions of Romeo and Juliet, and Ferdinand and Miranda. There seems more passion in the one, and more dig- nity in the other ; yet you feel that the sweet girlish lingering and busy movement of Juliet, and the calmer and more maidenly fondness of Miranda, might easily pass into each other."
' Scene II. — " 0,for a falconer's voice,
To lure this tassel-gentle hack again ! "
The falconer's voice was the voice which the hawk was constrained by long habit to obey. Gervase Markham, in his " Country Contentments," has pic- turesquely described the process of training hawks to this obedience, " by watching and keeping them from sleep, by a continual carrying them upon your fist, and by a most familiar stroking and playing with them, with the wing of a dead fowl, or such like, and by often gazing and looking them in the face, with a loving and gentle countenance. A hawk so " manned" was brought to the lure " by easy de- grees, and at last was taught to know the voice and lure so perfectly, that either upon the sound of the one or sight of the other, she will presently come in, and be most obedient. There is a peculiar propriety in Juliet calling Romeo her tassel-gentle; for this species was amongst the most beautiful and elegant of hawks, and was especially appropriated to the use of a'prince. Our poet always uses the images which have been derived from his own experience, with ex- quisite propriety. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff's page is the ctjas-tnusket, the smallest un- fledged hawk. Othello fears that Desdomena is haggard — that is, the wild hawk which " checks at
every feather." The sport with a tassel-gentle is spiritedly described by Massinger : — •
" Then, for an evening flight,
A tiercel gentle, which I call, my masters.
As he were sent a messenger to the moon.
In such a place flies, as he seems to say.
See me, or see me not ! the partridge sprung.
He makes his stoop ; but, wanting breath, is forced
To canceller ; then, with such speed as if
He carried lightning in his wings, he strikes
The trembling bird, who even in death appears
Proud to be made his quarry."
5 Scene III. — ^'Thc earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb."
Milton, in the second book of Paradise Lost has the same idea: —
" The womb of nature, and, perhaps, her grave." The editors of Milton have given a parallel passage in Lucretius,
" Omniparens, eadem rerum commune sepulchrum." We would ask, did Shakspere and Milton go to the same common source ? Farmer has not solved this question in his " Essay on the Learning of Shak- spere."
« Scene III.—"
• Both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies."
" This," says Monck Mason, " is one of the pas- sages in which the author has sacrificed grammar to rhyme." Mr. Monck Mason's observation is made in the same spirit in which he calls Romeo's impas- sioned language, "quaint jargon." Before Shakspere was accused of sacrificing grammar, it ought to have been shewn that his idiom was essentially different from that of his predecessors and his contemporaries. Dr. Percy, who brought to the elucidation of our old
42
ROMEO AND JULIET.
authors the knowledge of an antiquary and the feeling of a poet, has observed, that ''in very old English the third person plural of the present tense endeth in cth as well as the singular, and often familiarly in es ;' and it has been further explained by Mr. Toilet, that " the third person plural of the Anglo-Saxon present tense endeth in eth, and of the Dano- Saxon in es." Malone, we think, has rightly stated the principle upon which such idioms, which appear false concords to us, should be corrected,— that is, " to substitute the modern idiom in all places except where either the metre or rhyme renders it impossible." But to those who can feel the value of a slight sprinkling of our antique phraseology, it is pleasant to drop upon the instances in which correction is impossible. We would not part with the exquisite bit of false con- cord, as we must now term it, in the last word of the four following lines, for all that Shakspere's grammar- correctors have ever written : —
" Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings. And Phoebus 'sins arise. His steeds to water at those springs On chalic'd flowers that lies."
' Scene IV. — "^ duellist, a duellist." George Wither, in his obsequies upon the death of Prince Henry, thus introduces Britannia lamenting ;
" Alas! who now shall grace tny tournaments. Or honour me with deeds of chivalrie ?"
The tournaments and the chivalrie were then, how- ever, but " an insubstantial pageant faded." Men had learnt to revenge their private wrongs, without the paraphernalia of heralds and warders. In the old chivalrous times, they might suppress any outbreak of hatred or passion, and cherish their malice against each other until it could be legally gratified ; so that, according to the phrase of Richard Cceur-de-Lion in his ordinance for permitting tournaments, " the peace of our land be not broken, nor justice hindered, nor damage done to our forests." The private contests of two knights was a violation of the laws of chivalry. Chaucer has a remarkable exemplification of this in his " Knight's Tale," w here the duke, coming to the plain, saw Arcite and Palamon fighting like two bulls : —
" This duke his courser with his spurres smote. And al a start he was betwixt them two, And pulled out a sword and cried, — ' Ho! No more, up pain of losing of your head j By mighty Mars, he shall anon be dead That smiteth any stroke that I may seen! But telleth me what mistere men ye been. That be so hardy for to fighten here Withouten any judge or other officer. As though it were in listes really' " (royally).
That duels were frequent in England in the reign of Elizabeth, we might collect, if there were no other evidence, from Shakspere alone. The matter had been reduced to a science. Tybalt is the " coura- geous captain of compliments," — a perfect master of punctilio, one who kills his adversary by rule — " one, two, and the third in your bosom." The gentleman of the "first and second cause," is a gentleman who will quarrel upon the very slightest offences. The
degrees in quarrelling were called the causes ; and these have been most happily ridiculed by Shakspere in As You Like It : —
"Jar/ucs. But for the seventh cause ; how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause ?
Touchstone. Upon a lie seven times removed; as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard ; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was : this is called the Retort courteous. If I sent him word again, it was not well cut, he v\ould send me word he cut it to please himself: this is called the duip modest. If, again, it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment : this is called the He/jly churlish. If, again, it was not well cut, he would answer, I spake not true : this is called the Reproof vuliant. If, again, it was not well cut, he would say, I lie : this is called the Countercheck quarrelsome : and so to the Lie circumstantial and the Lie direct."
When Touchstone adds, " O sir ! we quarrel in print by the book," he alludes to the works of Saviolo and Caranza, who laid down laws for the duello. The wit of Shakspere is the best commentary upon the phi- losophy of Montaigne : " Inquire why that man hazards his life and honour upon the fortune of his rapier and dagger; let him acquaint you with the occasion of the quarrel, he cannot do it without blush- ing, 'tis so idle and frivolous." — (Essays, book iii. ch. 10.) But philosophy and wit were equally una- vailing to put down the quarrelsome spirit of the times : Henry IV. of France in vain declared all duellists guilty of lese-majeste, and punishable with death ; and James I. of England as vainly denounced them in the Star-Chamber.
The practice of duelling went on with us till the civil wars came to merge private quarrels in public ones. Burton, in his " Anatomy of Melancholy," has a bitter satire against the nobility, when he says, they are " like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour."
8 Scene IV. — " What counterfeit did I give you? The slip, sir, the slip." A counterfeit piece of money and a slip were synonymous ; and in many old dramas we have the same play upon words as here. In Robert Greene's " Thieves falling out," the word slip is defined as in a dictionary : " and therefore he went and got him certain slips, which are counterfeit pieces of money, being brass, and covered over with silver, which the common people call slips."
' Scene IV. — " The wild-goose chase." Horse-racing, and the wild-goose chase, were amongst the " disports of great men" in the time of Elizabeth. It is scarcely necessary to describe a sport, if sport it can be called, which is still used amongst us. When the " wits run the wild-goose chase," we have a type of its folly ; as the " switch and spurs, switch and spurs," is descriptive of its brutality.
'" Scene IV. — "Why, is not this better 7iow than
groaning for love?" Coleridge invites us to compare, in this scene, " Ro- meo's half-excited and half-real ease of mind, with his
43
ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT II.
first manner when in love with Rosaline ! His will had come to the clenching point." Romeo had not only recovered the natural tone of his mind, but he had come back to the conventional gaiety — the fives- play of witty words — which was the tone of the best society in Shakspere's time. " Now art thou what thou art," says Mercutio, "by art as well as by nature."
" Scene IV. — " My fan, Peter."
The fan which Peter had to bear is exhibited in the wood-cut at the end of this Act. It does not ap- pear quite so ridiculous, therefore, when we look at the size of the machine, to believe the Nurse should have a servant to bear it. Shakspere has given the same office to Armado in Love's Labour 's Lost : — " Oh ! a most dainty man, To see him walk before a lady, and to bear her fan."
12 Scene IV. — " 7s it good den 1"
According to Mercutio's answer, the time was noon when the evening salutation " good den" began. But Shakspere had here English manners in his eye. The Italian custom of commencing the day half an hour after sunset, and reckoning through the twenty- four hours, is inconsistent with such a division of time as this.
" Scene IV. — " Saucy merchant."
Steevens pointed out that the term merchant was anciently used in contradistinction to gentleman ; as we still use the word chap as an abbreviation of chap- man. Douce has quoted a passage from Whetstone's " Mirour for Magestrates of Cyties" (1584), in which he speaks of the usurious practices of the citizens of
London, which is conclusive upon this point : — " The extremity of these men's dealings hath been and is so cruell as there is a natural malice generally impressed in the hearts of the gentlemen of England towards the citizens of London, insomuch as if they odiously name a man, they forthwith called him a trimme jnerchaunt. In like despight the citizen calleth every rascal Bijoly gentleman."
** Scene IV. — " R is for the dog." R was called the dog's letter. In his English Grammar, Ben Jonson says, " R is the dog's letter and hirreth in the sound." In our old writers we have a verb formed from the noise of a dog. Thus, in Nashe (1600),
" They arre and bark at night against the moon ;" and in Holland's translation of Plutarch's Morals, " a dog is, by nature, fell and quarrelsome, given to arre and war upon a very small occasion." Erasmus has a meaning for R being the dog's letter, which is not derived from the sound : " R, litera quse in iJixando, prima est, canina vocatur."
-" Therefore do nimble-pinion' d doves draw love."
The " love" thus drawn was the queen of love ; for " the wind-swift Cupid" had "wings." Shakspere had here the same idea which suggested his own beautiful description at the close of the Venus and Adonis : —
" Thus weary of the world, away she hies. And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid. Their mistress mounted, through the empty skies In her light chariot quickly is convey'd.
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen Means to immure herself, and not be seen."
'5 Scene V.-
44
^^
ACT III.
SCENE L— A public Place.
jEn^^rMERCUTiOjBENVOLiOjPage, 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 stir- ring.
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, Godsend 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 two 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 than 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 quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his ne^v 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.
Mer. The fee-simple ? O simple !
Enter Tybalt and others. Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets. Mer. By my heel, I care not. Tyb. FoUow me close, for I will speak to them. Gentlemen, good den : a word with one of you. 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 consortest with Ro- meo,— Mer. Consort! what, dost thou make us min-
45
Act III.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene I.
strels ! an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here's my fiddle- stick ; 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, Or reason coldly of your grievances, Or else depart ; 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.
Enter Romeo.
Tyb. Well, peace be with you, sir! here comes my man.
Mer. But I '11 be hang'd, sir, if he wear your livery ; Marry, go before to field, he '11 be your follower ; Your worship in that sense, may call him — man.
Tyb. Romeo, the love * 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: — 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 injur'd thee ; But love** thee better than thou canst devise. Till thou shalt know the reason of my love : And so, good Oapulet, — which name I tender As dearly as mine own, — be satisfied.
Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission ! Alia stoccata '^ carries it away. \^Draws.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?
Tyb. What would'st thou have with me ?
Mer. Good king of cats, nothing, but one of your nine lives ; that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry- beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher'^ by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.
Tyb. I am for you. [^Drawing.
Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.
Mer. Come, sir, your passado. \T hey fight.
Rom. Draw, Benvolio. Beat down their weapons. Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage ; Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath
^ C^), hate. ■> Love. So (C) ; the folio, l(rv'd.
" Alia stoccata — the Italian term of art for the thrust with a rapier. * Scabbard.
46
Forbidden bandying in Verona streets. Hold Tybalt— good Mercutio » —
\^Exeunt Tybalt and his Partisans.
Mer. I am hurt. — A plague o' both the houses! — I am sped : Is he gone, and hath nothing ?
Ben. What, art thou hurt ?
Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch ; marry, 'tis enough. — Where is my page ? — go, villain, fetch a sur- geon. \^Exit Page.
Rom. Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Mer. No, 't is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door ; but 't is enough, 't will serve : ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. — A plague o' both your houses ! — What, 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 between us? I was hurt under your arm.
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.
[^Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio.
Rom. This gentleman, the prince's near ally, My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt In my behalf ; my reputation stain'd With Tybalt's slander, Tybalt, that an hour Hath been my cousin.'' — O sweet Juliet, Thy beauty hath made me efieminate. And in my temper soften'd valour's steel.
Re-enter Benvolio.
Ben. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio 's dead; That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds. Which too untimely here did scorn the earth. Rum. This day's black fate on more days doth depend ; Tliis but begins the woe, others must end.
Re-enter Tybalt.
Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back
again. Rom. Alive ! "^ in triumph ! and Mercutio
slain ! Away to heaven, respective lenity,
" We have restored the metrical arrangement of the pre- ceding five lines, from (C) and the folio. i> {A), kinsman. ' So {A). (C) and folio, he gone.
Act III.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene U-
And fire-eyed* fury be my conduct now! — Now, Tybalt, take the lillain back again, That late thou gav'st 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. Ti/b. Thou wretched boy, that didst consort him here, Shalt with him hence.
Rom. This shall determine that,
{^They fight ; Tyb ALT /aZ/s. Ben. Romeo, away, be gone ! The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain : — Stand not amaz'd : — the prince will doom thee
death. If thou art taken : — hence ! — be gone ! — away ! Rom. Oh! I am fortune's fool! Ben. Why dost thou stay ?
\_Exit Romeo. Enter Citizens, ^c. 1 Cit. Which way ran he, that kill' dMercutio? Tybalt, that murtherer, which way ran he ? Ben. There lies that Tybalt. 1 Cit. Up, sir, go with me ;
I charge thee in the prince's name, obey. Enter Prince, attended; Montague, Capu- LET, their Wives, and others. Prin. Where are the vile beginners of this
fray? Ben. O noble prince, I can discover all The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl : There lies tlie man, slain by young Romeo, That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio. La. Cap. Tybalt, my cousin! — O my bro- ther's child! O prince, — O cousin, — husband, '' — the blood is
spill'd Of my dear kinsman ! — Prince, as thou art true. For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague. — O cousin, cousin !
Prin. Benvolio, who began this fray? Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay ; Romeo that spoke him fair, bade him bethink How nice"^ the quarrel was, and urg'd withal Your high displeasure: — All this — uttered With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd, —
» Fire-eyed, So [A) ; the folio and fC) h&vejire and fury.
>> So (C) and folio. [D) " unhappy sight, ah me" and in that copy, "O cousin, cousin !" in the third line beyond, is omit- ted. All the modem editors, in this and in other passages, hare adopted the arliitrary course of making up a text out of the first quarto, and the quarto of l.i99, without regard to the important circumstance that this later edition was " newly corrected, augmented, and amended,"— and that the folio, in nearly every essential particular, follows it.
' Slight.
Could not take truce 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, Hold, friends ! friends, part ! and swifter than
his tongue. His agile arm beats down their fatal points, And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled : But by and by comes back to Romeo, Who had but newly entertain'd revenge, And to 't they go like lightning ; for, ere I Could drawto part them, was stout Tybalt slain ; And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly ; This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.
La. 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.
Prin. And for that offence.
Immediately we do exile him hence : I have an interest in j^our hate's * proceeding, My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a bleed- ing ; But I '11 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 murthers, pardoning those that kill.
\^Exeunt.
SCENE 11.—^ Room in Capulet's House.
Enter Juliet. Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds. Towards PhcEbus' lodging;'' such a waggoner As Phaeton would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately.'' —
* {A), hates. [C], heart's. ^ (A), 7nansion.
' Juliet's soliloquy ends here in the first quarto.
47
Act III.]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene TI.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing
night ! That, unawares," eyes may wink ; and Romeo Leap to these arras, untalk'd of, and unseen ! — Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties: or, if love be blind, It best agi-ees Avith night. — Come, civil night. Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods : Hood my unmann'd •* blood bating in my cheeks, AVith thy black mantle ; till strange 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 upon 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 ; and, though I am sold, Not yet enjoy'd : So tedious is this day, As is the night before some festival To an impatient child, that hath new robes And may not wear them. O, here comes my
nurse,
Enter Nurse with cords. And she brings news : and every tongue, that
speaks But Romeo's name, speaks heavenly eloquence.— Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
the cords,
» The common reading, which is that of all the old copies, is " That runaways' eyes may weep." This passage has been a perpetual source of contention to the commentators. Their difficulties are well represented by Warburton's question — " What runaways are these, whose eyes Juliet is wishing to have stopped ?" Warburton says, Phoebus is the runaway. Steevens proves that Night is the runaway. Douce thinks that Juliet is the runaway. Monck Mason is confident that the passage ought to be, "that Renomifs eyes may wink," Renomy being a new personage, created out of the French Renoraraee, and answering, we suppose, to the " Rumour" of Spenser. After all this learn, ing, there comes an unlearned compositor, Zachary Jackson, and sets the matter straight. Runaways is a misprint for unawares. The word unawares, in the old orthography, is unawayrcs. (it is so spelt in The Third Part of Henry VI.) and the r having been misplaced, produced this word of puzzle, runawayes. We have not the least hesitation in adopting Jackson's reading ; and we have the authority of a very clever article in Blackwood's Magazine (July 1819), for a general testimony to the value of Jackson's book ; and the equally valuable authority of a most accomplished friend, who called our attention to this particular reading, as settled by the common sense of the printer.
i> Unmann'd. A term of falconry. To man a hawk is to accustom her to the falconer who trains her.
48
That Romeo bade thee fetch ?
Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.
[Throws them down.
Jul. Ah me ! what news I 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 ?
Nurse. Romeo can,
Though Heaven cannot: — O Romeo, Romeo I — AVhoever Avould have thought it ? — Romeo !
Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus ? This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell. Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but J," And that bare vowel / shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice : I am not I, if there be such an I; Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer, J, If he be slain, say — I ; 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 ! ^ — here on his manly breast : A piteous corse, a blood j^ piteous corse ; Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood, All in gore blood ; — I swoonded at the sight.
Jul. O break, my heart ! — poor banki'out,** 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 Tj^balt ! honest gentleman ! That ever I should live to see thee dead !
Jul. Whatstorm isthis,thatblowssocontrary? Is Romeo slaughter'd ; and is Tybalt dead ? My dearest*^ cousin, and my dearer lord? — Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom t 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 Ty- balt's blood ?
Nurse. It did, it did ; alas the day ! it did.
Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flow 'ring face ! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
a It is here necessary to retain the old spelling of the affir- mative particle /(ay).
•> Bankrouf. We restore the old poetical bankrout, in preference to the modem bankrupt.
■^ {A), dear-lov'd.
ACT nio
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene III.
Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical ! Dove-feather'd raven ! wolvish-ravening lamb ! Despised substance of divinest show ! Just opposite to -what thou justly seem'st, A damned a saint, an honourable villain! — O, nature ! what hadst thou to do in hell, When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend 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 perjur'd, All forsworn, all nought, all dissemblers. — Ah, where 's mj' man ? give me s,omeaqua vita; : — These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make
me old. Shame come to Romeo !
Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue,
For such a wish ! he was not born to shame : Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit ; For 't is 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
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 hus- band: 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 dead, that would have slain my
husband : All this is comfort : Wherefore weep I then ? Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's
death. That murther'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. 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 foUow'd not, when shesaid — Tybalt's dead,
> Thus (D). (g, dimine. Traobdies. — Vol,. I. H
Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, Which modern lamentation might have mov'd ? But with a rear-ward 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 be spent, When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. Take up those cords: — Poor ropes, you are^ -^j
beguil'd. Both you and I ; for Romeo is exil'd : He made you for a highway to my bed ; But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed. Come, cord ; come, nurse ; I '11 to my wedding
bed ; And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead! jj Nurse. Hie to your chamber : I '11 find Romeo ^ ^, To comfort you : — I wot well where he is. ,- ,
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night ; I '11 to him ; he is hid at Laurence' cell.
Jul. 0 find him ! give this ring to my true
knight, J
And bid liim come to take his last farewell.
[^Ezeu7it.
SCENE III.— Friar Laurence's Cell.
Enter Friar Laurence and Romeo."*^* ^'"
Fri. Romeo, come forth ; come forth, thou fearful man ; Affliction is enamour' d of thy parts, , And thou art wedded to calamity.
Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's doom ? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand. That I yet know not ?
Fri. 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. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips, Not body's death, but body's banishment.
Rom. Ha! banishment? be merciful, say
death. ir iwoi.-iiV cd^.
For exile hath more terror in his look, ■'',''
Much more than death rdonotsay— banishment."'"'
49
Act IU]
ROMEO AND JULIET.
[Scene III.
Fri. Here* from Verona art thou banished: Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Rom. There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence-banished is banish'd from the world. And world's exile is death : — then banished Is death mis-term'd. Calling death banishment, Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe, And smil'st upon the stroke that murthers me. Fri. 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, Andturn'dthat black word death to banishment. This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not. Rom. 'T is 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, and may look on her. But Romeo may not. — More validity. 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 blessing from her lips ; Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin ; This may flies do, when I from this must fly — (And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death) — But Romeo may not, he is banished. '' 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 damned use that world in hell : Howlings attend it : How hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd. To mangle me with that word — banished? Fri. Thou fond mad man, hear me a little
speak.* Rom. O, thouwiltspeakagain of banishment. Fri. I '11 give thee armour to keep off that word ; Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy. To comfort thee, though thou art banished.
Rom. Yet banished ? — Hang up philosophy ! Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
" {A), Hence.
b We have restored this passage to the reading of the folio. The lines were transposed by Steevens, without regard to any copy. In the first quarto the passage is altogether different. In that of 1609, it runs thus :—
" This may flies do, when I from this must fly ;— (And say'st thou yet that exile is not death) — But Romeo may not, he is banished. Flies may do this, but I from this must fly. They are free men, but I am banished." ' Thus (O). 50
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom ; It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more. Fri. O, then I see that madmen have no ears. Rom. How should they, when that wise men
have no eyes ? Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate. Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel ; Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love. An hour but married, Tybalt murthered. Doting like me, and like me banished. Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou
tear thy haii'. And fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave. Fri. Arise ; one knocks ; good Romeo, hide thyself. \^Knoching within.
Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans. Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.
\^Knocking.
Fri. Hark, howthey knock ! — Who's there?
— Romeo, arise;
Thou wilt be taken : — Stay a while ; — stand
up ; \^Knoching.
Run to my study : — By and