Page images
PDF
EPUB

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.

b

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,1o 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 ;-Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out,
Whose names are written there, [gives a paper.]
and to them say,

My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. [Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS.

Serv. Find them out, whose names are written here? It is written-that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons, whose names are writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned :-In good time.

[blocks in formation]

"Earth-treading stars that make dark even light." Monck Mason would read,

"Earth-treading stars that make dark, heaven's light," 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 especially as passages in the masquerade scene would seem to indicate that the banqueting room opened into a garden-as,

"Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night."

So the folio and (C), with the exception of one for on. (4), Such, amongst view of many.

[blocks in formation]

Take thou some new infection to the eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.
Rom. Your plantain-leaf is excellent for that."
Ben. For what, I pray thee?

Rom.
For your broken shin.
Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a mad-
man 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 anything you see? Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the lan

[blocks in formation]

Rom. Whither to supper på

Serv. To our house.

Rom. Whose house?
Serv. My master's.

[blocks in formation]

And these,-who, often drown'd, could never die,

Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.
Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being
by,

Herself pois'd with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales,a let there be weigh'd
Your lady's love against some other maid
That I will show you, shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well, that now shows
best.

Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

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.
"Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;12
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 :a-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, quoth 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.

a Bear a brain. Have a memory-a common expression.. b It stinted. It stopped. Thus Gascoigne,—

"Then stinted she as if her song were done."

To stint is used in an active signification for to stop. Thus in those fine lines in Titus Andronicus, which it is difficult 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.

[blocks in formation]

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

[blocks in formation]

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 ?

13

This night you shall behold him at our feast:
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,"
And find delight writ 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 many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
Nurse. No less? nay, bigger; women grow
by men.

La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?

Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move: But no more deep wil I endart mine eye, Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

So (A). The folio and (C) have hour, both in Juliet's and the Nurse's speeches.

b The next seventeen lines are wanting in (A).

c (B), married; which reading has been adopted by Steevens and Malone, in preference to severul, in the folio and (C).

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.A Street.

Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with Five or Six Maskers, Torch-Bearers, and others.

Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?

Or shall we on without apology?

14

Ben. The date is out of such prolixity: We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf,1a 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'll measure them a measure, 15 and be gone. Rom. Give me a torch,16-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 so bound, I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe: Under love's heavy burden do I sink.

Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love:

Too great oppression for a tender thing.

Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like thorn. Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough

[blocks in formation]

a

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; 17
For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,-
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on,-
The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.

Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, 18 the constable's
own word:

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire Of this, sir reverence, 19 love, wherein thou stick'st

Up to the ears.-Come, we burn daylight, 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.

Rom. Well, what was yours?
Mer.

1

And so did I.

That dreamers often lie.

Rom. In bed, asleep, while they do dream

things true.

Mer. O, then, I see queen Mab hath been

with you.

She is the 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 a
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,

[blocks in formation]

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:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear; at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night; 20
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
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-b

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 given 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, Drawne 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 moon-shine 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, Picked 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 strait on courtesies dream: O'er ladies' lips who dream on kisses strait, 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 tythe 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,

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.

Kom. 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.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

Ah, sirrah, this unlooked-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-twenty years; and then we mask'd.

2 Cap. 'Tis more, 't is more: his son is elder, sir; His son is thirty.

1 Cap.

Will you tell me that P 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!

d

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night

Thus (4). (C) and folio, walk about.

b This passage, to "More light, ye knaves," is wanting in (4).

c 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. d Her beauty hangs. All the ancient editions which can be considered authorities-the four quartos and the first folioread It seems she hangs. The reading of her beauty is from

« PreviousContinue »