ROM. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I'll say, yon grey is not the morning's eye, 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads: I have more care to stay, than will to go; Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.How is't, my soul? let's talk, it is not day. 5 JUL. It is, it is, hie hence, be gone, away; It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps. Some say, the lark makes sweet division;" This doth not so, for she divideth us: Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes; O, now I would they had chang'd voices too!" the pale reflex-] The appearance of a cloud opposed to the moon. JOHNSON. 3 I have more care to stay, than will to go;] Would it not be better thus-I have more will to stay, than care to go? 6 JOHNSON. Care was frequently used in Shakspeare's age for inclination. MALONE. sweet division;] Division seems to have been the technical phrase for the pauses or parts of a musical composition. So, in King Henry IV. P. I: 2 "Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, To run a division, is also a musical term. STEEVens. 7 Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes; O, now I would they had chang'd voices too!] I wish the lark and toad had changed voices; for then the noise which I hear would be that of the toad, not of the lark: it would consequently be evening, at which time the toad croaks; not morning, when the lark sings; and we should not be under the necessity of separation. A. C. If the toad and lark had changed voices, the unnatural croak of the latter would have been no indication of the appearance 8 Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, of day, and consequently no signal for her lover's departure. This is apparently the aim and purpose of Juliet's wish. ĤEATH. The toad having very fine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones, was the occasion of a common saying amongst the people, that the toad and lark had changed eyes. To this the speaker alludes. WARBURTON. This tradition of the toad and lark I have heard expressed in a rustick rhyme: 66 To heav'n I'd fly, "But that the toad beguil'd me of mine eye." JOHNSON. Read chang'd eyes. M. MASON. • Since arm from arm &c.] These two lines are omitted in the modern editions, and do not deserve to be replaced, but as they may show the danger of critical temerity. Dr. Warburton's change of I would to I wot was specious enough, yet it is evidently erroneous. The sense is this: The lark, they say, has lost her eyes to the toad, and now I would the toad had her voice too, since she uses it to the disturbance of lovers. JOHNSON. 9 Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.] The huntsup was the name of the tune anciently played to wake the hunters, and collect them together. So, in The Return from Parnassus, 1606: "Yet will I play a hunts-up to my Muse." Again, in the play of Orlando Furioso, 1594 and 1599: "To play him huntsup with a point of war, "I'll be his minstrell with my drum and fife.” Again, in Westward Hoe, 1607: Make a noise, its no matter; any huntsup to waken vice." Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 13th: "But hunts-up to the morn the feather'd sylvans sing." STEEVENS. Puttenham, in his Art of English Poesy, 1589, speaking of one Gray, says, "what good estimation did he grow into with king Henry [the Eighth] and afterwards with the duke of Somerset protectour, for making certaine merry ballads, whereof one chiefly was The Hunte is up, the Hunte is up." RITSON. A huntsup also signified a morning song to a new-married woman, the day after her marriage, and is certainly used here in that sense. See Cotgrave's Dictionary, in v. Resveil. MALONE. O, now be gone; more light and light it grows. ROM. More light and light?-more dark and dark our woes. Enter Nurse. NURSE. Madam! JUL. Nurse? NURSE. Your lady mother's coming to your chamber: The day is broke; be wary, look about. [Exit Nurse. JUL. Then, window, let day in, and let life out. ROM. Farewell, farewell! one kiss, and I'll de[ROMEO descends. scend. JUL. Art thou gone so? my love! my lord! my friend!! I must hear from thee every day i'the hour, ROM. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity That may convey my greetings, love, to thee. JUL. O, think'st thou, we shall ever meet again? ROM. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve 1Art thou gone so? my love! my lord! my friend!] Thus the quarto, 1597. That of 1599, and the folio, read: Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay husband, friend! O! by this count I shall be much in years, "Illa ego, quæ fueram te decedente puella, MALONE. Ovid, Epist. I. STEEVENS For sweet discourses in our time to come. JUL. O God! I have an ill-divining soul: Methinks, I see thee, now thou art below, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb: Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale. ROM. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you: Dry sorrow drinks our blood.5 Adieu! adieu ! [Exit ROMEO. JUL. O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle: If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him 3 O God! I have an ill-divining soul: &c.] This miserable prescience of futurity I have always regarded as a circumstance particularly beautiful. The same kind of warning from the mind, Romeo seems to have been conscious of, on his going to the entertainment at the house of Capulet: 66 my mind misgives, "Some consequence yet hanging in the stars, "From this night's revels." STEEVENS. *O God! I have an ill-divining soul: Methinks, I see thee, now thou art below, As one dead-] So, in our author's Venus and Adonis: "The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed; "And fear doth teach it divination; "I prophecy thy death." Q The reading of the text is that of the quarto, 1597. That of 1599, and the folio, read-now thou art so low. MALONE. 5 Dry sorrow drinks our blood.] This is an allusion to the proverb "Sorrow's dry." Chapman, in his version of the seventeenth Iliad, says— "Drunk from their faces all their blouds ; He is accounting for their paleness. It was an ancient notion that sorrow consumed the blood, and shortened life. Hence, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. we have "blood-sucking sighs." MALONE. See Vol. XVIII. p. 311, n. 4. STEEVENS, That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, fortune; For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long, But send him back. LA. CAP. [Within.] Ho, daughter! are you up? JUL. Who is't that calls? is it my lady mother? Is she not down so late, or up so early?7 What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither ?8 Enter Lady Capulet. LA. CAP. Why, how now, Juliet ? JUL. Madam, I am not well. LA. CAP. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death ?9 That is renown'd for faith?] This Romeo, so renown'd for faith, was but the day before dying for love of another woman: yet this is natural. Romeo was the darling object of Juliet's love, and Romeo was, of course, to have every excellence. M. MASON. 7 Is she not down so late, or up so early?] Is she not laid down in her bed at so late an hour as this? or rather is she risen from bed at so early an hour of the morn? MALone. * — procures her hither?] Procures for brings. WARBURTON. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death? &c.] So, in The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562 : 66 time it is that now you should our Tybalt's death forget; "Of whom since God hath claim'd the life that was but lent, "He is in bliss, ne is there cause why you should thus lament: "You cannot call him back with tears and shriekings shrill; "It is a fault thus still to grudge at God's appointed will." MALONE. So, full as appositely, in Painter's Novel: "Thinke no more upon the death of your cousin Thibault, whom do you thinke to revoke with teares?" &c. STEEVENS. |