LA. CAP. We shall be short in our provision; "Tis now near night.3 CAP. Tush! I will stir about, And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife: Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her; I'll not to bed to-night;-let me alone; I'll play the housewife for this once.-What, ho!- Against to-morrow: my heart is wond'rous light, SCENE III. Juliet's Chamber. Enter JULIET and Nurse.4 JUL. Ay, those attires are best :-But, gentle nurse, 2 We shall be short-] That is, we shall be defective. JOHNSON. 3 'Tis now near night.] It appears, in a foregoing_scene, that Romeo parted from his bride at day-break on Tuesday morning. Immediately afterwards she went to Friar Laurence, and he particularly mentions the day of the week, [“ Wednesday is to-morrow."] She could not well have remained more than an hour or two with the friar, and she is just now returned from shrift:-yet lady Capulet says, " 'tis near night," and this same night is ascertained to be Tuesday. This is one out of the many instances of our author's inaccuracy in the computation of time. MALONE. Enter Juliet and Nurse.] Instead of the next speech, the quarto 1597 supplies the following short and simple dialogue: "Nurse. Come, come; what need you anie thing else? I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night; To move the heavens to smile upon my state, Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin. Enter Lady Capulet. LA. CAP. What, are you busy? do help? you need my JUL. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries As are behoveful for our state to-morrow: So please you, let me now be left alone, Juliet. Nothing, good Nurse, but leave me to myselfe. "Nurse. Well there's a cleane smocke under your pillow, and se good night." STEEVENS. For I have need &c.] Juliet plays most of her pranks under the appearance of religion: perhaps Shakspeare meant to punish her hypocrisy. JOHNSON. The pretence of Juliet's, in order to get rid of the Nurse, was suggested by The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, and some of the expressions of this speech were borrowed from thence: "Dear friend, quoth she, you know to-morrow is the day "Of new contract; wherefore, this night, my purpose is to pray "Unto the heavenly minds that dwell above the skies, "That they so smile upon the doings of to-morrow, sorrow; "Wherefore, I pray you, leave me here alone this night, "But see that you to-morrow come before the dawning light, "For you must curl my hair, and set on my attire-." MALONE. LA. CAP. Good night! Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need. [Exeunt Lady CAPULET and Nurse. JUL. Farewell!-God knows, when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, My dismal scene I needs must act alone.- What if this mixture do not work at all ? • Farewell! &c.] This speech received considerable additions after the elder copy was published. STEEVENS. 7 I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life:] So, in Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "And whilst she in these thoughts doth dwell somewhat "The force of her imagining anon did wax so strong, "Her dainty tender parts 'gan shiver all for dread, head: "Then pressed with the fear that she there lived in, tender skin." MALONE. What if this mixture do not work at all?] So, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, Tom. II. p. 239: "but what know I (sayd she) whether the operation of this pouder will be to soone or to late, or not correspondent to the due time, and that my faulte being discovered, I shall remayne a jesting stocke and fable to the people? what know I moreover, if the serpents and other venemous and crauling wormes, which commonly frequent the graves and pittes of the earth, will hurt me thinkyng Must I of force be married to the county ?9. No, no ;-this shall forbid it :-lie thou there.[Laying down a Dagger.1 that I am dead? But how shall I endure the stinche of so many carions and bones of myne auncestors which rest in the grave, if by fortune I do awake before Romeo and frier Laurence doe come to help me? And as she was thus plunged in the deepe contemplation of things, she thought that she sawe a certaine vision or fansie of her cousin Thibault, in the very same sort as she saw him wounded and imbrued with blood." STEEVEns. Here also Shakspeare appears to have followed the poem: 66 to the end I may my name and conscience save, "I must devour the mixed drink that by me here I have: "Whose working and whose force as yet I do not know : "And of this piteous plaint began another doubt to grow; "What do I know, (quoth she) if that this powder shall "Sooner or later than it should, or else not work at all? "And what know I, quoth she, if serpents odious, "And other beasts and worms, that are of nature vene mous, "That wonted are to lurk in dark caves under ground, "And commonly, as I have heard, in dead men's tombs are found, "Shall harm me, yea or nay, where I shall lie as dead? "Or how shall I, that always have in so fresh air been bred, "Endure the loathsome stink of such a heaped store before "Intombed were, where I my sleeping-place shall have, "Where all my ancestors do rest, my kindred's common grave? "Shall not the friar and my Romeus, when they come, "Find me, if I awake before, y-stifled in the tomb?" MALONE. Must I of force be married to the county?] Thus the quarto of 1597, and not, as the line has been exhibited in the late editions Shall I of force be married to the Count? The subsequent ancient copies read, as Mr. Steevens has observed, Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? Malone. - lie thou there. [Laying down a dagger.] This stage What if it be a poison, which the friar direction has been supplied by the modern editors. The quarto, 1597, reads: " Knife, lie thou there." It appears from several passages in our old plays, that knives were formerly part of the accoutrements of a bride; and every thing behoveful for Juliet's state had just been left with her. So, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631: "See at my girdle hang my wedding knives !” Again, in King Edward III. 1599: "Here by my side do hang my wedding knives "Take thou the one, and with it kill thy queen, "And with the other, I'll dispatch my love." Again: " there was a maide named &c.. -she took one of her knives that was some halfe a foote long" &c. &c. "And it was found in all respects like to the other that was in her sheath." Goulart's Admirable Histories, &c. 4to. 1607, pp. 176, $178. In the third Book of Sidney's Arcadia we are likewise informed, that Amphialus" in his crest carried Philocleas' knives, the only token of her forced favour." STEEVENS. In order to account for Juliet's having a dagger, or as it is called in old language, a knife, it is not necessary to have recourse to the ancient accoutrements of brides, how prevalent soever the custom mentioned by Mr. Steevens may have been ; for Juliet appears to have furnished herself with this instrument immediately after her father and mother had threatened to force her to marry Paris: "If all fail else, myself have power to die." Accordingly, in the very next scene, when she is at the Friar's cell, and before she could have been furnished with any of the apparatus of a bride, (not having then consented to marry the count,) she says "Give me some present counsel, or, behold, " "Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife 2 I will not entertain so bad a thought.] This line I have restored from the quarto, 1597. STEEVENS. |