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 one foot to seek a foe. Enter Prince, with Attendants. PRIN. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, That quench the fire of your pernicious rage The little sword was the weapon commonly worn, the dress sword. STEEVENS. 3 The little sword was probably nothing more than a dagger. MALONE. -mis-temper'd weapons-] are angry weapons. So, in King John: "This inundation of mis-temper'd humour," &c. STEEVENS. Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate: [Exeunt Prince, and Attendants; CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, TYBALT, Citizens, and MON. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?Speak, nephew, were you by, when it began? BEN. Here were the servants of your adversary, 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, Till the prince came, who parted either part. LA. MON. O, where is Romeo!-saw you him to-day? Right glad I am, he was not at this fray. BEN. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,5 To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.] This name the poet found in the Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562. It is there said to be the castle of the Capulets. MALONE. 5 Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,] The same thought occurs in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. x: A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad; Towards him I made; but he was 'ware of me, 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 furthest east begin to draw "Early before the morn with cremosin ray 66 66 Again, in Summa Totalis; or All in All, or the same for ever, 4to. 1607: "Now heaven's bright eye (awake by Vespers sheene) Peepes through the purple windowes of the East." 66 HOLT WHITE. That most are busied &c.] Edition 1597. Instead of which it is in the other editions thus: 66 -by my own, "Which then most sought, where most might not be found, "Being one too many by my weary self, "Pursu'd my humour," &c. POPE. 7 And gladly shunn'd &c.] The ten lines following, not in edition 1597, but in the next of 1599. POPE. Black and portentous must this humour prove, BEN. My noble uncle, do you know the cause? MON. I neither know it, nor can learn of him. BEN. Have you impórtun'd him by any means? MON. Both by myself, and many other friends: But he, his own affections' counsellor, Is to himself-I will not say, how trueBut 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.' • Ben. Have you impórtun'd &c.] These two speeches also omitted in edition 1597, but inserted in 1599. POPE. 9 Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.] [Old copy-same.] When we come to consider, that there is some power else besides balmy air, that brings forth, and makes the tender buds spread themselves, I do not think it improbable that the poet wrote: Or dedicate his beauty to the sun. Or, according to the more obsolete spelling, sunne; which brings it nearer to the traces of the corrupted text. THEOBALD. I cannot but suspect that some lines are lost, which connected this simile more closely with the foregoing speech: these lines, if such there were, lamented the danger that Romeo will die of his melancholy, before his virtues or abilities were known to the world. JOHNSON. I suspect no loss of connecting lines. An expression some what similar occurs in Timon, Act IV. sc. ii: "A dedicated beggar to the air.” I have, however, adopted Theobald's emendation. Mr. M. Mason observes" that there is not a single passage in our author where so great an improvement of language is obtained, by so slight a deviation from the text." STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson's conjecture is, I think, unfounded; the simile relates solely to Romeo's concealing the cause of his melancholy, and is again used by Shakspeare in Twelfth Night: 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'll know his grievance, or be much denied. BEN. Good morrow, cousin. ROM. Is the day so young ?1 66 -She never told her love, "But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, In the last Act of this play our poet has evidently imitated the Rosamond of Daniel; and in the present passage might have remembered the following lines in one of the Sonnets of the same writer, who was then extremely popular. The lines, whether remembered by our author or not, add such support to Mr. Theobald's emendation, that I should have given it a place in my text, but that the other mode of phraseology was not uncommon in Shakspeare's time: "And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising sunne, The line quoted by Mr. Steevens does not appear to me to be adverse to this emendation. The bud could not dedicate its beauty to the sun, without at the same time dedicating it to the air. A similar phraseology, however, to that of my text may be found in Daniel's 14th, 32d, 44th, and 53d Sonnets. MALONE. Is the day so young?] i. e. is it so early in the day? The same expression (which might once have been popular) I meet with in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540: "It is yet young nighte, or there is yet moche of the nyghte to come." STEEVENS. |