ROMEO AND JULIET. Sam. "T is all one, I will show myself a tyrant: 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 't is known I am a pretty piece of flesh. Gre. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool; here comes of the house of the Montagues." Enter ABRAM and BALTHASAR. Sam. My naked weapon is out; quarrel, I will back thee? Gre. How? turn thy back, and run? 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 Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, Sam. If you do, sir, I am for you; I serve as good a man as you. Abr. No better. Sam. Well, sir. Enter TYBALT. [SCLNE I. 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 footb to seek a foe. Enter PRINCE, with Attendants. Prin. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, That quench the fire of your pernicious rage By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, The quarto of 1609, which we mark as (C), drawn. c (C), brawls. For this time, all the rest depart away : Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new Speak, nephew, were you by, when it began? 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, Pursued my humour, not pursuing his, With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew, a And makes himself an artificial night: Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause? Could we but learn from whence his sorrows The first ten beautiful lines of Montague's speech are not in the original quarto; neither is Benvolio's question, "Have you importun'd him?" nor the answer. We find them in (B), the quarto of 1599. b The folio and (C) read same. Theobald gave us sun; and we could scarcely wish to restore the old reading, even if the probability of a typographical error, same for sunne, were not so obvious. c Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. [Going. Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love. But sadly tell me, who. Groan? why, no ; Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:-e Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!— Ben. Iaim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd. Rom. A right good marksman!-And she's fair I love. Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit. Rom. Well, in that hit, you miss: she'll not be hit With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit; She will not stay the siege of loving terms, e So (A). The folio and (C), “A sick man in sadness makes." So (A). The folio and (C), uncharm'd. That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store a 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, 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. 'Tis the way Rom. 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;8 He that is strucken blind, cannot forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost: Show 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'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt. [Exeunt. : SCENE II-A Street. Enter CAPULET, 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, a The scene ends here in (A): and the three first lines in the next scene are also wanting. (B) has them. b So (D). The folio omits And. c Lady 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, But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, more. At my poor house, look to behold this night Earth-treading stars,b that make dark heaven light: Such comfort, as do lusty young men feel And like her most, whose merit most shall be: 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. "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. Take thou some new infection to the eye, Rom. 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 Signor Martino, and his wife and daughters; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitruvio; Signor 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. Whose house? pa 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. [Exit. And these,-who, often drown'd, could never die, Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars! One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun Herself pois'd with herself in either eye: Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt. 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. She is not fourteen.-How long is it now a 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 Were of an age.-Well, Susan is with God; And since that time it is eleven years: Wilt thou not, Jule? and, by my holy dam, 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 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, What a picture of a despot in his intervals of self satisfying forbearance. c Parlous. A corruption of the word perilous. |