ACT II.

SCENE I. An open Place adjoining Capulet's Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. Can I go forward, when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

[He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it.

Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.

Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo!

Mer.

He is wise;

And, on my life, hath stolen him home to bed.

Ben. He ran this way, and leapt this orchard wall: Call, good Mercutio.

Mer.

Nay, I'll conjure too.

Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!

Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,

Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied.

a

Cry but Ah me! pronounce a but love and dove ;

Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,

One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,

Young Abraham b Cupid, he that shot so trim,

a

(A) has pronounce; the subsequent quartos and the first folio, provaunt; the second folio couply, which has become the received reading of couple. Steevens desired to retain provant, to provide, from the noun provant, provision.

b All the old copies have " Abraham." Upton changed it to " Adam," which all the modern editors have adopted, supposing the allusion, "he that shot so trim," was to the Adam Bell of the old ballad, to whom Shakspere has also alluded in 'Much Ado about Nothing: "He that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam." But the word "trim," which is the reading of the first quarto (the subsequent editions giving us "true"), is distinctly derived from 'The Ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid :'

"The blinded boy, that shoots so trim,

From heaven down did hie,

He drew a dart, and shot at him,

In place where he did lie."

With all submission to the opinion of Percy, who adopts the reading of Upton, we think that the change of Abraham into Adam was uncalled for. Abraham conveys

When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.1
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.-
I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead, and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

anger him

Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.
Mer. This cannot anger him: 't would
To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjur'd it down;

That were some spite: my invocation

Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress' name,

I conjure only but to raise up him.

Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,

b

To be consorted with the humorous night:

Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.

Now will he sit under a medlar-tree,

And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit,

C

As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. ———

another idea than that of Cupid's archery, which is strongly enough conveyed. The "Abraham" Cupid is the cheat-the " Abraham man"—of our old statutes.

a The ape—an expression of kindly familiarity, applied to a young man. b Humorous-dewy, vaporous.

But

c There are two lines here omitted in the text of Steevens's edition, which Malone has restored to the text. In every popular edition of our poet they are omitted. The lines are gross, but the grossness is obscure, and, if it were understood, could scarcely be called corrupting. The freedoms of Mercutio arise out of his dramatic character;—his exuberant spirits betray him into levities which are constantly opposed to the intellectual refinement which rises above such baser matter. Pope rejected these lines-Pope, who, in 'The Rape of the Lock,' has introduced one couplet, at least, that would have disgraced the age of Elizabeth. We do not print the two lines of Shakspere, for they can only interest the verbal critic. But we distinctly record their omission. As far as we have been able to trace and we have gone through the old editions with an especial reference to this matter these two lines constitute the only passage in the original editions which has been omitted by modern editors. With this exception, there is not a passage in Shakspere which is not reprinted in every edition except that of Mr. Bowdler. And yet the writer in 'Lardner's Cyclopædia' (Lives of Literary and Scientific Men) has ventured to make the following assertion: "Whoever has looked into the original editions of his

Romeo, good night :-I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:

Come, shall we go?

Ben.

Go, then; for 't is in vain

To seek him here, that means not to be found.

SCENE II.-Capulet's Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.—

[Exeunt.

[JULIET appears above, at a window.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks!

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!—

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, a since she is envious;

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

It is my lady: O, it is my love:

O, that she knew she were !

She speaks, yet she says nothing; What of that? eye discourses, I will answer it.

Her

I am too bold, 't is not to me she speaks :
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing and think it were not night.

dramas will be disgusted with the obscenity of his allusions. They absolutely teem with the grossest improprieties-more gross by far than can be found in any contemporary dramatist." The insinuation that the original editions contain improprieties that are not to be found in modern editions, is difficult to characterise without using expressions that had better be avoided.

a Be not a votary to Diana,-the

"Queen and huntress, chaste and fair," of Ben Jonson's beautiful hymn.

VOL. VII.

Y

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

She speaks:

O speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven

Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacinga clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

Rom. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? [Aside.

Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;—

b

Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.

What's Montague? it is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
O, be some other name!
Belonging to a man.
What's in a name? that which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes,
Without that title:-Romeo, doff thy name;
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Rom.

e

I take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and I 'll be new baptiz'd; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

a So (4). The folio and (C), puffing.

C

b Juliet places his personal qualities in opposition to what she thought evil of his family.

There is a confusion in the folio and (C), which Malone here appears to have put right, by making out a line with the aid of (A). The folio omits "O, be some other name."

d So (4). The folio and (C), word.

* So (C) and folio. (A), that.

Jul. What man art thou, that, thus bescreen'd in night, So stumblest on my counsel?

I know not how to tell thee who I am;
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;

Had I it written I would tear the word.

a

Jul. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words Of thy tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound; Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

Rom. Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.c

Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me? and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb;

And the place death, considering who thou art,

If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

Rom. With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;

For stony limits cannot hold love out :

And what love can do, that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

Jul. If they do see thee, they will murther thee.
Rom. Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.

Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here. Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes;* And, but thou love me, f let them find me here:

My life were better ended by their hate,

Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out this place? Rom. By love, that first did prompt me to inquire; He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.

I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far

As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,

I would adventure for such merchandise.

a The folio and (C), thy tongue's uttering; (A), that tongue's utterance.

b In (A), saint.

c Dislike--displease.

d In (A), let. e In (4), sight. f But thou love me-so thou do but love me. So (4); In folio and (C), should.