You'll make a mutiny among my guests!

You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!

Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.

You are a saucy boy: is 't so indeed?

This trick may chance to scathe you,-I know what:

You must contrary me! marry, 'tis time.—

Well said, my hearts!-You are a princox; go:

More light, more light!

I'll make you quiet.-What! cheerly, my hearts! Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall, Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.

shame!] or more . . .

Rom. [To Juliet.] If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too

much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

100

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. 105
Rom. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;

They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers'

sake.

Rom. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

96. unworthiest] Q, F; unworthie, QI. 97. sin] Q, Q3, Ff; sinne Q 1, Qq 4, 5. 98. ready] Q1, Q 5, Ff 2-4; did readie Q, F. 102. hands that] Q5; hands, that Q, F. 109. prayer's effect I take] Capell; prayers effect I take Q1, Q, F; prayers effect doe take Ff 2-4.

97. sin] I retain this word, which has the authority of all the early texts. Many editors follow Theobald in adopting Warburton's proposal fine, and it would have been easy to mistake fine for sinne (with a long s). Fine, i right, would mean mulct, and would refer to the kiss. The clash in sound of shrine and fine is not pleasing. I take the whole speech to be a request for permission to kiss ; to touch Juliet at all is sin; but the profanation with Romeo's hand is a rough sin; to touch with his lips is "the gentle sin." A very slight emendation, which, I think, has not been proposed, "the gentler sin is this," would make it clearer. Another

possible reading which occurs to me is, "the gentle sin in this," the gentle and courteous take your hand, but if it is profanation, I will atone for it. The sin is referred to, lines 111-113. "Tho' gentle" has been suggested to me by Professor Littledale.

100. pilgrim] Halliwell gives a sketch by Inigo Jones which shows a pilgrim's costume, such as was worn, it is believed on the evidence of this line and probably of stage tradition, by Romeo; the loose large-sleeved gown with cape, broad-leafed hat, a pilgrim's staff in the left hand.

109. I take] This line completes what is virtually a Shakesperian sonnet in dialogue.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged. 110

Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.

Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.
Rom. What is her mother?

Her mother is the lady of the house,

And a good lady, and a wise, and virtuous:

I nursed her daughter that you talk'd withal;
I tell you he that can lay hold of her

O dear account! my life is my foe's debt. Ben. Away, be gone; the sport is at the best. Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest. Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;

We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.- 125

Is it e'en so? Why then, I thank you all;

I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.—
More torches here!-Come on, then let's to bed.
Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late;

129

I'll to my rest. [Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse. Jul. Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?

Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.

Jul. What's he that now is going out of door?

Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.

Jul. What's he that follows there, that would not

dance?

Nurse. I know not.

135

Jul. Go, ask his name.—If he be married,

My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
The only son of your great enemy.

Jul. My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.

Nurse. What's this? what's this?

Jul.

140

A rhyme I learn'd even now. 145 Of one I danced withal. [One calls within, “Juliet."

128. on, then] Q, F; on, then, Dyce; on then, Camb. 134. Marry be] Q, F; That as I think is Q 1. 135. there] Q1; here Q, F. 138. wedding] Q, wedded F. 140. your] Q, F; our Ff 2-4. 145. learn'd] Q, learne F.

have a delicate banquet, with abund-
ance of wine." See Taming of the
Shrew, v. ii. 9.
126. e'en so?] Q 1 has stage-direc-
tion, "They whisper in his eare," i.e.
their reasons for going.

131. Come hither, nurse] The

dialogue between Juliet and Nurse was suggested by Brooke's poem.

137, 138. If. . . bed] Uttered to herself, while the Nurse makes inquiry.

143. Prodigious] Portentous, as in Midsummer Night's Dream, v. i. 419.

Nurse.

Anon, anon!

Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.

ACT II.

[Exeunt.

Enter CHORUS.

Chor. Now old Desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young Affection gapes to be his heir:

That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,
With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.

Now Romeo is beloved and loves again,

Alike bewitched by the charm of looks,

But to his foe supposed he must complain,

5

And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful

hooks:

Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear; 10
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new-beloved any where:
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

4. match'd] F, match Q.

Chorus] There being no division of Acts or Scenes in the early texts, editors may place the Chorus at end of Act I., or, as here, by way of prologue to Act II. As it refers more to the future than the past, I follow the Cambridge editors in placing it here. Some critics doubt that it is by Shakespeare.

2. gapes] Rushton (Shakespeare's Testamentary Language, p. 29) quotes

[Exit.

examples from Swinburn's Briefe Treatise of Testaments, 1590: “such as do gape for greater bequests," and "to gape and crie upon the testator."

3. fair] Frequent in Shakespeare for a beautiful person, and also in the sense of beauty; I think the former is the meaning here. As to the repeated for in this line, compare All's Well, I. ii. 29: "But on us both did haggish age steal on."