If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully :
Or if thou think'ft I am too quickly won,
I'll frown, and be perverfe, and fay thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but, elfe, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;
And therefore thou may'ft think my haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true,
Than thofe that have more cunning to be strange.
I fhould have been more ftrange, I must confefs,
But that thou over-heardft, ere I was ware,
My true love's paffion : therefore pardon me;
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath fo difcovered.

Rom. Lady, by yonder bleffed moon I vow,
That tips with filver all these fruit-tree tops,-
Jul. O, fwear not by the moon, the inconftant moon
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Left that thy love prove likewise variable.
Rom. What fhall I swear by ?

Jul. Do not fwear at all;

Or if thou wilt, fwear by thy gracious felf,
Which is the god of my idolatry,

And I'll believe thee.

Rom. If my heart's dear love

Jul. Well do not fwear; although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night: It is too rafh, too unadvis'd, too fudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be,

3-coying to be frange.] For coying the modern editions have cunning. JOHNSON.

Cunning is the reading of the elder quarto, and I have restored it. To coy is nevertheless an old verb. So, in A Woman'never vex'd, 1632:

"Love is fo young, it coys but cannot speak." To be frange, is to put on affected coldness, to appear fhy. So, in Greene's Mamillia, 1593: “It is fashion in Padua to be fo Arange with your friends ?" STBEVENS,

Ere

6

Ere one can fay-It lightens .. 7 Sweet, good night?
This bud of love, by fummer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night! as fweet repofe and reft
Come to thy heart, as that within my breast!

Rom O, wilt thou leave me fo unfatisfied?
Jul. What fatisfaction canft thou have to-night?
Rom. The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for
mine.

Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: And yet I would it were to give again.

Rom. Would'ft thou withdraw it? for what pofe, love?

pur

Jul. But to be frank, and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the fea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
I hear fome noife within; Dear love, adieu!
[Nurfe calls within.
Anon, good nurfe!-Sweet Montague, be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again.

Rom. O bleffed bleffed night! I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering-fweet to be fubftantial.

Re-enter Juliet, above.

[Exit.

Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night, indeed.

Ere one can fay,-It lightens,] So, in the Miracles of Mofes, by Drayton : 66

lightning ceaffefsly to burn,

"Swifter than thought from place to place to pafs,
"And being gone, doth fuddenly return
"Ere you could fay precifely what it was."

The fame thought occurs in the Midsummer Night's Dream.

STEEVENS.

7 Sweet, good night.] All the intermediate lines from Sweet, good night, to Stay but a little, &c. were added after the first copy. STEEVENS.

If

If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpofe marriage, fend me word to-morrow,
By one that 111 procure to come to thee,

Where, and what time, thou wilt perform the rite;
And all my fortunes at your feet I'll lay,

And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
Within: Madam.
I come, anon:-But if thou mean'ft not well,
I do befeech thee,-[Within: Madam.] By and by,

I come :

To cease thy fuit and leave me to my grief:
To-morrow will I fend.

Rom. So thrive my foul,—

Ful. A thousand times good night!

[Exit.

Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy

light.

Love goes toward love, as fchool-boys from their

books;

But love from love, towards fchool with heavy looks.

Re-enter Juliet again, above.

Jul. Hift! Romeo, hift!--O, for a faulconer's voice,

S If that thy bent of love be honourable, &c.] In The Tragicall Hyftory already quoted Juliet ufes nearly the fame expreffions: if your thought be chafte, and have on virtue ground,

66

"If wedlock be the end and mark which your defire hath found,

"Obedience fet afide, unto my parents due,

"The quarrel eke that long between our houfholds

grew,

"Both me and mine I will all whole to you betake,

"And following you where fo you go, my father's house forfake;

"But if by wanton love and by unlawful fuit

"You think in ripeft years to pluck my maidenhood's dainty fruit,

"You are beguil'd, and now your Juliet you befeeks, To ceafe your fuit, and fuffer her to live among her likes." MALONE.

To

* To lure this taffel-gentle back again! Bondage is hoarfe, and may not fpeak aloud; Elfe would I tear the cave where echo lies,

And make her airy tongue more hoarfe than mine With repetition of my Romeo's name.

Rem. It is my foul, that calls upon my name : How filver-fweet found lovers' tongues by night, Like fofteft mufic to attending ears!

Jul. Romeo!
Rom. My fweet?

Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow Shall I fend to thee?

Rom. By the hour of nine.

ful. I will not fail; 'tis twenty years 'till then. I have forgot why I did call thee back.

Rom. Let me ftand here 'till thou remember it. Jul. I fhall forget, to have thee ftill ftand there, Rememb'ring how I love thy company,

8 To lure this taffel-gentle back again !] The taffel or tiercel (for fo it should be fpelt) is the male of the gofshark; to called, becaufe it is a tierce or third lefs than the female. This is equally true of all birds of prey. In the Booke of Falconrye, by George Turbervile, gent. printed in 1575, I find a whole chapter on the falcon-gentle &c. So, in The Guardian, by Mallinger:

then for an evening flight

"A tiercel-gentle."

Taylor the water poet ufes the fame expreffiori, "By cafting out the lure, fie makes the taffel-gentle come to her fift.” Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen b. iii. c. 4:

"Having far off efpyde a taffel-geut,

"Which after her his nimble wings doth straine."

Again, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631:

"Your tafel-gentle, he's lur'd off and gone."

This fpecies of hawk had the epithet of gentle annexed to it, from the eafe with which it was tamed, and its attachinent to than. STEEVENS.

That the tafel is of a diftinct fpecies appears from the following quotation from the Ruffe Commonwealth, by G. Fletcher, 1591, -great ftore of hawkes, the eagle, the girfaulcon, the light faulcon, the gofshawk, the tafel, the fpurhawke. &c.

HENDERSON,

Rom

Rem. And I'll ftill ftay, to have thee ftill forget, Forgetting any other home but this.

Jul. "Tis almoft morning, I would have thee gone : And yet no further than a wanton's bird: Who let's it hop a little from her hand, Like a poor prifoner in his twisted gyves, And with a filk thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty.

Rom. I would I were thy bird.
ful. Sweet, fo would I ;

Yet I fhould kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! parting is fuch fweet forrow,
That I fhall fay-good night, 'till it be morrow.

[Exit. Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy

breaft!

'Would I were fleep and peace, fo fweet to reft! Hence will I to my ghoftly father's cell;

His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.

A MONASTERY.

Enter friar Lawrence, with a basket.

[Exit.

Fri. 9 The grey-ey'd morn fmiles on the frowning
night,

Checkering the eaftern clouds with ftreaks of light;
And flecked darknefs like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path-way, made by Titan's wheels:

Now

The grey ey'd morn, &c.] Thefe four first lines are here replaced, conformable to the first edition, where fuch a defcription is much more proper than in the mouth of Romeo just before, when he was full of nothing but the thoughts of his miftrefs.

РОРЕ.

In the folio these lines are printed twice over, and given twice to Romeo, and once to the friar. JOHNSON.

The fame miftake has likewife happened in the quartos, 1599, 1609, and 1637. STEEVENS.

*And flecked darkness] Flecked is fpotted, dappled, streaked, or