BEN. But new struck nine. ROM. Ay me! sad hours seem long. Was that father that went hence so fast? my BEN. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's

hours? ROM. Not having that, which, having, makes them short.

BEN. In love? ROM. Out

BEN. Of love?

ROM. Out of her favour, where I am in love.(3) BEN. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

ROм. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will !" Where shall we dine ?-O me!-What fray was here?

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

Here's much to-do with hate, but more with love :

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first created;

O heavy lightness! serious vanity!

*

Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!—

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?

BEN.

No, coz, I rather ROM. Good heart, at what?

BEN.

weep.

At thy good heart's oppression. ROM. Why, such is love's transgression.— Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest With more of thine: this love, that thou hast

shown,

BEN. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?
ROM. What, shall I groan, and tell thee?
BEN.
Groan? why, no;

But sadly tell me, who.

ROM. Bid a sick man in sadness maket his will:

A word ill urg'd to one that is so ill !—
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
BEN. I aim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd.
ROM. A right good mark-man!--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;
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,
From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor,

That, when she dies, with beautyd dies her store.(4) BEN. Then she hath sworn, that she will still

live chaste?

Roм. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge

waste;

For beauty, starv'd with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:

She hath forsworn to love; and, in that vow,
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

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.(5)

ROM.

"Tis the way

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;
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. But Montague is bound as well as I, In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think, For men so old as we to keep the peace.

PAR. Of honourable reckoning are you both, And pity 'tis, 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,

(*) First folio omits But.

a And Servant.] The old editions have,-"Enter Capulet, Countie Paris, and the Clowne." By Clown was meant the merryman; and a character of this description was so general in the plays of Shakespeare's early period, that his title here ought perhaps to be retained.

6 She is the hopeful lady of my earth:] A gallicism. Steevens

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.*

The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth: b
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part;
An she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom'd feast, (6)
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love; and you, among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house, look to behold this night

(*) The first quarto, 1597, reads married.

(+) First folio omits The.

says, Fille de terre being the French phrase for an heiress. But Shakespeare may have meant by, "my earth," my corporal part, as in his 146th Sonnet,

"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth."

Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light: "
Such comfort, as do lusty young men feel,
When well-apparell'd April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,
And like her most, whose merit most shall be:
Such, amongst view of many," mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me.-Go, sirrah, [to Serv.] trudge

about

Through fair Verona; find those persons out, Whose names are written there, [gives a paper.] and to them say,

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 heret writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned:-In good time

Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO.

BEN. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,

One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another's
languish :

Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

ROM. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
BEN. For what, I pray thee?
ROM.
For your broken shin.
BEN. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
ROM. Not mad, but bound more than a mad-
man is:

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp'd, and tormented, and-God den, good fellow.
SERV. God ye good den.-I pray, sir, can you

read?

and the latter,—

that make dark heaven's light." Mr. Knight adheres to the old reading, "as passages in the masquerade scene would seem to indicate that the banqueting room opened into a garden." A better reason for abiding by the original text is to consider that the "dark heaven," in Shakespeare's mind, was most probably the Heaven of the stage, hung, as was the custom during the performance of tragedy, with black.

b Such, amongst view of many,-] The reading of the quarto, 1597. The quarto, 1599, that of 1609, and the folio, 1623, have, "Which one more view," &c. Neither reading affords a clear sense.

164

SERV. Up.

ROM. Whither to supper?
SERV. To our house.
ROM. Whose house?
SERV. My master's.

ROM. Indeed, I should have asked 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.

BEN. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st; With all the admired beauties of Verona: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall show, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROM. When the devout religion of mine eye Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires!*

And these,-who, often drown'd, could never die,—
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars !
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.

BEN. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois'd with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales, let there be weigh'd
Your lady's love against some other maid
That I will show you, shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well, that now shows best.
ROM. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt.

(*) Old editions, fire.

(†) First folio, she shew scant shell, well, &c.

e Up.] Is this a misprint for "to sup?"

d Come and crush a cup of wine:] This, like the crack a bottle of later times, was a common invitation of old to a carouse. The following instances of its use, which might be easily multiplied, were collected by Steevens :

"Fill the pot, hostess, &c., and we'll crush it."

The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, 1599. -we'll crush a cup of thine own country wine." HOFFMAN'S Tragedy, 1631. "Come, George, we'll crush a pot before we part." The Pinder of Wakefield, 1599. e Your lady's love-] A corruption, suspect, for "lady-love." It was not Romeo's love for Rosaline, or hers for him, which was to be poised, but the lady herself "against some other maid."

LA. CAP. Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,

Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,

Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years (8)
That you are now a maid. Thus then, in brief ;-
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

NURSE. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, As all the world-why, he's a man of wax.

LA. CAP. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.

NURSE. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.

was too good for me but, as I said, on Lammaseve at night shall she be fourteen; that shall she; marry, I remember it well. 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; (7) and she was wean'd, -I never shall forget it, of all the days of the year, upon that day: for I had then laid wormwood to my dug, sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall. My lord and you were then at Mantua :— nay, I do bear a brain ;-but, as I said, when it did taste the wormwood on the nipple of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool! to see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug. Shake, quoth the dovehouse: 'twas no need, I trow, to bid me trudge. And since that time it is eleven years, for then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, she could have run and waddled all about. For even the day before, she broke her brow: and then my husband-God be with his soul! 'a was a merry man;-took up the child; Yea, quoth he, dost thou fall upon thy face? thou wilt fall backward, when thou hast more wit; wilt thou not, Jule? and, by my holy-dam, the pretty wretch left crying, and said-Ay: to see now, how a jest shall come about! I warrant, an I should* live a thousand years, I never should forget it; wilt thou not, Jule? quoth he: 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 laugh, to think it should leave crying, and say— Ay: and yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow a bump as big as a young cockrel's stone; a par❜lous knock; and it cried bitterly. Yea, quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face? thou wilt fall backward when thou com'st to age; wilt thou not, Jule it stinted, and said—Ay.

JUL. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, Say I.

NURSE. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!

Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.

LA. CAP. Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of: tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?

JUL. It is an honour that I dream not of. NURSE. An honour! were not I thine only nurse, I'd say, thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.

(*) First folio, shall.

a Nay, I do bear a brain:] I can remember well.

b It stinted,-] To stint is to stop.

"Stint thy babbling tongue."

Cynthia's Revels, Act I. Sc. 1. "Pish! for shame, stint thy idle chat." MARSTON'S What You Will, 1607, Induction.

LA. CAP. What say you? can you love the gentleman ?d

This night you shall behold him at our feast:
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea; and 'tis much pride,
For fair without, the fair within to hide :
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.

NURSE. No less? nay, bigger; women grow
by men.

LA. CAP. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?

JUL. I'll look to like, if looking liking move: But no more deep will I endart mine eye, Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

e It is an honour-] In this and in the next line, for honour, the quarto, 1599, and the folio, 1623, have houre.

d Can you love the gentleman ?] The whole of this speech was added after the publication of the first quarto.

e In the margent of his eyes.] See note, p. 101, in the Illustrative Comments on "Love's Labour's Lost."

f The fish lives in the sea;] Mason very properly observes that "the sea cannot be said to be a beautiful cover to a fish," and suggests that sea was a misprint for "shell."