Rom. For your broken shin. Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad? Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is Whipp'd, and tormented, and-Good-e'en, good fellow. [Reads Signior Martino, and his wife, and daughters; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena. A fair assembly; [Gives back the note.] Whither should they come? Serv. Up. Rom. Whither? Serv. To supper; 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 One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun Herself pois'd with herself in either eye: And she shall scant show well, that now shows best. SCENE III. [Exeunt. A Room in CAPULET'S House. Enter Lady CAPULET and Nurse. La. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me. Nur. Now, by my maiden-head,—at twelve years old,-I bade her come. What, lamb! what, lady bird!God forbid !—where's this girl ?—what, Juliet! - Enter JULIET. Jul. How now, who calls? Nurse. Your mother. Jul. Madam, I am here. What is your will? a. 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. Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. La. Cap. She's not fourteen. Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, 5 And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,— To Lammas-tide ? La. Cap. A fortnight, and odd days. Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year, [5] To my teen---to my sorrow. JOHNSON. Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall, Shake, quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow, And since that time it is eleven years : For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, 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 parlous 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. Nur. 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. theme La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very [you, Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only.nurse, I'd say, thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat. La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now: younger than [6] Stinted--stopped, forbore from weeping. STEEVENS. Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Are made already mothers: by my count, Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower. And see how one another lends content; This precious book of love, this unbound lover, The fish lives in the sea; and 'tis much pride, That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, Nurse. No less? Nay, bigger; women grow by men. Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight. La. Cap. We follow thee.-Juliet, the county stays. [7] So, in Wily Beguiled: "Why he's a man as one should picture him in wax." STEEVENS. [8] This ridiculous speech is full of abstruse quibbles. The unbound lover, is a quibble on the binding of a book, and the binding in marriage; and the word cover is a quibble on the law phrase for a married woman, who is styled a femme couverte in law French. MASON. [9] The golden story is perhaps the golden legend, a book in the darker ages of popery much read, and doubtless often exquisitely embellished, but of which Canus, one of the popish doctors, proclaims the author to have been homo ferrei oris, plumbei cordis. JOHNSON. The poet may mean nothing more than to say, that those books are most esteem. ed by the world, where valuable contents are embellished by as valuable binding. STEEVENS. Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. SCENE IV. [Exeunt. A Street. Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others. Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without apology? Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.' you dance. Rom. Give me a torch,3--I am not for this ambling. Mer. You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings, Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love; Rom. Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like thorn. Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. [1] In Henry VIII. where the king introduces himself to the entertainment given by Wolsey, he appears like Romeo and his companions in a mask, and sends a messenger before, to make an apology for his intrusion. This was a custom observed by those who came uninvited, with a desire to conceal themselves for the sake of intrigue, or to enjoy the greater freedom of conversation. Their entry on these occasions was always prefaced by some speech in praise of the beauty of the ladies, or the generosity of the entertainer; and to the prolixity of such introductions I believe Romeo is made to allude. STEEVENS. See King Lear, p. 237. [3] To hold a torch was anciently no degrading office. Queen Elizabeth's gentlemen pensioners attended her to Cambridge, and held torches while a play was acted before her in the chapel of King's college, on a Sunday evening.---Before the invention of chandeliers all rooms of state were illuminated by flambeaux which attendants held upright in their hands. STEEVENS. |