Imatges de pàgina
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Well faid, my hearts :-You are a princox; go3:-
Be quiet, or-More light, more light, for fhame !—
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 feeming fweet, convert to bitter gall.
Rom. If I profane with my unworthy hand [to Juliet.
This holy fhrine, the gentle fine is this,-

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

[Exit.

To fmooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion fhews in this;

For faints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kifs.
Rom. Have not faints lips, and holy palmers too?
Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

writers. So, in Tully's Love by R. Greene, 1616: “—rather wishing to die than to contrary her refolution." Many instances more might be felected from Sidney's Arcadia.

Again, in Warner's Albions England, 1602, B. 10. Chap. 59.

his countermand fhould have contraried fo."

The fame verb is ufed in Sir Thomas North's tranflation of Plutarch. STEEVENS.

3 You are a princox; go:-] A princox is a coxcomb, a conceited perfon. The word is ufed by Ben Jonfon in The Cafe is alter'd, 1609; by Chapman in his comedy of May-Day, 1610; in the Return from Parnalus, 1606: "Your proud univerfity Princox;" again, in Fuimus Troes, 1633: "That Princox proud;" and indeed by most of the old dramatick writers. Cotgrave renders un jeune eftoudeau fuperbe-a young princox boy. STEEVENS.

4 Patience perforce-] This expreffion is in part proverbial: the old adage is,

"Patience perforce is a medicine for a mad dog," STEEVENS, 5 If I profane with my unworthy band

This boly fhrine, the gentle fine is this,

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, &c.] The old copies read fin.

MALONE.

All profanations are fuppofed to be expiated either by fome meritorious action, or by fome penance undergone, and punishment fubmited to. So Romeo would here fay, if I have been profane in the rude touch of my hand, my lips itand ready, as two blushing pilgrims, to take off that offence, to atone for it by a fweet penance. therefore must have wrote.-the gentle fine is this.

Our poet

WARBURTON.

Jul.

Rom. O then, dear faint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, left faith turn to defpair. Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' fake. Rom. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my fin is purg'd.[kiffing her1. Jul. Then have my lips the fin that they have took. Rom. Sin from my lips? O trefpafs fweetly urg'd! Give me my fin again.

Jul. You kifs by the book ".

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

Nurfe. Marry, bachelor,

Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wife, and virtuous:
1 nurs'd her daughter, that you talk'd withal;
I tell you, he, that can lay hold of ner,
Shall have the chinks".

Rom. Is the a Capulet?

O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.
Ben. Away, begone; the fport is at the best.
Rom. Ay, fo I fear; the more is my unrest.
1. Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards'.-

60 then, dear faint, let lips do avbat bands doz

Is

They pray, grant thou, &c.] Juliet had laid before, that palm to palm was holy palmers' kifs; the afterwards fays that palmers have lips that they muft ufe in prayer. Romeo replies, that the prayer of his lips was, that they might do what hands do;" that is, that they might kifs. MASON.

-kiffing ber.] Our poet here, without doubt, copied from the mode of his own time: and kiffing a lady in a publick aflembly, we may conclude, was not thought indecorous. In K. Henry VIII. he in fike manner makes Lord Sands kifs Anne Boleyn, next to whom he fits at the fupper given by Cardinal Wolfey. MALONE.

You kifs by the book.] In As you Like it, we find it was usual to quarrel by the book, and we are told in the note, that there were books extant for good manners. Juliet here appears to refer to a third kind, containing the art of courtship, an example from which it is probable that Rofalind hath adduced. HENLEY.

9-tbe chinks.] Thus the old copies; for which Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors have fubftituted cbink. MALONE.

We bave a trifting foolish banquet towards.] Towards is ready at hand. So, in Hamlet:

[blocks in formation]

Is it e'en fo? Why, then I thank you all;
I thank you, honeft gentlemen 9; good night:-
More torches here!-Come on, then let's to bed.
Ah, firrah, [to z. Cap.] by my fay, it waxes late;
I'll to my reft.
[Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurfe.
Jul. Come hither, nurfe': What is yon gentleman ?
Nurfe. The fon and heir of old Tiberio.

Jul. What's he, that now is going out of door?
Nurfe. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.
Jul. What's he, that follows there, that would not

dance?

Nurse. I know not.

Jul. Go, afk his name:-if he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

Nurfe. His name is Romeo, and a Montague;
The only fon of your great enemy.

Jul. My only love fprung from my only hate!
Too early feen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I muft love a loathed enemy.
Nurfe. What's this? what's this?
Jul. A rhyme I learn'd even now
Of one I danc'd withal.

Nurfe. Anon, anon :

[One calls within, Juliet.

Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone. [Exeunt. "What might be towards, that this sweaty hafte

"Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?"

Again, in the Phenix, by Middleton, 1607:-" here's a voyage towards, will make us all." STEEVENS.

It appears from the former part of this fcene that Capulet's company had fupped. A banquet, it should be remembered, often meant in old times nothing more than a collation of fruit, wine, &c. So, in The Life of Lord Cromwell, 1602:

Their dinner is our banquet after dinner."

Again, in Heath's Chronicle of the Civil Wars, 1661, p. 662: "After dinner, he was served with a banquet.” MALONE. • boneft gentlemen ;] Here the quarto, 1597, adds:

"I promife you, but for your company,

"I would have been in bed an hour ago:
"Light to my chamber, ho!" STEEVENS.

1 Come bitber, nurfe: What is yon gentleman ] This and the following questions are taken from the novel. STEEVENS.

See the poem of Romeus and Juliet, Vol. X. p. 479. MALONE.

Enter

Enter CHORUS 2.

Now old defire 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 belov'd, and loves again, Alike bewitched by the charm of looks; But to his foe fuppos'd he must complain, And she steal love's fweet bait from fearful hooks Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe fuch vows as lovers ufe to swear;
And the as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new-beloved any where:

But paffion lends them power, time means to meet,
Temp'ring extremities with extreme fweet.

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 center out.

[Exit.

[He climbs the wall, and leaps down,

Enter BENVOLIO, and MERCUTIO.

Ben. Romeo! my coufin Romeo!

This chorus added fince the first edition.

POPE.

The use of this chorus is not eafily discovered; it conduces nothing to the progrefs of the play, but relates what is already known, or what the next scene will fhew; and relates it without adding the improvement of any moral fentiment. JOHNSON.

3 That fair-] Fair it has been already obferved, was formerly used as a substantive, and was fynonymous to beauty. See Vol. III. MALONE. P. 170, n. 6.

-for which love groan'd for,] Thus the ancient copies, for which all the modern editors, adopting Mr. Rowe's alteration, read-groan'd fore. This is one of the many changes that have been made in the text from not attending to ancient phrafeology; for this kind of duplication was common in Shakspeare's time. So, in Coriolanus: "İn what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two have not in abundance ?" See Vol. VII. p. 184, n. 1. Again, in As you Like it, A&t II. sc. vii : ! —the scene wherein we play in." MALONE. E 3

Mer

Mer. He is wife;

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

Ben. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall: Call, good Mercutio.

Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too.

Romeo! humours! madman! paffion! lover!
Appear thou in the liknefs of a figh,

Speak but one rhyme, and I am fatisfied;

Cry but-Ah me! pronounce but-love and dove*;
Speak to my goffip Venus one fair word,

One nick-name for her purblind fon and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that fhot so trim,
When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid".-

He

4-pronounce but love and dove;] Thus the first quarto, 1597. Pronounce in the quartos of 1599 and 1609 was made provaunt.

In the first folio, which appears to have been printed from the latter of thefe copies, the fame reading is adopted. The editor of the fecond folio arbitrarily fubstituted couply, meaning certainly couple, and all the modern editors have adopted his innovation. Provant, as Mr. Steevens has obferved, means provifion; but I have never met with the verb To provant, nor has any example of it been produced. I have no doubt therefore that it was a corruption, and have adhered to the first quarto.

In this very line, love and dove, the reading of the original copy of 1597, was corrupted in the two fubfequent quartos and the folio, to love and day; and beir in the next line corrupted into ber. MALONE. 5 Young Adam Cupid, be that hot fo trim,

When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.] Cupid is called Adam with allufion to the celebrated archer Adam Bell, (fee Percy's Reliques of ancient English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 7.) whom Shakspeare has again alluded to in Much ado about norbing: "If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and fhoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on the shoulder, and call'd Adam."-The old copies read Abraham, the initial letter only being probably fet down in the manufcript. The foregoing paffage fully fupports the emendation, which was fuggefted by Mr. Upton. Of this kind of ignorance the old copies of the play before us furnish a remarkable inftance in the next fcene. In the ori ginal copy of 1597 we have this line :

And follow thee, my lord, throughout the world.

In the two next quartos the word lord being abbreviated, according to a common fashion of that time,

And follow thec, my L, throughout the world.

the printer of the quarto published in 1637, exhibited the line thus; And follow thee, my love, throughout the world.

and

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