manners, checks herself;-" God forbid!" her darling should prove such a one!

b And yet to my teen-] That is, to my sorrow.

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 :a-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.

b

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 sayAy: 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. 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.

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

gentleman ?

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.

c 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."

found only in the quarto of 1597. The word entrance here requires to be pronounced as a trisyllable, enterance.

We'll measure them a measure, &c.] For an account of this dance, see the Illustrative Comments to Act V. of "Love's Labour's Lost."

d You are a lover;] The twelve lines which follow are not found in the first quarto.

And soar with them above a common bound.

ROM. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft, To soar with his light feathers; and so* bound, I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe; Under love's heavy burden do I sink.

MER.†And, to sink in it, should you burden love; Too great oppression for a tender thing.

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,Give me a case to put my visage in:

[Putting on a mask. A visor for a visor! what care I, What curious eye doth quote deformities? Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.

BEN. Come, knock, and enter; and no sooner in, But every man betake him to his legs.

ROM. A torch for me; let wantons, light of heart,

Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;
For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,—
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on,-

The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done."

MER. Tut! dun's the mouse,(11) the constable's own word:

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire,
Or (save your reverence) love, wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears: come, we burn day-light, ho.
ROM. Nay, that's not so.
MER.

I mean, sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.§
Take our good meaning; for our judgment sits
Five times in that, ere once in our five wits.
ROM. And we mean well in going to this mask;
But 'tis no wit to go.
MER.

Why, may one ask?

ROм. I dreamt a dream to-night.
MER.

And so did I.

(*) First folio, to bound.

(1) First folio, I delay

(+) Old copies, HORATIO.

(5) First folio, in vain, lights lights by day. () First folio omits an.

a Tickle the senseless rushes-] Before the introduction of carpets it was customary, as everybody knows, to strew rooms with rushes; it is not so generally known, however, that the stage was strewn in the same manner.

"on the very rushes, when the comedy is to daunce." DECKER'S Gull's Hornbooke, 1609. b The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.] An allusion, Ritson says, to an old proverbial saying, which advises to give

On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart* men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams:
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film :
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid:+
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of
love :

On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight:

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweet-meats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:4
And sometime comes she with a § tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he|| of another benefice :
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear; at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks** in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is she-(12)
ROM.

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace; Thou talk'st of nothing.

:

MER. True, I talk of dreams; Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy; Which is as thin of substance as the air,

And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

BEN. This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

ROM. I fear, too early: for my mind misgives, Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail !+-On, lusty gentlemen.
BEN, Strike, drum.

[Exeunt."

SCENE V.-A Hall in Capulet's House.
Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

1 SERV. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? he shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!

2 SERV. When good manners shall lie all‡ in one or two men's hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.

1 SERV. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate:-good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone, and Nell.-Antony! and Potpan!

2 SERV. Ay, boy; ready.

1 SERV. You are look'd for, and call'd for, ask'd for, and sought for, in the great chamber.

2 SERV. We cannot be here and there too.Cheerly, boys; be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.d [They retire behind.

Enter CAPULET, &c. with the Guests, and the Maskers.

1 CAP. Welcome, gentlemen! ladies, that have their toes

(*) First folio, side.

(+) First folio, suit.

(1) First folio omits all. a Exeunt.] The folio, 1623, has the following stage direction:"They march about the stage, and Serving-men come forth with their napkins."

b Remove the court-cupboard-] A court-cupboard appears to have been what we now call a cabinet, and was used to display the silver flagons, cups, beakers, ewers, &c., constituting the plate of the establishment.

e Save me a piece of marchpane;] A favourite confection with our ancestors; something like almond cakes, but richer, being composed of pistachio nuts, almonds, pine kernels, sugar of roses, and flour.

d This scene first appeared in the edition of 1509.

e Will have a bout- So the quarto, 1597: the subsequent copies, and the folio, walk about.

f Welcome, gentlemen!-] The remainder of this speech, down to "More light, you knaves;" &c. was added after the printing of the 1597 quarto.