a Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship, In that word's death; no words can that woe sound. Where is my father, and my mother, nurse? NURSE. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse: Will you go to them? I will bring you thither. JUL. Wash they his wounds with tears; mine shall be spent, When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. Take up those cords: poor ropes, you are beguil❜d, Both you and I; for Romeo is exil'd: NURSE. Hie to your chamber: I'll find Romeo [Exeunt. SCENE III.-Friar Laurence's Cell. FRI. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man; Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts, ROM. Father, what news? what is the prince's doom? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, (*) First folio, which. a Sour woe delights in fellowship,-] Compare- b Modern lamentation-] That is, ordinary, well-known lamentation. So, in "All's Well That Ends Well," Act II. Sc. 3:"Make modern and familiar things, Supernatural and causeless." And in "As You Like It," Act II. Sc. 9: "Full of wise saws, and modern instances." e Wash they his wounds with tears;] All the modern editions place a note of interrogation after these words, but perhaps in error. The Nurse tells Juliet her father and mother are weeping I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom. ROM. What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom? FRI. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips, Not body's death, but body's banishment. ROM. Ha! banishment? be merciful, saydeath: For exile hath more terror in his look, ROM. There is no world without Verona walls, But purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence banished is banish'd from the world, FRI. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness! ROM. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, Where Juliet lives; and every cat, and dog, O friar, the damned use that word in hell; A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, To mangle me with that word-banished? FRI. Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak." ROM. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment. FRI. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word; Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, To comfort thee, though thou art banished. Roм. Yet banished ?-hang up philosophy! Unless philosophy can make a Juliet, Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom; It helps not, it prevails not; talk no more. FRI. O, then I see that madmen have no ears. ROM. How should they, when that* wise men have no eyes? FRI. Let me disputer with thee of thy estate." ROM. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel: Wert thou as young as I,* Juliet thy love, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, ROM. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans, (*) First folio, as Juliet my love. b Dispute with thee of thy estate.] Let me reason with you upon your affairs. c Knocking within.] The stage direction in the old copies is, "Enter Nurse, and knockes." NURSE. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar, Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo? FRI. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk. NURSE. O, he is even in my mistress' case, Just in her case! O woeful sympathy! FRI. Piteous predicament ! ↳ NURSE. Even so lies she, Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering: Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man: For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand; Why should you fall into so deep an O? ROм. Nurse! NURSE. Ah sir! ah sir!--Well,* death's the end of all. ROM. Spak'st thou of Juliet? how is it with her? Doth she not think me an old murderer, Now I have stained the childhood of our joy With blood remov'd but little from her own? Where is she? and how doth she? and what says My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd‡ love? NURSE. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps ; And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries, And then down falls again. Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand Murder'd her kinsman.-O tell me, friar, tell me, In what vile part of this anatomy e Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack a What wilfulness is this!] So the first quarto, 1597: all the subsequent editions, quarto and folio, read simpleness. b Piteous predicament!] These words form part of the Nurse's speech in the old copies. Farmer first suggested they must be the Friar's. e Drawing his sword.] In the first quarto, 1597, is the following stage direction:-He ofers to stab himselfe, and nurse snatches the dagger away. d That in thy life lives,-] The quarto, 1597, has,"And slay thy lady too, that lives in thee." The quarto, 1599, and folio, 1623, read, "And slay thy lady, that in thy life lies." Why rail'st thou on thy birth,-] Malone justly remarked, that Romeo does not here rail on his birth, though in the old poem he is made to do so: "Fyrst Nature did he blame, the author of his lyfe, In which his joyes had been so scant, and sorowes aye so ryfe; The time and place of byrth he ficrsly did reprove, He cryed out (with open mouth) against the starres above." "Shakspeare copied the remonstrance of the friar, without reviewing the former part of his scene." f There art thou happy too:) Thus the quarto, 1597; in the subsequent quartos, and the folio, 1623, the word too is omitted. g Thou pout'st upon thy fortune-] The quarto, 1599, reads, puts up; the folio, 1623, puttest up; and in the quarto, 1597, the line stands "Thou frown'st upon thy fate, that smiles on thee." The true reading is got at through the undated quarto, which has powls. Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. NURSE. O Lord, I could have staid here all the night, To hear good counsel: O, what learning is!- Rox. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. sir: Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. FRI. Go hence: good night; and here stands all your state;" Either be gone before the watch be set, ROM. But that a joy past joy calls out on me, It were a grief, so brief to part with thee: Farewell. [Exeunt. SCENE IV-A Room in Capulet's house. Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and PARIS. CAP. Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily, That we have had no time to move our daughter: Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly, And so did I;-well, we were born to die.'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night: O'Thursday let it be ;-o' Thursday, tell her, Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends, And there an end. But what say you to Thursday? PAR. My lord, I would that Thursday were I will make a confident offer, or promise, of my daughter's love. e Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree:] According to Steevens, this is not merely a poetical supposition. "It is observed," he says, "of the nightingale that, if undisturbed, she sits and sings upon the same tree for many weeks together." And Russell, in his account of Aleppo, tells us, "The nightingale sings from the pomegranate groves in the daytime." The pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;] The annotator of Mr. Collier's second folio substitutes bow for "brow;" a very happy That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. с ROM. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out,(7) and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops; I must be gone and live, or stay and die. JUL. Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I: It is some meteor that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a torch-bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua : Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not to be gone. ROм. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I'll say, yon grey is not the morning's eye, "Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; d Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads : I have more care to stay, than will to go;Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.— How is 't, my soul? let's talk, it is not day. JUL. It is, it is, hie hence, be gone, away; It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps. Some say, the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us: Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes; O, now I would they had changed voices too! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunts-up(8) to the day. O, now be gone; more light and light it grows. ROM. More light and light!--more dark and dark our woes! conjecture, and one which certainly affords a better reading than the old text. It must be remembered, however, that brow is the word in all the ancient copies, and that Shakespeare has allowed himself great latitude in the use of it in other places. In "Othello" we meet with the "brow of the sea;" and in "King John" with the "brow of night." e Makes sweet division;] Division in music, meant what we now term variation; where, instead of one note, two, three or more notes are sung to one syllable, or to one chord. f The lark and loathed toad change eyes;] The lark has ugly eyes and the toad very fine ones; hence arose a common saying that the toad and lark had changed eyes. Poor Juliet wishes they had changed voices, too, because, as Heath suggested, the croak of the toad would have been no indication of the day's approach, and consequently no signal for Romeo's departure. |