Is this the poultice for my aking bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.

JUL. Here's such a coil;-Come, what says Romeo?

NURSE. Have you got leave to go to shrift today?

JUL. I have.

NURSE. Then hie you hence to friar Laurence'

cell,

There stays a husband to make you a wife:
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Hie you to church; I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
Must climb a bird's nest soon, when it is dark:
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go, I'll to dinner; hie you to the cell.

JUL. Hie to high fortune!-honest nurse, fare

well.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO."

FRI. So smile the heavens upon this holy act, That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!

This scene was entirely new formed: the reader may be pleased to have it as it was at first written:

"Rom. Now, father Laurence, in thy holy grant
"Consists the good of me and Juliet.

"Friar. Without more words, I will do all I may
"To make you happy, if in me it lie.

"Rom. This morning here she 'pointed we should meet,
"And consummate those never-parting bands,
"Witness of our hearts' love, by joining hands;
"And come she will.

"Friar. I guess she will indeed:

"Youth's love is quick, swifter than swiftest speed.

Enter JULIET somewhat fast, and embraceth ROMEO.

"See where she comes!

"So light a foot ne'er hurts the trodden flower;
"Of love and joy, see, see the sovereign power!
Jul. Romeo!

"Rom. My Juliet, welcome! As do waking eyes

66

(Clos'd in night's mists) attend the frolick day, "So Romeo hath expected Juliet ;

"And thou art come.

"Jul. I am (if I be day)

"Come to my sun; shine forth, and make me fair.
"Rom. All beauteous fairness dwelleth in thine eyes.
"Jul. Romeo, from thine all brightness doth arise.
"Friar. Come, wantons, come, the stealing hours do
"Defer embracements to some fitter time;
"Part for a time, you shall not be alone,
'Till holy church hath join'd you both in one.'

pass;

ROM. Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight: Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare, It is enough I may but call her mine.

8

FRI. These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die; like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume: The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,

And in the taste confounds the appetite: Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Enter JULIET.

Here comes the lady :'-O, so light a foot

"Rom. Lead, holy father, all delay seems long.

"Jul. Make haste, make haste, this ling'ring doth us

wrong.

"Friar. O, soft and fair makes sweetest work they say; "Haste is a common hind'rer in cross-way." [Exeunt. STEEVENS.

These violent delights have violent ends,] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

"These violent vanities can never last." MALone.

9 Too swift arrives-] He that travels too fast is as long before he comes to the end of his journey, as he that travels slow. Precipitation produces mishap. JOHNSON.

Here comes the lady: &c.] However the poet might think the alteration of this scene on the whole to be necessary, I am afraid, in respect of the passage before us, he has not been very successful. The violent hyperbole of never wearing out the everlasting fint appears to me not only more reprehensible, but even less beautiful than the lines as they were originally written, where the lightness of Juliet's motion is accounted for from the cheerful effects the passion of love produced in her mind.

STEEVENS.

Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:
A lover may bestride the gossomers2
That idle in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

JUL. Good even to my ghostly confessor.

FRI. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

JUL. As much to him, else are his thanks too much.

ROм. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich musick's tongue Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter.

JUL. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,3

• A lover may bestride the gossomers-] The gossomer is the long white filament which flies in the air in summer. So, in Hannibal and Scipio, 1637, by Nabbes:

"Fine as Arachne's web, or gossamer

"Whose curls when garnish'd by their dressing, shew “Like that spun vapour when 'tis pearl'd with dew?"

See Vol. XVII. p. 537, n. 2. STEEVENS.

See Bullokar's English Expositor, 1616: "Gossomor. Things that flye like cobwebs in the ayre."

3

MALONE.

Conceit, more rich &c.] Conceit here means imagination. So, in The Rape of Lucrece:

which the conceited painter drew so proud," &c. See Vol. XIV. p. 397, n. 8. MALONE.

Thus, in the title-page to the first quarto edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor: "A most pleasant and excellent conceited comedy" &c. Again, in the title, &c. to King Henry IV. P. I. quarto, 1599: “ with the humorous conceits of Six John Falstaffe-." STEEVENS.

Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth ;*
But my true love is grown to such excess,

I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.5

FRI. Come, come with me, and we will make short work;

For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone,
Till holy church incorporate two in one.

4

[Exeunt.

They are but beggars that can count their worth;] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.” See Vol. XVII. p. 7, n. 5. STEEVENS.

So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "I were but little happy, if I could say how much." MALONE.

I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.] The quarto, 1599, reads:

I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth. The undated quarto and the folio:

I cannot sum up some of half my wealth. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens.

MALONE.