What wilfulness in this?-I come, I come. [Knocking. Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will? NURSE. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand ; I come from lady Juliet. FRI. Welcome then. Enter Nurse. 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! Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man: What wilfulness-] Thus the quarto 1597. That of 1599, and the folio, have-What simpleness. MALONE. O woeful sympathy! Piteous predicament!] The old copies give these words to the Nurse. One may wonder the editors did not see that such language must necessarily belong to the Friar. FARMER. Dr. Farmer's emendation may justly claim that place in the text to which I have now advanced it. STEEVENS. 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 stain'd 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?2 NURSE. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps; And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, ROM. As if that name, Shot from the deadly level of a gun, 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 Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I may sack The hateful mansion. FRI. [Drawing his Sword. Hold thy desperate hand : Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art; 3 cancell❜d love?] The folio reads-conceal'd love. The quarto, cancell'd love. STEEVENS. JOHNSON. The epithet concealed is to be understood, not of the person, but of the condition of the lady. So, that the sense is, my lady, whose being so, together with our marriage which made her so, is concealed from the world. HEATH. 3 Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art; Thy tears are womanish;] Shakspeare has here closely followed his original: "Art thou, quoth he, a man? thy shape saith, so thou art; Thy crying and thy weeping eyes denote a woman's heart. 4. The unreasonable fury of a beast: Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth ?6 "For manly reason is quite from off thy mind outchased, "And in her stead affections lewd, and fancies highly placed; "So that I stood in doubt, this hour at the least, MALONE. Unseemly woman, &c.] Thou art a beast of ill qualities, under the appearance both of a woman and a man. JOHNSON. A person who seemed both man and woman, would be a monster, and of course an ill-beseeming beast. This is all the Friar meant to express. 1 M. MASON. And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,] Thus the first copy. The quarto 1599, and the folio, have And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives. MALONE. My copy of the first folio reads: 6 And slay thy lady that in thy life lies. STEEVENS. Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?] Romeo, has not here railed on his birth, &c. though in his interview with the Friar as described in the poem, he is made to do so: "First Nature did he blame, the author of his life, so rife; "The time and place of birth he fiercely did reprove; "He cryed out with open mouth against the stars above."On fortune eke he rail'd." Shakspeare copied the remonstrance of the Friar, without reviewing the former part of his scene. He has in other places fallen into a similar inaccuracy, by sometimes following and sometimes deserting his original. Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet In thee at once; which thou at once would'st lose. And usest none in that true use indeed 66 8 The lines, Why rail'st thou, &c. to-thy own defence, are not in the first copy. They are formed on a passage in the poem: Why cry'st thou out on love? why dost thou blame thy fate? Why dost thou so cry after death? thy life why dost thou hate?" &c. MALONE. 66 * Digressing from the valour of a man:] So, in the 24th Book of Homer's Odyssey, as translated by Chapman : 66 my deservings shall in nought digress STEEVENS. Like powder in a skill-less soldier's flask, &c.] To understand the force of this allusion, it should be remembered that the ancient English soldiers, using match-locks, instead of locks with flints as at present, were obliged to carry a lighted match hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden flask in which they kept their powder. The same allusion occurs in Humour's Ordinary, an old collection of English epigrams: "When she his flask and touch-box set on fire, "And till this hour the burning is not out." STEEVENS ' And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.] And thou torn to pieces with thine own weapons, JOHNSON.. There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee, 1 there art thou happy too:] Thus the first quarto. In the subsequent quartos and the folio too is omitted. MALONE. It should not be concealed, that the reading of the second folio corresponds with that of the first quarto: there art thou happy too. STEEvens. The word is omitted in all the intermediate editions; a sufficient proof that the emendations of that folio are not always the result of ignorance or caprice. RITSON. Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:] The quarto, 1599, and 1609, read: Thou puts up thy fortune and thy love. The editor of the folio endeavoured to correct this by reading: Thou puttest up thy fortune and thy love. The undated quarto has powts, which, with the aid of the original copy in 1597, pointed out the true reading. line stands: There the Thou frown'st upon thy fate, that smiles on thee. MALONE. The reading in the text is confirmed by the following passage in Coriolanus: |