CAP. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!

Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now
To murder murder our solemnity?-

O child! O child!-my soul, and not my child!—
Dead art thou, dead!-alack! my child is dead;
And, with my child, my joys are buried!

FRI. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure' lives not

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid:

Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was-her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanc'd:
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
She's not well married, that lives married long;
But she's best married, that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary

• Dead art thou, dead! &c.] From the defect of the metre it is probable that Shakspeare wrote:

Dead, dead, art thou! &c.

When the same word is repeated, the compositor often is guilty of omission. MALONE.

I have repeated the word-dead, though in another part of the line. STEEVENS.

7

confusion's cure-] Old copies-care. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. These violent and confused exclamations, says the Friar, will by no means alleviate that sorrow which at present overwhelms and disturbs your minds. So, in The Rape of Lucrece :

66

Why, Collatine, is woe the cure of woe?" MALONE.

On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church:
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.

CAP. All things," that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;

For though fond nature-] This line is not in the first quarto. The quarto, 1599, and the folio, read-though some nature. The editor of the second folio substituted fond for some. I do not believe this was the poet's word, though I have nothing better to propose. I have already shown that all the alterations made by the editor of the second folio were capricious, and nerally extremely injudicious.

ge

In the preceding line the word all is drawn from the quarto, 1597, where we find—

"In all her best and sumptuous ornaments," &c.

The quarto, 1599, and folio, read

"And in her best array bear her to church." Malone. I am fully satisfied with the reading of the second folio, the propriety of which is confirmed by the following passage in Coriolanus:

" 'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes." STEEVENS.

9 All things, &c.] Instead of this and the following speeches, the eldest quarto has only a couplet:

Cap. Let it be so: come woeful sorrow-mates,

"Let us together taste this bitter fate." STEEVENS. All things, that we ordained festival, &c.] So, in the poem already quoted:

Now is the parents' mirth quite changed into mone,
"And now to sorrow is return'd the joy of every one;
"And now the wedding weeds for mourning weeds they
change,

"And Hymen to a dirge-alas! it seemeth strange.
"Instead of marriage gloves now funeral gowns they

have,

"And, whom they should see married, they follow to
the grave;

"The feast that should have been of pleasure and of joy,
"Hath every dish and cup
fill'd full of sorrow and an-
noy." MALone.

1

Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast;'
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

FRI. Sir, go you in,-and, madam, go with him;

And go, sir Paris ;-every one prepare To follow this fair corse unto her grave: The heavens do low'r upon you, for some ill; Move them no more, by crossing their high will. [Exeunt CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, PARIS, and Friar.

1 Mus. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.

NURSE. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up; For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.2

[Exit Nurse, 1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

Enter PETER.3

PET. Musicians, O, musicians, Heart's ease, heart's ease; O, an you will have me live, playheart's ease.

1

1 Mus. Why heart's ease?

PET. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays

1- burial feast;] See Vol. XVIII. p. 43, n. 5.

STEEVENS.

a pitiful case.] If this speech was designed to be metrical, we should read-piteous. STEEVENS.

3 Enter Peter.] From the quarto of 1599, it appears, that the part of Peter was originally performed by William Kempe.

MALONE.

-My heart is full of woe: O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me.5

My heart is full of woe:] This is the burthen of the first stanza of A pleasant new Ballad of Two Lovers: Hey hoe! my heart is full of woe."

STEEVENS.

A

O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me.] dump anciently signified some kind of dance, as well as sorrow. So, in Humour out of Breath, a comedy, by John Day, 1607: "He loves nothing but an Italian dump,

"Or a French brawl."

But on this occasion it means a mournful song. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584, after the shepherds have sung an elegiac hymn over the hearse of Colin, Venus says to ParisHow cheers my lovely boy after this dump of woe?

66

"Paris. Such dumps, sweet lady, as bin these, are deadly dumps to prove." STEEVENS.

Dumps were heavy mournful tunes; possibly indeed any sort of movements were once so called, as we sometimes meet with a merry dump. Hence doleful dumps, deep sorrow, or grievous affliction, as in the next page but one, and in the less ancient ballad of Chevy Chase. It is still said of a person uncommonly sad, that he is in the dumps.

In a MS. of Henry the Eighth's time, now among the King's Collection in the Museum, is a tune for the cittern, or guitar, entitled, "My lady Careys dompe;" there is also "The duke of Somersettes dompe;" as we now say, "Lady Coventry's minuet," &c. "If thou wert not some blockish and senseless dolt, thou wouldest never laugh when I sung a heavy mixt-Lydian tune, or a note to a dumpe or dolefull dittie." Plutarch's Morals, by Holland, 1602, p. 61. RITSON.

At the end of The Secretaries Studie, by Thomas Gainsford, Esq. 4to. 1616, is a long poem of forty-seven stanzas, and called A Dumpe or Passion. It begins in this manner :

66

voyce,

"I cannot sing; for neither have I
"Nor is my minde nor matter musicall;
My barren pen
hath neither form nor choyce:
"Nor is my tale or talesman comicall,
"Fashions and I were never friends at all:

"I write and credit that I see and knowe,
"And mean plain troth; would every one did so."

REED.

2 Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play

now.

PET. You will not then?

Mus. No.

PET. I will then give it you soundly.

1 Mus. What will you give us?

PET. No money, on my faith; but the gleek :" I will give you the minstrel."

6

the gleek:] So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: Nay, I can gleek, upon occasion."

To gleek is to scoff. The term is taken from an ancient game at cards called gleek.

So, in Turberville's translation of Ovid's Epistle from Dido to Eneas:

"By manly mart to purchase prayse,

"And give his foes the gleeke."

Again, in the argument to the same translator's version of Hermione to Orestes:

"Orestes gave Achylles' sonne the gleeke." STEEVENS. The use of this cant term is no where explained; and in all probability cannot, at this distance of time, be recovered. To gleek however signified to put a joke or trick upon a person, perhaps to jest according to the coarse humour of that age. See A Midsummer-Night's Dream above quoted. RITSON.

7 No money, on my faith; but the gleek; I will give you the minstrel.] Shakspeare's pun has here remained unnoticed. A Gleekman or Gligman, as Dr. Percy has shown, signified a minstrel. See his Essay on the antient English Minstrels, p. 55. The word gleek here signifies scorn, as Mr. Steevens has already observed; and is, as he says, borrowed from the old game so called, the method of playing which may be seen in Skinner's Etymologicon, in voce, and also in The Compleat Gamester, 2d edit. 1676, p. 90. DoUCE.

the minstrel.] From the following entry on the books of the Stationers' Company, in the year 1560, it appears that the hire of a parson was cheaper than that of a minstrel or a cook.

"Item, payd to the preacher
"Item, payd to the minstrell
"Item, payd to the coke

vi s. ii d.