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Sam. "T is all one, I will show myself a tyrant : when I have fought with the men, I will be civil" with the maids, and cut off their heads.

Gre. The heads of the maids?

Sam. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt. Gre. They must take it sense, that feel it. Sam. Me they shall feel, while I am able to stand: and 't is known I am a pretty piece of flesh.

Gre. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool; here comes of the house of the Montagues.2

Enter ABRAM and BALTHASAR.

Sam. My naked weapon is out; quarrel, I will back thee?

Gre. How? turn thy back, and run?
Sam. Fear me not.

Gre. No, marry: I fear thee!

Sam. Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.

Gre. I will frown, as I pass by: and let them take it as they list.

Sam. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it.3

Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. I do bite my thumb, sir.

Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sam. Is the law of our side, if I say—ay?
Gre. No.

Sam. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.

Gre. Do you quarrel, sir?
Abr. Quarrel, sir? no, sir.

Sam. If you do, sir, I am for you; I serve as

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C

That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins!
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil broils, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets;
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

The quarto of 1609, which we mark as (C), drawn.
b (C), one foot.
e (C), brawls.

For this time, all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our farther pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
[Exeunt PRINCE and Attendants; CAPULET,
Lady CAPULET, TYBALT, Citizens, and
Servants.

MOR. Who set this ancient quarrel new
abroach ?-

Speak, nephew, were you by, when it began?
Bene. Here were the servants of your adversary,
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach:
I drew to part them; in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd;
Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn :
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the prince came, who parted either part.

La. Mon. O, where is Romeo!-saw you him to-day?

Right glad am I, he was not at this fray.

Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd

sun

6

Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
Where, underneath the grove of sycamore,
That westward rooteth from this city's side,
So early walking did I see your son :
Towards him I made; but he was 'ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood:
I, measuring his affections by my own,—
That most are busied when they are most
alone,-

Pursued my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.
Mon. Many a morning hath he there been

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And makes himself an artificial night:
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
Mon. I neither know it, nor can learn of him.
Ben. Have you importun'd him by any means?
Mon. Both by myself, and many others, friends:
But he, his own affections' counsellor,
Is to himself-I will not say, how true-
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.

Could we but learn from whence his sorrows

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a The first ten beautiful lines of Montague's speech are not in the original quarto; neither is Benvolio's question, "Have you importun'd him?" nor the answer. We find them in (B), the quarto of 1599.

b The folio and (C) read same. Theobald gave us sun; and we could scarcely wish to restore the old reading, even if the probability of a typographical error, same for sunne, were not so obvious.

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Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will:

Ah, word ill urged to one that is so ill!-
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

Ben. Iaim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd. Rom. A right good marksman!-And she's fair I love.

Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit. Rom. Well, in that hit, you miss: she'll not be hit

With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit;
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,
From love's weak childish bow she lives un-
harm'd.

She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold :
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor

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Ben. Then she hath sworn, that she will still live chaste?

Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;

For beauty, starv'd with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love; and, in that vow,
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

Ben. Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her.
Rom. O teach me how I should forget to think.
Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.
"Tis the way

Rom.

To call hers, exquisite, in question more:
These happy masks, that kiss fair ladies' brows,
Being black, put us in mind they hide the fair;"
He that is strucken blind, cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve, but as a note
Where I may read, who pass'd that passing fair?
Farewell thou canst not teach me to forget.
Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-A Street.

Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant. Cap. And Montague is bound as well as I, In penalty alike; and 't is not hard, I think, For men so old as we to keep the peace.

suit.

Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both; And pity 't is, you liv'd at odds so long, But now, my lord, what say you to my Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before: My child is yet a stranger in the world, She hath not seen the change of fourteen years; Let two more summers wither in their pride, Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

Par. Younger than she are happy mothers

made.

Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early made.

Earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth : °

The scene ends here in (A): and the three first lines in the next scene are also wanting. (B) has them. b So (D). The folio omits And.

c Lady of my earth. Fille de terre being the French phrase for an heiress, Steevens thinks that Capulet speaks of Juliet in this sense; but Shakspere uses earth for the mortal part, as in the 146th Sonnet:

"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,"

and in this play,

"Turn back, dull earth."

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