Rom. Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the goose. Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not. Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting;a it is a most sharp sauce. Rom. And is it not well served in to a sweet goose? Mer. O, here's a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad! Rom. I stretch it out for that word-broad: which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose. Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love ?10 now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole. Ben. Stop there, stop there. Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair. Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large. Mer. O, thou art deceived, I would have made it short: for I was come to the whole depth of my tale and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer. : Rom. Here's goodly gear! Enter NURSE and PETER. Mer. A sail, a sail, a sail! Ben. Two, two; a shirt, and a smock. Nurse. Peter! Peter. Anon? Nurse. My fan, Peter." Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan 's the fairer face. Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen. Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell you; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon. Nurse. Out upon you! what a man are you! Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made himself to mar. Nurse. By my troth, it is well said ;-For himself to mar, quoth'a ?-Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo? Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you have found him, than he was The name of an apple. Kid leather-from chevreuill-a roebuck. Rom. I will follow you. Mer. Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady. [Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO. Nurse. Marry, farewell!-I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant 13 was this, that was so full of his ropery? Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk; and will speak more in a minute, than he will stand to in a month. Nurse. An 'a speak anything against me, I'll take him down an 'a were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates :And thou must stand by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure? Pet. I saw no man use you at his pleasure: if I had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side. Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave!— Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself: but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say: for the gentlewoman is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing. Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto thee,— pains. Here is for thy Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny. Rom. Go to; I say, you shall. Nurse. This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there. SCENE V.-Capulet's Garden. Enter JULIET. Jul. The clock struck nine, when I did send the nurse; In half an hour she promis'd to return. Perchance, she cannot meet him:-that's not SO. O, she is lame! love's heralds should be thoughts," Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey- Driving back shadows ever low'ring hills: wall: Two may keep counsel, putting one away ? Rom. I warrant thee; my man's as true as steel. Nurse. Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady-Lord, lord!—when 't was a little prating thing,-O, there's a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the varsal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter? Rom. Ay, nurse; What of that? both with an R. Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for the dog.14 No; I know it begins with some other letter: and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it." Rom. Commend me to thy lady. [Erit. a All this dialogue, from "Commend me to thy mistress," is not in (4) Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,1 And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill Of this day's journey; and from nine till twelve Is three long hours,-yet she is not come. My words would bandy her to my sweet love, But old folks, many feign as they were dead; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead. Enter NURSE and PETER. O God, she comes!-O honey nurse, what news? Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away. Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily; I had! Jul. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news: Nay, come, I pray thee, speak ;-good, good nurse, speak. Nurse. Jesu, What haste? can you not stay a while? Do you not see that I am out of breath? a In (4), Juliet's soliloquy ends here. Το Jul. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath say to me-that thou art out of breath? Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man: Romeo! no, not he; though his face be better than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's; and for a hand, and a foot, and a body,-though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare: He is not the flower of courtesy,—but, I'll warrant him, as gentle as a lani.-Go thy ways, wench; serve God.-What, have you dined at home? Jul. No, no: But all this did I know before; What says he of our marriage? what of that? Nurse. Lord, how my head aches! what a head have Il It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces, They'll be in scarlet straight at any news. SCENE VI.-Friar Lanrence's Cell. Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO." Fri. So smile the heavens upon this holy act That after-hours with sorrow chide us not! Rom. Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy 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, Enter JULIET. Here comes the lady ;-O, so light a foot Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor. Jul. As much to him, else are his thanks too much. Rom. 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 music'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, Brags of his substance, not of ornament: a This scene was entirely re-written, after the first copy. ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT II. 1 SCENE I.-"When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid." THE ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggarmaid was amongst the most popular of old English ballads, allusions to which were familiar to Shakspere's audience. Upon the authority of learned Master "Moth" in Love's Labour's Lost, it was an ancient ballad in Shakspere's day : "Armado. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar? Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since; but, I think, now 't is not to be found, or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune. Arm. I will have that subject newly writ o'er." We have two versions of this ballad :- the one published in "A Collection of Old Ballads," quoted by Grey, in 1754; the other in Percy's Reliques. Both of these compositions appear as if they had been "newly writ o'er" not long before, or perhaps after, Shakspere's time: we subjoin a stanza of each: FROM PERCY'S RELIQUES. "I read that once in Africa A princely wight did reign, As poets they did feign: But did them all disdain. But mark, what happened on a day, The which did cause him pain. FROM A COLLECTION OF OLD BALLADS. He despis'd the sweetest beauty, The blind boy that shoots so trim, Did to his closet window steal, And made him soon his power feel. He that never cared for women, But did females ever hate, At length was smitten, wounded, swooned, For a beggar at his gate." 2 SOENE I. "I'll to my truckle-bed." The original quarto has, "I'll to my trundlebed." It appears somewhat strange that Mercutio should speak of sleeping in a truckle-bed, or a trundle-bed, both which words explain the sort of bed-a running-bed. The furniture of a sleepingchamber in Shakspere's time consisted of a standingbed, and a truckle-bed. "There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed, and truckle-bed," says mine host of the Garter, in the Merry Wives of Windsor. The standing-bed was for the master; the truckle-bed, which ran under it, for the servant. It may seem strange, therefore, that Mercutio should talk of sleeping in the bed of his page; but the next words will solve the difficulty: "This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep." The field-bed, in this case, was the ground; but the field-bed, properly so called, was the travellingbed; the lit de champ, called, in old English, the "trussyng-bedde." The bed next beyond the luxury of the trussyng-bed was the truckle-bed; and therefore Shakspere naturally takes that in preference to the standing-bed. 3 SCENE II." Well, do not swear," &c. Coleridge has a beautiful remark on this passage, and on the whole of the scene, which we extract:"With love, pure love, there is always an anxiety for the safety of the object, a disinterestedness, by which it is distinguished from the counterfeits of its name. Compare this scene with Act III. Scene I. |