To wield old partisans, in hands as old,

Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again,

Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away.
You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our further 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, LA. CAP., TYBALT, Citizens, and Servants. Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach? Speak, nephew, were you by when it began? Ben. 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 prepared; Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears, He swung about his head, and cut the winds, Who, nothing hurt withal, hissed 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 I am he was not at this fray.

Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun
Peered 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 the 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,—

1 The Poet found the name of this place in Brooke's Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562. It is there said to be the castle of the Capulets.

VOL. VII.

19

Pursued my humor, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me.

Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen, With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew, Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs. But all so soon as the all-cheering sun Should in the furthest east begin to draw The shady curtains from Aurora's bed, Away from light steals home my heavy son, And private in his chamber pens himself; Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out, And makes himself an artificial night. Black and portentous must this humor 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 impórtuned him by any means? Mon. Both by myself, and many other 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.1

Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure, as know.

Enter ROMEO, at a distance.

Ben. See, where he comes.

So please you, step

aside;

I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.
Mon. I would thou wert so happy by thy stay,
To hear true shrift.-Come, madam, let's away.
[Exeunt MONTAGUE and Lady.

1 The old copy reads:

"Or dedicate his beauty to the same."

The emendation is by Theobald; who states, with plausibility, that sunne might easily be mistaken for same

Ben. Good morrow, cousin.
Rom.

Ben. But new struck nine.

Rom.

Ah me! sad hours seem long.

Was that my father that went hence so fast?

Ben. It was.-What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

Rom. Not having that, which, having, makes them short.

Ben. In love?

Rom. Out

Ben. Of love?

Rom. Out of her favor, where I am in love. Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!1 Where shall we dine?-O me!-What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!2
O any thing, of nothing first create!

O heavy lightness! serious vanity!

Mishapen chaos of well-seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

Dost thou not laugh?

Ben.

No, coz, I rather weep.

Rom. Good heart, at what?

Ben.

At thy good heart's oppression.

1 i. e. should blindly and recklessly think he can surmount all obstacles to his will.

2 Every ancient sonnetteer characterized Love by contrarieties. Watson begins one of his canzonets

"Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe,
A living death, and ever-dying life," &c.

Turberville makes Reason harangue against it in the same manner :— "A fierie frost, a flame that frozen is with ise!

A heavie burden light to beare! A vertue fraught with vice!" &c.

Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.-1 Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast; Which thou wilt propagate, to have it pressed With more of thine: this love, that thou hast shown, Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being urged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears. What is it else? a madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. Farewell, my coz.

Ben.

Soft, I will go along ; An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

[Going.

Rom. Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here; This is not Romeo; he's some other where.

3

Ben. Tell me in sadness, whom she is you love.
Rom. What, shall I groan, and tell thee?
Groan? why, no;

Ben.

But sadly tell me who.

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. I aimed so near, when I supposed you loved.
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 armed,

From love's weak, childish bow she lives unharmed.
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,

That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.*

1 Such is the consequence of unskilful and mistaken kindness. 2 The old copy reads, " Being purged a fire," &c.-The emendation admitted into the text was suggested by Dr. Johnson. To urge the fire is to kindle or excite it.

3 i. e. in seriousness.

4 The meaning appears to be, as Mason gives it, "She is poor only, because she leaves no part of her store behind her, as with her, all beauty will die."

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

chaste ?

Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge

waste;

For beauty, starved 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 ruled 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.

Rom.

'Tis the way

To call hers, exquisite, in question more.1
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 passed 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 'tis not hard, I think, For men so old as we to keep the peace.

Par. Of honorable reckoning are you both;

1 i. e. to call her exquisite beauty more into my mind, and make it more the subject of conversation.

2 This means no more than the happy masks, according to a form of expression not unusual with the old writers.