Jul. How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath

To say to me that thou art out of breath?
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good, or bad? answer to that;
Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance:
Let me be satisfied, Is 't good or bad?

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 d'ned 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 I!

It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces, My back o' t' other side,-O, my back, my back!

Beshrew your heart, for sending me about, To catch my death with jaunting up and down!

Jul. I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well:

Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

Nurse. Your love says, like an honest gentleman,

And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, And, I warrant, a virtuous:-Where is your mother?

Jul. Where is my mother?-why, she is within;

Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest :
Your love says, like an honest gentleman,—
Where is your mother?

O, God's lady dear!

Nurse. Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow; Is this the poultice for my aching bones? Henceforward do your messages yourself. Jul. Here's such a coil,-Come, what says Romeo?

Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?

Jul. I have.

Nurse. Then hie you hence to friar Laurence' cell,

There stays a husband to make you a wife:
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,

They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Hie you to church; I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
Must climb a bird's nest soon, when it is dark:
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go, I'll to dinner; hie you to the cell.
Jul. Hie to high fortune!-honest nurse,
farewell.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.-Friar Laurence'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
That one short minute gives me in her sight:
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.

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,
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Enter JULIET.

Here comes the lady;-O, so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:
A lover may bestride the gossamer
That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor.
Fri. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for
us both.

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:
They are but beggars that can count their worth;

a This scene was entirely re written, after the first copy.

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,
Who had to name Cophetua,
As poets they did feign:
From nature's laws he did decline,
For sure he was not of my mind,
He cared not for womankind,

But did them all disdain.

But mark, what happened on a day,
As he out of his window lay,
He saw a beggar all in grey,

The which did cause him pain.
The blinded boy, that shoots so trim,
From heaven down did hie,

He drew a dart and shot at him,
In place where he did lie."

FROM A COLLECTION OF OLD BALLADS.
"A king once reigned beyond the seas,
As we in ancient stories find,
Whom no fair face could ever please,
He cared not for womankind.
He despis'd the sweetest beauty,
And the greatest fortune too;
At length he married to a beggar;
See what Cupid's dart can do.

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 SCENE 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 travelling. bed; 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.

of the Tempest. I do not know a more wonderful instance of Shakspere's mastery in playing a distinctly rememberable variety on the same remembered air, than in the transporting love confessions of Romeo and Juliet, and Ferdinand and Miranda. There seems more passion in the one, and more dignity in the other; yet you feel that the sweet girlish lingering and busy movement of Juliet, and the calmer and more maidenly fondness of Miranda, might easily pass into each other."

4 SCENE II." 0, for a falconer's voice,
To lure this tassel-gentle back again!"

The falconer's voice was the voice which the hawk was constrained by long habit to obey. Gervase Markham, in his "Country Contentments," has picturesquely described the process of training hawks to this obedience," by watching and keeping them from sleep, by a continual carrying them upon your fist, and by a most familiar stroking and playing with them, with the wing of a dead fowl, or such like, and by often gazing and looking them in the face, with a loving and gentle countenance." A hawk so manned" was brought to the lure "by easy degrees, and at last was taught to know the voice and lure so perfectly, that either upon the sound of the one, or sight of the other, she will presently come in, and be most obedient." There is a peculiar propriety in Juliet calling Romeo her tassel-gentle; for this species was amongst the most beautiful and elegant of hawks, and was especially appropriated to the use of a prince. Our poet always uses the images which have been derived from his own experience, with exquisite propriety. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff's page is the eyasmusket, the smallest unfledged hawk. Othello fears that Desdemona is haggard-that is, the wild hawk

which "checks at every feather." The sport with a tassel-gentle is spiritedly described by Massinger:

44

- Then, for an evening flight,

A tiercel gentle, which I call, my masters,
As he were sent a messenger to the moon,
In such a place flies, as he seems to say,
See me, or see me not! the partridge sprung,
He makes his stoop; but wanting breath, is forced
To cancelier; then, with such speed as if

He carried lightning in his wings, he strikes
The trembling bird, who even in death appears
Proud to be made his quarry."

5 SCENE III. "The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb."

Milton, in the second book of Paradise Lost, has the same idea :

cidation of our old authors the knowledge of an antiquary and the feeling of a poet, has observed, that "in very old English the third person plural of the present tense endeth in eth as well as the singular, and often familiarly in es;" and it has been further explained by Mr. Tollet, that "the third person plural of the Anglo-Saxon present tense endeth in eth, and of the Dano-Saxon in es.' Malone, we think, has rightly stated the principle upon which such idioms, which appear false concords to us, should be corrected,--that is, "to substitute the modern idiom in all places except where either the metre or rhyme renders it impossible." But to those who can feel the value of a slight sprinkling of our antique phraseology, it is pleasant to drop upon the instances in which correction is impossible. We would not part with the exquisite bit of false concord, as we must now term it, in the last word of the four following lines, for all that Shakspere's grammar-correctors have ever written :-

The tournaments and the chivalrie were then, however, but "an insubstantial pageant faded." Men had learnt to revenge their private wrongs, without the paraphernalia of heralds and warders. In the old chivalrous times they might suppress any outbreak of hatred or passion, and cherish their malice against each other until it could be legally gratified; so that, according to the phrase of Richard Cour-de-Lion in his ordinance for permitting tournaments, the peace of our land be not broken, nor justice hindred, nor damage done to our forests." The private contests of two knights was a violation of the laws of chivalry. Chaucer has a remarkable exemplification of this in his "Knight's Tale," where the duke, coming to the plain, saw Areite and Palamon fighting like two bulls :

Jaques. But for the seventh cause; how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause?

Touchstone. Upon a lie seven times removed; as thus, sir, I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard: he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind it was: this is called the Retort courteous. If I sent him word again, it was not well cut, he would send me word he cut it to please himself: this is called the Quip modest. If, again, it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment: this is called the Reply churlish. If, again, it was not well cut, he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the Reproof valiant. If, again, it was not well cut, he would say, I lie: this is called the Countercheck quarrelsome; and so to the Lie circumstantial and the Lie direct."

When Touchstone adds, "O sir! we quarrel in print by the book," he alludes to the works of Saviolo and Caranza, who laid down laws for the duello. The wit of Shakspere is the best commentary upon the philosophy of Montaigne: "Inquire why that man hazards his life and honour upon the fortune of his rapier and dagger; let him acquaint you with the occasion of the quarrel, he cannot do it without blushing, 't is so idle and frivolous."-(Essays, book iii. ch. 10.) But philosophy and wit were equally unavailing to put down the quarrelsome spirit of the times, and Henry IV. of France in vain declared all duellists guilty of lese-majesté, and punishable with death; and James I. of England as vainly denounced them in the Star-chamber.

The practice of duelling went on with us till the civil wars came to merge private quarrels in public ones. Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," has a bitter satire against the nobility, when he says, they are "like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour."

8 SCENE IV. "What counterfeit did I give you? The slip, sir, the slip."

A counterfeit piece of money and a slip were synonymous; and in many old dramas we have the sime play upon words as here. In Robert Green's "Thieves falling out," the word slip is defined as in a dictionary: "and therefore he went and got him certain slips, which are counterfeit pieces of money, being brass, and covered over with silver, which the common people call slips."

9 SCENE IV." The wild-goose chase."

Horse racing, and the wild-goose chase, were amongst the "disports of great men" in the time of Elizabeth. It is scarcely necessary to describe a sport, if sport it can be called, which is still used amongst us. When the "wits run the wild goose chase," we have a type of its folly; as the "switch and spurs, switch and spurs," is descriptive of its brutality.