Enter Lady CAPULET. Lady C. Why, how now, Juliet ? Jul. Madam, I am not well. Lady C. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death? What! wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears? An if thou could'st, thou could'st not make him live; Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of love; But much of grief shows still some want of wit. Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss. Lady C. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend Which you weep for. Jul. Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend. Lady C. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death, As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him. Lady C. That same villain, Romeo Jul. Villain and he are many miles asunder. God pardon him! I do with all my heart; And yet no man, like he, doth grieve my heart. Lady C. That is, because the traitor murderer lives. Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands. Would none but I might venge my cousin's death! Lady C. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not: Then, weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua, Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,—. 120 Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram,' 11 Jul. Indeed, I never shall be satisfied With Romeo, till I behold him — dead Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd. Madam, if you could find out but a man To bear a poison, I would temper it; That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof, Soon sleep in quiet.-O! how my heart abhors To hear him nam'd, and cannot come to him, To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt 12 Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him! 12 Lady C. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man. But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl. Jul. And joy comes well in such a needful time: What are they, I beseech your ladyship? Lady C. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child; One who, to put thee from thy heaviness, Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, That thou expect'st not, nor I look'd not for. Jul. Madam, in happy time,13 what day is that? Lady C. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn, The gallant, young, and noble gentleman, 1 So all the old copies but the first quarto, which reads thus: That should bestow on him so sure a draught." This reading, with should changed to shall, has been commonly adopted in the modern text. H. 12 In this line, Tybalt was first supplied in the folio of 1632 It improves the metre, though nowise necessary to the sense. H. 13 A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected when the hearer was not so well pleased as the speaker.-JOHNSON. The county Paris," at St. Peter's church, Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride. Jul. Now, by St. Peter's church, and Peter too. He shall not make me there a joyful bride. I wonder at this haste; that I must wed Ere he that should be husband comes to woo. I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam, I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. - These are news indeed! 15 Lady C. Here comes your father; tell him so yourself, And see how he will take it at your hands. Enter CAPULET and the Nurse. Cap. When the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle dew; 16 But, for the sunset of my brother's son, It rains downright. How now! a conduit," girl? what! still in tears? 14 County, or countie, was the usual term for an earl in Shakespeare's time. Paris is in this play first styled a young earle. 15 In Mr. Collier's second folio, the words, "These are news indeed!" are transferred to Lady Capulet, and made a part of the next speech. The change, though not necessary to the sense, seems well worthy of being considered. H. 18 This is scientifically true; though, poetically, it would seem better to read air instead of earth. And, in fact, some modern editions do read air, alleging the undated quarto as authority for it; but such, it seems, is not the case. A line has been justly quoted from The Rape of Lucrece as supporting earth: "But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set." H. 17 The same image, which was in frequent use with Shakespeare's contemporaries, occurs in Brooke's poem: " His sighs are stopt, and stopped in the conduit of his tears." Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs; Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them, Without a sudden calm, will overset - Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife! Lady C. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave! Cap. Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.18 How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks! Is she not proud? doth she not count her bless'd, Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom? Jul. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have: Proud can I never be of what I hate; But thankful even for hate, that is meant love. is this? Proud, — and, I thank you, — and, I thank you not; And yet not proud: 18 That is, let me understand you; like the Greek phrase, “Let me go along with you."- Coleridge here exclaims, - -"A noble scene! Don't I see it with my own eyes? Yes! but not with Juliet's. And observe in Capulet's last speech in this scene his mistake, as if love's causes were capable of being generalized." H. 19 Capulet uses this as a nickname. Choplogyk is he that whan his mayster rebuketh his servaunt for his defawtes, he will give him xx wordes for one, or elles he will bydde the devyller paternoster in scylence." The xxiiii Orders of Knaves. - To go with Paris to St. Peter's church, Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage! Lady C. Fie, fie! what! are you mad? Jul. Gond father, I beseech you on my knees, Hear me with patience but to speak a word. Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch ! I tell thee what, get thee to church o' Thursday, Speak not, reply not, do not answer me; bless'd, scarce thought us That God had sent us but this only child; Nurse. God in heaven bless her! You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so. Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue, Good prudence: smatter with your gossips; go. Cap. O, God ye good den! Peace, you mumbling fool! Nurse. May not one speak? Cap. Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl, 20 In the age of Shakespeare, authors not only employed these terms of abuse in their original performances, but even in their versions of the most chaste and elegant of the Greek or Roman poets. Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, in 1582, makes Dido call Eneas hedge-brat, cullion, and tar-breech, in the course of one speech. 21 Hilding was a common term of reproach; meaning some thing vile. See The Taming of the Shrew, Act ii. sc. 1, note 1 |