But to his foe suppos'd he must complain, And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks: Being held a foe, he may not have access To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear; And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new-beloved any where: But passion lends them power, time means, to meet, [Exit. ACT II. SCENE I. Verona. An open place adjoining the wall of CAPULET'S orchard. Enter ROMEO. Rom. Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out. [He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it. Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO. Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Mer. He is wise; And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed. Ben. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard-wall: Call, good Mercutio. Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too.-(38) Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh: Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied; Cry but "Ay me!" pronounce but "love" and "dove;" One nickname for her purblind son and heir, Young Adam Cupid,(39) he that shot so trim, (38) Nay, I'll conjure too.-] Mr. Collier ad l. is mistaken in saying that all the old copies give this to Benvolio: the first quarto has "Mer : Call, nay Ile coniure too." (39) Young Adam Cupid,] The old eds. have "Young Abraham: Cupid" (and "Young Abraham Cupid ").—"Shakespeare wrote Young When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid!- I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes, By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, That in thy likeness thou appear to us! Adam Cupid,' &c. The printer or transcriber gave us this 'Abram,' mistaking the d for br: and thus made a passage direct nonsense which was understood in Shakespeare's time by all his audience; for this Adam was a most notable archer, and for his skill became a proverb. In Much Ado about Nothing, act i. [sc. 1], 'And he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called ADAM.'... His name was Adam Bell [see Glossary, sub "Adam," &c.]. So that here Young Adam Cupid,' &c., is the same as Young Cupid, that notable archer,' &c. "The archer god, as Spenser [in his Muiopotmos] calls him." UPTON.-In my former edition I printed "Young auburn Cupid,"-having made the following remarks on this passage in a volume published in 1853; "Upton altered 'Abraham' to 'Adam,' understanding the allusion to be to the celebrated archer Adam Bell; and, since Upton's time, the alteration has been adopted by all editors, except Capell and Mr. Knight; the former hazarding the strange conjecture, that, as Cophetua was a Jew king of Africa, Shakespeare might make the Cupid that struck him a Jew Cupid,' Notes, &c., vol. ii. P. iv. p. 7; the latter telling us that 'the 'Abraham' Cupid is the cheat-the 'Abraham man'-of our old statutes.' That Shakespeare here had an eye to the ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid is certain; 'The blinded boy that shootes so trim, From heaven down did hie, He drew a dart, and shot at him In place where he did lye.' But this stanza contains nothing to countenance, in the slightest degree, the reading 'Adam Cupid.' In Soliman and Perseda, 1599, we find 'Where is the eldest sonne of Pryam, Sig. H 3. in Middleton's Blurt, Master Constable, 1602, 'A goodlie, long, thicke, Abram-colour'd beard.' Sig. D. and in our author's Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 3, according to the first three folios, 'not that our heads are some browne, some blacke, som Abram;' VOL. VI. 2 C Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him. Of some strange nature, letting it there stand Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress' name, I conjure only but to raise up him. Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees To be consorted with the humorous night: Blind is his love, and best befits the dark. Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar-tree, And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.— O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were An open et-cætera, thou a poperin pear! Ben. Go, then; for 'tis in vain To seek him here that means not to be found. [Exeunt. there being no reason to doubt that in these passages abraham' (or 'Abram') is a corruption of 'abron,' i.e. ‘auburn.' Is, then, the right reading in the present line, 'Young abram [=auburn] Cupid,' &c. ; Shakespeare having used abrum' for 'auburn-hair'd,' as the author of Soliman and Perseda has used abraham-coloured Troion' for 'Trojan with auburn-coloured hair'? Every body familiar with the Italian poets knows that they term Cupid, as well as Apollo, 'Il biondo Dio:' and W. Thomas, in his Principal Rules of the Italian Grammar, &c., gives 'Biondo, the aberne [i.e. auburn] colour, that is betwene white and yelow.' Sig. E 2, ed. 1567. In our author's Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. sc. 2,'auburn' means yellowish; 'Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow.'" A Few Notes on Shakespeare, &c., p. 109.— Mr. Collier (in the second edition of his Shakespeare) pronounces my emendation" auburn Cupid" to be a "wretched conjecture:" Mr. Grant White estimates it very differently,-he adopts it. SCENE II. The same. CAPULET's orchard. Enter ROMEO. Rom. He jest at scars that never felt a wound.— [Juliet appears above at a window. But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but pale (40) and green, And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. O that she knew she were!— She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that? I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks: (40) pale] So the first quarto.-The later eds. have "sicke."-(Whichever epithet we prefer, there will still be a slight awkwardness, as both words occur three lines above: but "pale" is doubtless the more proper epithet here.)-Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes "white;" which Mr. Collier adopts in the second edition of his Shakespeare, and remarks, "the allusion being, as the words, 'And none but fools do wear it,' establish, to the dress of fools and jesters, which was then usually motley, but had formerly been 'white and green.' Such, it is known, had been the dress of William Summer, the court-jester to Henry VIII.; and the Rev. Mr. Dyce has shown (Skelton's Works, i. xii. and 128) that John Skelton boasted of the dress of 'white and green' which had been given to him by the same king." O that I were a glove upon that hand, Jul. Rom. Ay me! She speaks O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art Unto the white-upturnèd wondering eyes And sails upon the bosom of the air. Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet. Rom. [aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;— Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.(42) (41) lazy-pacing] So the first quarto; which I mention only because two critics have recently spoken of this as a modern reading, and prefer "lazy-passing," substituted by Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector for "lazie puffing" of the later quartos and of the folio. (42) Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.] "For the present punctuation I am accountable. It appears to me to afford a clear sense, which the line as printed in the old copies, where we have a comma after thyself,' and no point after though,' does not, in my apprehension, afford. Thou art, however, says Juliet, a being sui generis, amiable and perfect, not tainted by the enmity which your family bears to mine. According to the common punctuation, the adversative particle is used without any propriety, or rather makes the passage nonsense. Though is again used by Shakespeare in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, act iii. sc. last, in the same sense; 'My legs are longer though, to run away.' Again, in The Taming of the Shrew [act iii. sc. 2]; 'Would Katharine had never seen him though!' Again, in King Henry VIII. [act ii. sc. 2]; 'I would not be so sick though, for his place.' Other writers frequently use though' for 'however.' Juliet is simply endeavouring to account for Romeo's being amiable and excellent, though he is a Montague. And, to prove this, she asserts that he merely bears that name, but has none of the qualities of that house." MALONE.-More recently the old punctuation of this line has |