How now, a conduit 17, girl? what, still in tears? Thy tempest-tossed body.-How now, wife? La. Cap. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks. I would, the fool were married to her grave! wife. you, 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. Cap. How now! how now, chop-logick 18! What is this? Proud, and, I thank you,-and, I thank you not;And yet not proud;-Mistress minion, you, Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds, 17 The same image, which was in frequent use with Shakspeare's cotemporaries, occurs in the poem of Romeus and Juliet more than once : His sighs are stopt, and stopped in the conduit of his tears.' 18 Capulet, as Steevens observes, uses this as a nickname. The hyphen is wanting in the old copy. 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 devylles paternoster in scylence.'-The xxiiii Orders of Knaves, blk. 1. But settle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next, Out, you green sickness carrion! out, you baggage! La. Cap. Fye, fye! what, are you mad? Jul. Good 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, Or never after look me in the face: Speak not, reply not, do not answer me : My fingers itch.-Wife, we scarce thought us bless'd, Nurse. God in heaven bless her! You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so. Cap. And why, my lady wisdom? hold your Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go. Cap. O, God ye good den! Peace, you mumbling fool! Nurse. May not one speak? 19 Such was the indelicacy of the age of Shakspeare, that authors were not contented only to employ these terms of abuse in their own original performances, but even felt no reluctance to introduce them 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 Æneas hedge-brat, cullion, and tar-breech, in the course of one speech. Nay, in the Interlude of The Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567, she says to one of her attendants: 'Horeson, I beshrewe your heart, are you here?' 20 Base woman. Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl, For here we need it not. La. Cap. You are too hot. Cap. God's bread! it makes me mad; Day, night, late, early, At home, abroad, alone, in company, Waking, or sleeping, still my care hath been Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd, That sees into the bottom of my grief? 21 There is a passage in the old play of Wily Beguiled, pointed out by Malone, so nearly resembling this, that one poet must have copied from the other. Wily Beguiled was on the stage before 1596, being mentioned by Nashe in his Have with You to Saffron Walden, printed in that year. 'A whining mammet,' in the preceding line, confirms the explanation of mammets given in vol. v. p. 161, note 13. La. Cap. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word; Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee. [Exit. Jul. O God!-O nurse! how shall this be prevented? My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven; What say'st thou? hast thou not a word of joy? Nurse. 'Faith, here 'tis : Romeo Is banished; and all the world to nothing, Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth. Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, Romeo's a dishclout to him; an eagle, madam, 22 The character of the Nurse exhibits a just picture of those whose actions have no principles for their foundation. She has been unfaithful to the trust reposed in her by Capulet, and is ready to embrace any expedient that offers, to avert the consequences of her first infidelity. The picture is not, however, an original, the nurse in the poem exhibits the same readiness to accommodate herself to the present conjuncture. Sir John Vanbrugh, in The Relapse, has copied, in this respect, the character of his nurse from Shakspeare. 23 Perhaps Chaucer has given to Emetrius, in The Knight's Tale, eyes of the same colour:— 'His nose was high, his eyin bright citryn.' i. e. of the hue of an unripe lemon or citron. Again in The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakspeare : oh vouchsafe With that thy rare green eye,' &c. Arthur Hall (the most ignorant and absurd of all the translators of Homer) in the fourth Iliad (4to. 1581), calls Minerva— 'The greene eide goddesse.' The early French poets have frequent mention of yeux vers, As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart, I think you are happy in this second match, Your first is dead: or 'twere as good he were, Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart? Go in; and tell my lady I am gone, Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell, Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done. [Exit. Jul. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin-to wish me thus forsworn, Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath prais'd him with above compare So many thousand times?-Go, counsellor; Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.— I'll to the friar, to know his remedy; If all else fail, myself have power to die. [Exit. which Le Grand has in vain attempted to convert into yeux vairs, or gray eyes. Plautus alludes to green eyes in his Curculio: 'Qui hic est homo Cum collativo ventre atque oculis herbeis.' And Lord Verulam says, 'Great eyes, with a green circle between the white and the white of the eye signify long life.'Hist. of Life and Death, p. 124. Villareal, a Portuguese, has written a treatise in praise of green eyes, and they are even said to exist now among his countrymen. See Pinkerton's Geography, vol. i. p. 556. |