Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over lowring hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill

Of this day's journey; and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours,-yet she is not come.
Had she affections, and warm youthful blood,
She'd be as swift in motion as a ball;

My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me:

But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

Enter Nurse and PETER.

O God, she comes!-O honey nurse, what news?
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.
Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate.

Exit. PET.

Jul. Now, good sweet nurse,-O lord! why look'st thou sad?

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou sham'st the musick of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.4

Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave a while;—
Fy, how my bones ache! What a jaunt have I had !5

Oh, now she comes! Tell me, gentle Nurse,

What says my

love?

The greatest part of the scene is likewise added since that edition.

Shakspeare, however, seems to have thought one of the ideas comprised in the foregoing quotation from the earliest quarto, too valuable to be lost. He has therefore inserted it in Romeo's first speech to the Apothecary, in Act V:

"As violently, as hasty powder fir'd

"Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb." Steevens

4 If good, thou sham'st the musick of sweet news

By playing it to me with so sour a face.] So, in Antony and Cle

5

66 - if it be summer-news,

"Smile to it before." Malone.

· What a jaunt have I had!] This is the reading of the folio. The quarto reads:

What a jaunce have I had!"

Jul. I would, thou hadst my bones, and I thy news: Nay, come, I pray thee, speak;-good, good nurse,

.

speak.

Nurse. Jesu, What haste? can you not stay awhile? Do you not see, that I am out of breath?

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 lamb.-Go thy ways, wench; serve God, What, have you dined at home?

Jul. No, no: But all this did I know before; What says he of our marriage? what of that?6

Nurse. Lord, how my head akes! 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 reply'st?

The two words appear to have been formerly synonymous. See King Richard II:

“Spur-gall❜d and tir'd by jauncing Bolingbroke.” Malone. 6 No, ho: But all this did I know before;

What says he of our marriage? what of that?] So, in The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562:

"Tell me else what, quod she, this evermore I thought; "But of our marriage, say at once, what answer have you brought?" Malone.

Your love says like an honest gentleman,

Where is your mother?

Nurse.

O, God's lady dear!

Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow;

Is this the poultice for my aking 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, farewel.

SCENE VI.

Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO.7

[Exeunt.

Fri. So smile the heavens upon this holy act, That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!

7 This scene was entirely new formed: the reader may be pleased to have it as it was at first written:

"Rom. Now, father Laurence, in thy holy grant

"Consists the good of me and Juliet.

"Friar. Without more words, I will do all I may

"To make you happy, if in me it lie.

"Rom. This morning here she 'pointed we should meet, "And consummate those never-parting bands,

"Witness of our hearts' love, by joining hands;

"And come she will.

"Friar. I guess she will indeed:

"Youth's love is quick, swifter than swiftest speed.
Enter JULIET somewhat fast, and embraceth RoMEO.
"See where she comes!-

"So light a foot ne'er hurts the trodden flower;
"Of love and joy, see, see the sovereign power!

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:1-O, so light a foot

"Jul. Romeo!

66

"Rom. My Juliet, welcome! As do waking eyes
(Clos'd in night's mists) attend the frolick day,
"So Romeo hath expected Juliet;

"And thou art come,

Jul. I am (if I be day)

"Come to my sun; shine forth, and make me fair.

"Rom. All beauteous fairness dwelleth in thine eyes.

Jul. Romeo, from thine all brightness doth arise.

"Friar. Come, wantons, come, the stealing hours do pass; "Defer embracements to some fitter time;

"Part for a time, you shall not be alone,

'Till holy church hath join'd you both in one.' "Rom. Lead, holy father, all delay seems long.

"Jul. Make haste, make haste, this ling'ring doth us

wrong.

"Friar. O, soft and fair makes sweetest work they say;
"Haste is a common hind'rer in cross-way." [Exeunt.
Steevens.

8 These violent delights have violent ends,] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece:

"These violent vanities can never last." Malone.

9 Too swift arrives —] He that travels too fast is as long before he comes to the end of his journey, as he that travels slow. Precipitation produces mishap. Johnson.

1 Here comes the lady: &c.] However the poet might think the alteration of this scene on the whole to be necessary, I am afraid, in respect of the passage before us, he has not been very successful. The violent hyperbole of never wearing out the everlasting flint appears to me not only more reprehensible, but even less beautiful than the lines as they were originally written, where the light

Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:
A lover may bestride the gossomers2
That idle 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 musick'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,3
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:

They are but beggars that can count their worth;4
But my true love is grown to such excess,

I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.5

ness of Juliet's motion is accounted for from the cheerful effects the passion of love produced in her mind. Steevens.

2 A lover may bestride the gossomers-] The gossomer is the long white filament which flies in the air in summer. So, in Hannibal and Scipio, 1637, by Nabbes:

"Fine as Arachne's web, or gossamer

"Whose curls when garnish'd by their dressing, shew "Like that spun vapour when 'tis pearl'd with dew?"

See King Lear, Act IV, sc. vi, Vol. XIV. Steevens.

See Bullokar's English Expositor, 1616: "Gossomor. Things that flye like cobwebs in the ayre." Malone.

3 Conceit, more rich &c.] Conceit here means imagination. So, in The Rape of Lucrece:

which the conceited painter drew so proud," &c. See Vol. XI, p, 101, n. 6. Malone.

Thus, in the title-page to the first quarto edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor: "A most pleasant and excellent conceited comedy" &c. Again, in the title, &c. to King Henry IV, P. I, quarto, 1599: " with the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaffe —.”

Steevens.

4 They are but beggars that can count their worth ;] So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd." See Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, sc. i, Vol. XIII. Steevens. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "I were but little happy, if I could say how much." Malone.

5 I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.] The quarto, 1599, reads: