But I will watch you from such watching now. [Exeunt La. CAP. and Nurse. Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!-Now, fellow, What's there? Enter Servants, with Spits, Logs, and Baskets. 1 Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what. Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit 1 Serv.]-Sirrah, fetch drier logs; Call Peter, he will show thee where they are. 2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter. [Exit. Cap. 'Mass, and well said; A merry whoreson! ha, Thou shalt be logger-head.-Good faith, 'tis day: The county will be here with musick straight, [Musick within. For so he said he would. I hear him near:Nurse! Wife!-what, ho!-what, nurse, I say! Enter Nurse. Go, waken Juliet, go, and trim her up; I'll go and chat with Paris:-Hie, make haste, [Exeunt. SCENE V. Juliet's Chamber; JULIET on the Bed. Enter Nurse. Nurse. Mistress!-what, mistress!-Juliet!-fast, I warrant her, she: Why, lamb!-why, lady!-fy, you slug-a-bed!- 2 a mouse-hunt in your time;] In my original attempt to explain this passage, I was completely wrong, for want of knowing that in Norfolk, and many other parts of England, the cant term for a weasel is-a mouse-hunt. The intrigues of this animal, like those of the cat kind, are usually carried on during the night. This circumstance will account for the appellation which Lady Capulet allows her husband to have formerly deserved. Steevens. The animal called the mouse-hunt, is the martin. Henley. Cat after kinde, good mouse hunt, is a proverb in Heywood's Dialogue, 1598, 1st. pt. c. 2. H. White. The county Paris hath set up his rest,3 That you shall rest but little.-God forgive me, (Marry, and amen!) how sound is she sleep! I needs must wake her:-Madam, madam, madam! He'll fright you up, i' faith.-Will it not be? 3 set up his rest,] This expression, which is frequently employed by the old dramatick writers, is taken from the manner of firing the harquebuss. This was so heavy a gun, that the soldiers were obliged to carry a supporter called a rest, which they fixed in the ground before they levelled to take aim. Decker uses it in his comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600: "-set your heart at rest, for I have set up my rest, that unless you can run swifter than a hart, home you go not." The same expression occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother: See Montfaucon's Monarchie Françoise, Tom. V, plate 48. Steevens The origin of this phrase has certainly been rightly explained, but the good Nurse was here thinking of other matters. T. C. The above expression may probably be sometimes used in the sense already explained; it is, however, oftener employed with a reference to the game at primero, in which it was one of the terms then in use. In the second instance above quoted it is certainly To avoid loading the page with examples, I shall refer to Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, Vol. X, p. 364, edit. 1780, where several are brought together. Reed. So. To set up one's rest, is, in fact, a gambling expression, and means that the gamester has determined what stake he should play for. In the passage quoted by Steevens from Fletcher's Elder Brother, when Eustace says: "My rest is up, and I will go no less." he means to say, my stake is laid, and I will not play for a smaller. The same phrase very frequently occurs in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is also used by Lord Clarendon, in his History, as well as in the old comedy of Supposes, published in the year 1587. 4 M. Mason. why lady!-fy, you slug-a-bed! Ay, let the county take you in your bed;] So, in The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet: "First softly did she call, then louder did she cry, Malone. I must needs wake you: Lady! lady! lady! La. Cap. What noise is here? La. Cap. What is the matter? O lamentable day! Look, look! O heavy day! La. Cap. O me, O me!—my child, my only life, Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!— Help, help!-call help. Enter CAPULET. Cap. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd, she 's dead; alack the day! La. Cap. Alack the day! she's dead, she 's dead, she 's dead. Cap. Ha! let me see her:-Out, alas! she's cold; Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Nurse. O lamentable day! O woful time! Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail, Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak. Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians. O son, the night before thy wedding day Death is my son-in-law,5 death is my heir; 5 Death is my son-in-law, &c.] The remaining part of this speech, "death is my heir," &c. was omitted by Mr. Pope in his edition; and some of the subsequent editors, following his example, took the same unwarrantable licence. The lines were very properly restored by Mr. Steevens. Malone. And leave him all; life leaving, all is death's. Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face, And doth it give me such a sight as this? La. Cap. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day! Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw In lasting labour of his pilgrimage! But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight. O day! O day! O day! O hateful day! Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain! By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!— O love! O life!-not life, but love in death! Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!— Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now To murder murder our solemnity?— O child! O child!-my soul, and not my child!— 6 life leaving, all is death's.] The old copies read-life living. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens. Malone. morning's face,] The quarto, 1597, continues the speech of Paris thus: 71 "And doth it now present such prodigies? "Accurst, unhappy, miserable man, "Forlorn, forsaken, destitute I am; "Born to the world to be a slave in it: "Distrest, remediless, unfortunate. "O heavens! Oh nature! wherefore did you make me "To live so vile, so wretched as I shall?" Steevens. 80 woe! O woful, &c.] This speech of exclamations is not in the edition above-cited. [that of 1597] Several other parts unne cessary or tautology, are not to be found in the said edition; which occasions the variation in this from the common books. Pope. In the text the enlarged copy of 1599 is here followed. Malone. 9 Dead art thou, dead! &c.] From the defect of the metre it is probable that Shakspeare wrote: Dead, dead, art thou! &c. And, with my child, my joys are buried! Fri. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure1 lives not In these confusions. Heaven and yourself Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all, And all the better is it for the maid: Your part in her you could not keep from death; Cap. All things, that we ordained festival, Fri. Sir, go you in-and, madam, go with him ;- When the same word is repeated, the compositor often is guilty of omission. Malone. I have repeated the word-dead, though in another part of the line. Steevens. 11 confusion's cure ] Old copies-care. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. These violent and confused exclamations, says the Friar, will by no means alleviate that sorrow which at present overwhelms and disturbs your minds. Malone. 2 All things, &c.] Instead of this and the following speeches, the eldest quarto has only a couplet: "Cap. Let it be so: come woeful sorrow-mates, "Let us together taste this bitter fate." Steevens. 3 ·burial feast;] See Hamlet, Act I, sc. ii, Vol. XV. Steevens |