Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight.
Nurse. O woe! O woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day! most woful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!

O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this:
O woful day, O woful day!

Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain,
Most détestable death, by thee beguil❜d,
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!
Dead art thou, dead!-alack! my child is dead;
And, with my child, my joys are buried!

Fri. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure 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;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was-her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanc'd:
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
She's not well married, that lives married long;

young.

But she's best married, that dies married
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church:
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
Cap. All things, that we ordained festival",
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
Fri. Sir, go you in,—and, madam, go with him;
And go, sir Paris;-every one prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
The heavens do lour upon you, for some ill;
Move them no more, by crossing their high will.
[Exeunt CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, PARIS,
and Friar.

1 Mus. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.

Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up; put up: For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.

[Exit Nurse. 1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

Enter PETER".

Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, Heart's ease, heart's

5 Instead of this and the following speeches the first quarto has only a couplet :

-

'Let it be so; come, woeful sorrow-mates,
Let us together taste this bitter fate.'

The enlarged text is formed upon the poem.

6 See Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2.

7 From the quarto of 1599 it appears that the part of Peter was originally performed by William Kempe.

ease; 0, an you will have me live, play—heart's

ease.

1 Mus. Why heart's ease?

Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays My heart is full of woe3. O, play me some merry dump9, to comfort me.

2 Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now. Pet. You will not then?

Mus. No.

Pet. I will then give it you soundly.
1 Mus. What will you give us?

Pet. No money, on my faith; but the gleek 10: I will give you the minstrel.

1 Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature. Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you, I'll fa you; Do you note me?

1 Mus. An you re us, and fɑ us, you note us. 2 Mus. 'Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

8 This is the burthen of the first stanza of A Pleasant New Ballad of Two Lovers :

Hey hoe! my heart is full of woe.'

9 A dump was formerly the received term for a grave or melancholy strain in music, vocal or instrumental. It also signified a kind of poetical elegy. See vol. i. p. 152. A merry dump is no doubt a purposed absurdity put into the mouth of Master Peter. That it was a sad or dismal strain, perhaps sometimes for the sake of contrast and effect mixed up with livelier airs, appears from Cavendish's Metrical Visions, p. 17 :—

'What is now left to helpe me in this case?
Nothing at all but dompe in the dance,

Among deade men to tryppe on the trace.'

The music of a dump of the sixteenth century is given in a note on the Two Gentlemen of Verona in the variorum editions of Shakspeare.

10 A pun is here intended. A gleekman, or gligman, is a minstrel. To give the gleek meant also to pass a jest upon a person, to make him appear ridiculous; a gleek being a jest or scoff; from the Saxon glig.

Pet. Then have at you with my wit; I will drybeat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger-Answer me like men 11:

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,

Then musick with her silver sound 12.

Why, silver sound? why, musick with her silver sound?

What say you, Simon Catling 13?

1 Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

Pet. Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck? 2 Mus. I say silver sound, because musicians sound for silver.

Pet. Pretty too!-What say you, James Soundpost?

3 Mus. 'Faith, I know not what to say.

Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer:

I will say for you. It is musick with her silver

sound, because such fellows as you have seldom gold for sounding :

Then musick with her silver sound,

With speedy help doth lend redress.

[Exit, singing.

1 Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same? 2 Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [Exeunt.

11 Dr. Percy thinks that the questions of Peter are designed as a ridicule on the forced and unnatural explanations given by us painful editors of ancient authors.'-Steevens.

12 This is part of a song by Richard Edwards, to be found in the Paradice of Dainty Devices, fol. 31, b. Another copy of this song is to be found in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

13 This worthy takes his name from a small lutestring made of catgut. His companion the fiddler from an instrument of the same name mentioned by many of our old writers, and recorded by Milton as an instrument of mirth :

When the merry bells ring round,
And the joyful rebecks sound.'

ACT V.

SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep',
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;
And, all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts?,
I dreamt, my lady came and found me dead
(Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to
think);

And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips3,
That I reviv'd, and was an emperor.

Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

1 Thus the first quarto. The folio reads:

'If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep.'

The sense appears to be, If I may repose any confidence in the flattering visions of the night. Otway reads:

·

If I may trust the flattery of sleep,

My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.'

2 These three last lines are very gay and pleasing. But why does Shakspeare give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just before the extremity of unhappiness? Perhaps to show the vanity of trusting to those uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many consider as certain foretokens of good and evil.'-Johnson.

The poet has explained this passage a little further on:-
'How oft, when men are at the point of death,

Have they been merry? which their keepers call
A lightning before death.'

3 Shakspeare seems to have remembered Marlowe's Hero and Leander, a poem that he has quoted in As You Like It:'By this sad Hero

Viewing Leander's face, fell down and fainted;
He kiss'd her, and breath'd life into her lips,' &c.