That I will show you, shining at this feast, SCENE III. A Room in Capulet's House. Enter Lady CAPULET and Nurse. [Exeunt. La. Cap. Nurse, where 's my daughter? call her forth to me. Nurse. Now, by my maiden-head, at twelve year old, I bade her come.-What, lamb! what, lady-bird!— La. Cap. This is the matter:-Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again; Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, And yet, to my teen' be it spoken, I have but four,She is not fourteen: How long is it now To Lammas-tide? La. Cap. A fortnight, and odd days. Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen. is the love you bear to your lady, which in our language is com monly used for the lady herself. Heath. 7 to my teen-] To my sorrow. Johnson. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. I, c. ix: This old word is introduced by Shakspeare for the sake of the jingle between teen, and four, and fourteen. Steevens. Were of an age.-Well, Susan is with God; Shake, quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow, And since that time it is eleven years: For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, 8 'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;] But how comes the Nurse to talk of an earthquake upon this occasion? There is no such circumstance, I believe, mentioned in any of the novels from which Shakspeare may be supposed to have drawn his story; and therefore it seems probable, that he had in view the earthquake, which had really been felt in many parts of England, in his own time, viz. on the 6th of April, 1580. [See Stowe's Chronicle, and Gabriel Harvey's Letter in the Preface of Spenser's Works, edit. 1679.] If so, one may be permitted to conjecture, that Romeo and Juliet, or this part of it at least, was written in 1591; after the 6th of April, when the eleven years since the earthquake were completed; and not later than the middle of July, a fortnight and odd days before Lammas-tide. Tyrwhitt. 9 Nay, I do bear a brain:] That is, I have a perfect remembrance or recollection. So, in The Country Captain, by the Duke of Newcastle, 1649, p. 51: "When these wordes of command are rotten, wee will sow some other military seedes; you beare a braine and memory." Reed. So, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: 1 "Dash, we must bear some brain." Steevens. could stand alone;] The quarto, 1597, reads: "could stand high lone," i. e. quite alone, completely alone. So, in another of our author's plays, high fantastical means entirely fantastical. Steevens 'A was a merry man;-took up the child: I warrant, an I should live a thousand years, I never should forget it; Wilt thou not Jule? quoth he: And, pretty fool, it stinted,2 and said—Ay. La. Cap. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace. Nurse. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot choose but laugh,3 To think it should leave crying, and say—Ay : And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow A bump as big as a young cockrel's stone; A par❜lous knock; and it cried bitterly. Yea, quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com'st to age; Wilt thou not, Jule? it stinted, and said—Ay. Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very theme 2 it stinted,] i. e. it stopped, it forebore from weeping. So, Sir Thomas North, in his translation of Plutarch, speaking of the wound which Antony received, says: "for the blood stinted a little when he was laid."” Again, in Cynthia's Revels, by Ben Jonson : "Stint thy babbling tongue." Again, in What you Will, by Marston, 1607: "Pish! for shame, stint thy idle chat." Steevens. 3 Nurse. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot choose &c.] This speech and tautology is not in the first edition. Pope. 4 It is an honour -] The first quarto reads honour; the folio hour. I have chosen the reading of the quarto. The word hour seems to have nothing in it that could draw from the Nurse that applause which she immediately bestows. The word honour was likely to strike the old ignorant woman, as a very elegant and discreet word for the occasion. Steevens. Honour was changed to hour in the quarto, 1599. Malone Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only nurse, I'd say, thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat. La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger than you, Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Are made already mothers: by my count, I was your mother much upon these years Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower. Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower. La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gentleman? This night you shall behold him at our feast: Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face, And find delight writ there with beauty's pen; Examine every married lineament,1 5 Well, &c.] Instead of this speech, the quarto, 1597, has only one line: "Well, girl, the noble County Paris seeks thee for his wife." Steevens. 6 —a man of wax.] So, in Wily Beguiled: Why, he's a man as one should picture him in wax." Steevens. a man of wax.] Well made, as if he had been modelled in wax, as Mr. Steevens by a happy quotation has explained it. "When you, Lydia, praise the waxen arms of Telephus," (says Horace) [Waxen, well shaped, fine turned:] "With passion swells my fervid breast, Dr. Bentley changes cerea into lactea, little understanding that. the praise was given to the shape, not to the colour. S. W. 7 Nurse] After this speech of the Nurse, Lady Capulet in the o quarto says only: "Well, Juliet, how like you of Paris' love?” She answers, "I'll look to like," &c. and so concludes the scene, without the intervention of that stuff to be found in the later quartos and the folio. Steevens. 8 La. Cap. What say you? &c.] This ridiculous speech is entirely added since the first edition. Pope. 9 Read o'er the volume &c.] The same thought occurs in Pericles Irince of Tyre: "Her face the book of praises, where is read And see how one another lends content; The fish lives in the sea;4 and 'tis much pride, That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, 1 Examine every married lineament, &c.] Thus the quarto 1599. The quarto 1609-several lineament. By the former of these phrases Shakspeare means-Examine how nicely one feature depends upon another, or accords with another, in order to produce that harmony of the whole face which seems to be implied in the word content. In Troilus and Cressida, he speaks of "the married calm of states ;" and in his 8th Sonnet has the same allusion. 2 Steevens. the margin of his eyes.] The comments on ancient books were always printed in the margin. So, Horatio in Hamlet says: "I knew you must be edified by the margent," &c. Steevens. 3 This precious book of love, this unbound lover, To beautify him, only lacks a cover:] This ridiculous speech is full of abstruse quibbles. The unbound lover, is a quibble on the binding of a book, and the binding in marriage; and the word cover is a quibble on the law phrase for a married woman, who is styled a femme couverte in law French. M. Mason. 4 The fish lives in the sea; &c.] i. e. is not yet caught. Fish-skin covers to books anciently were not uncommon. Such is Dr. Farmer's explanation of this passage; and it may receive some support from what Enobarbus says in Antony and Cleopatra: "The tears live in an onion, that should water this sorrow." Steevens. The purport of the remainder of this speech, is to show the advantage of having a handsome person to cover a virtuous mind.. It is evident therefore, that instead of" the fish lives in the sea," we should read, "the fish lives in the shell." For the sea cannot be said to be a beautiful cover to a fish, though a shell may.I believe, that by the golden story, is meant no particular legend, but any valuable writing. M. Mason. 5 That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;] The golden story is perhaps the golden legend, a book in the dark ages of popery much read, and doubtless often exquisitely embellished, but of which Canus, one of the popish doctors, proclaims the author to have been homo ferrei oris, plumbei cordis. Johnson. The poet may mean nothing more than to say, that those books are most esteemed by the world, where valuable contents are embellished by as valuable binding. Steevens. |