But I a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding bed;
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

Nurse. Hie to your chamber: I 'll find Romeo
To comfort you :-1 wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night;
I'll to him! he is hid at Laurence' cell.

Jul. () find him! give this ring to my true knight, And bid him come to take his last farewel. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Friar Laurence's Cell. Enter Friar LAURENCE and Romeo. Fri. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man; Afiction is enamour'd of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity.

Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?
Fri.

Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company:
I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom.

Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?

Fri. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips,
Not body's death, but body's banishment.

Rom. Ha! banishroent? be merciful, say--death:
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death : do not say--banishment.

Fri. Hence from Verona art thou banished:
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
And world's exíle is death:--then banishmento
Is death mis-term’d: calling death-banishment,
Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe,
And smil'st upon the stroke that murders me.

Fri. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness !

then banishment - ] The quarto, 1599, and the folio, read --then banished. The emendation was made by Sir Thomas Han. mer. The words are not in the quarto, 1597. Malone.

Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince,
Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,
And turn'd that black word death to banishment:
This is dear mercy,5 and thou seest it not.

Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives;6 and every cat, and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven, and may look on her,
But Romeo may not.--More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies, than Romeo:7 they may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips;
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, 8
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;

6

5 This is dear mercy,] So the quarto, 1599, and the folio. The earliest

copy reads—This is mere mercy. Malone. Mere mercy, in ancient language, signifies absolute mercy. So, in Othello:

"The mere perdition of the Turkish fleet.” Again, in King Henry VIII:

to the mere undoing
“Of all the kingdom.” Steevens.

heaven is here,
Where Fuliet lives;] From this and the foregoing speech of
Romeo, Dryden has borrowed in his beautiful paraphrase of
Chaucer's Palamon and Arcite:

“ Heaven is not, but where Emily abides,
“ And where she's absent, all is hell besides.” Steevens,

More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion flies, than Romeo:) Validity seems here to mean worth or dignity: and courtship the state of a courtier permitted to approach the highest presence. Johnson.

Validity is employed to signify worth or value, in the first scene of King Lear. Steevens.

By courtship, the author seems rather to have meant, the state of a lover; that dalliance, in which he who courts or wooes a lady is sometimes indulged. This appears clearly from the subsequent lines :

they may seize
« On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand,
“ And steal immortal blessing from her lips ;-

“ Flies may do this.” Malone. 8 Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,] This and the next line are not in the first copy. Malone.

But Romeo may not; he is banished:9
Flies may do this, when I from this must fly;
They are free men, but I am banished.
And says't thou yet, that exile is not death?1
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
But-banished--to kill me; banished?
() fiiar, the damned use that word in hell;
Howlings attend it: How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend professid,
To mangle me with that word—banishment?

Fri. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word. S
Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

Fri. I 'll give thee armour to keep off that word; Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, To comfort thee, though thou art banished. 3

9 But Romeo may not; he is banished:] This line has been very aukwardly introduced in the modern as well as ancient copies, and might better be inserted after their own kisses sin. Steevens.

This line, in the original copy, immediately follows-“ And steal immortal blessing from her lips.” The two lines, Who, even, &c. were added in the copy of 1599, and are merely parenthetical: the line, therefore, But Romeo may not; &c. undoubtedly ought to follow these two lines. By mistake, in the copy of 1599, it was inserted lower down, after-is not death. Malone. 1 They are free men, but I am banished.

And say’st thou yet, that exile is not death?] These two lines are not in the original copy. Malone.

2 Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.] So the quarto, 1597. The quartos 1599 and 1609 read: Then fond

man, hear me a little speak. The folio:

Then fond mad man, hear me speak. Malone. 3 Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,

To comfort thee, though thou art banished.] So, in Romeus and Juliet, the Friar says

“ Virtue is always thrall to troubles and annoy."

t wisdom in adversity finds cause of quiet joy." See Lyly's Euphues, 1580: “ Thou sayest banishment is better to the freeborne. There be many meates which are sowre in the mouth and sharp in the maw: but if thou mingle them with sweet sawces, they yeeld both a pleasant taste and wholesome nourishment.--I speake tlls to this end; that though thy exile seeme grievous to thee, yet guiding thyselfe with the rules of philosophy, it shall be more tolerable." Malone.

Rom. Yet banished ?-Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom;
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.

Fri. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no

eyes?

Fri. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.“

Rom. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel : Wert thou as young as 1, Juliet thy love, An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, Doting like me, and like me banished, Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy

hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave. Fri. Arise; one knocks; good komeo, hide thyself,

[Knocking within. Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick groans, Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes. [Knocking. Fri. Hark, how they knock!-- Who's there?-Ro

meo, arise; Thou wilt be taken :-Stay a while :- stand up;

[Knocking. Run to my study :- By and by:-God's will ! What wilfulness6 is this?-I come, I come. [Knocking. Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what 's your

will ? Nurse. [within] Let me come in, and you shall know

my errand;

4 Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.] The same phrase, and with the same meaning, occurs in The Winter's Tale:

can he speak? hear? “ Know man from man? dispute his own estate ?" i. e. is he able to talk over his own affairs, or the present state he is in? Steevens.

5 Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, ] Thus the original co. py; for which in the folio we bave

Wert thou as young as Juliet my love. I only mention this to show the very high value of the early quarto editions. Malone.

6 What wilfulness - ) Thus the quarto, 1597. That of 1599 and the folio, have - What simpleness. Malone.

I come from lady Juliet.
Fri.

Welcome then.

Enter Nurse.
Nurse. O holy friar, O, teil me, holy friar,
Where is my lady's lord, where 's Romeo ?
Fri. There on the ground, with his own tears made

drunk.
Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case,
Just in her case!
Fri.

O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament !?
Nurse.

Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering:
Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man:
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
Why should you fall into so deep an O ?

Rom. Nurse!
Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir!-Well, death 's the end of all.

Rom. Spak'st thou of Juliet? how is it with her?
Doth she not think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
With blood remov'd but little from her own?
Where is she? and how doth she? and what says
My conceald lady to our cancell'd love ?8

Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps
And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.
Rom.

As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand

and weeps;

70 woeful sympathy

Piteous predicament!] The old copies give these words to the Nurse. One may wonder the editors did not see that such language must necessarily belong to the Friar. Farmer.

Dr. Farmer's emendation may justly claim that place in the text to which I have now advanced it. Steevens.

cancell'd love?] The folio reads-conceal'd love. Fohnsor. The quarto, cancell'd love. Steevens. The epithet concealed is to be understood, not of the person, but of the condition of the lady. So, that the sense is, my lady, whose being so, together with our marriage which made her so, is coucealed from the world. Heath.

8