Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly, I would have been a-bed an hour ago. PAR. These times of woe afford no time to woo : Madam, good night: commend me to your daugh ter. (1) LA. CAP. I will, and know her mind early to morrow; To-night she's mew'd up' to her heaviness. () And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next- PAR. Monday, my lord. CAP. Monday? ha! ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon, O' Thursday let it be ;-o' Thursday, tell her, 1 66 Wife, where's your daughter? is she in her chamber? "I think she means not to come down to night." BOSWELL. MEW'D up-] This is a phrase from falconry. A mew was a place of confinement for hawks. So, in Albumazar, 1614: 66 fully mew'd "From brown soar feathers —." Again, in our author's King Richard III. : 66 And, for his meed, poor lord he is mew'd up." 2 Sir Paris, I will make a DESPERATE tender STEEVENS. Of my child's love:] Desperate means only bold, adventurous, as if he had said in the vulgar phrase,-I will speak a bold word, and venture to promise you my daughter. JOHNSON. So, in the Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600: "Witness this desperate tender of mine honour." STEEVENS. Will you be ready? do you like this haste? Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends, And there an end. But what say you to Thursday? PAR. My lord, I would that Thursday were to morrow. CAP. Well, get you gone :-O' Thursday be it then : Go you to Juliet, ere you go to bed, Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.- May call it early by and by :-Good night. 3 Exeunt.] The latter part of this scene is a good deal varied from the first quarto, where it thus appears: "Cap. Sir Paris, I'll make a desperate tender of my child : "I think, she will be ruled in all respects by me; "But soft; what day is this? "Par. Monday, my lord. Cap. O, then Wednesday is too soon; "Par. My lord, I wish that Thursday were to-morrow. Cap. Wife, go you to your daughter, ere you go to bed, "Acquaint her with the County Paris' love. "Farewell, my lord, till Thursday next. "Wife, get you to your daughter.-Light to my chamber, "Afore me, it is so very very late, “That we may call it early by and bye. [Exeunt." BOSWELL. SCENE V. JULIET'S Chamber *. Enter ROMEO and JULIET. JUL. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day': It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree": 66 4 Juliet's Chamber.] The stage-direction in the first edition is -"Enter Romeo and Juliet, at a window." In the second quarto, Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft." They appeared probably in the balcony which was erected on the old English stage. See the Account of the Ancient Theatres in vol. iii. MALONE. 5 Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: &c.] This scene is formed on the following hints in the poem of Romeus and Juliet, 1562: "The golden sun was gone to lodge him in the west, "The full moon eke in yonder south had sent most men to rest; "When restless Romeus and restless Juliet, "In wonted sort, by wonted mean, in Juliet's chamber met, &c. "Thus these two lovers pass away the weary night "In pain, and plaint, not, as they wont, in pleasure and delight. "But now, somewhat too soon, in farthest east arose "Fair Lucifer, the golden star that lady Venus chose; "Whose course appointed is with speedy race to run, "A messenger of dawning day and of the rising sun."When thou ne lookest wide, ne closely dost thou wink, "When Phoebus from our hemisphere in western wave doth sink, "What colour then the heavens do show unto thine eyes, "The same, or like, saw Romeus in farthest eastern skies: "As yet he saw no day, ne could he call it night, "With equal force decreasing dark fought with increasing light. "Then Romeus in arms his lady gan to fold, "With friendly kiss, and ruthfully she 'gan her knight behold." MALONE. 6 NIGHTLY she sings on yon pomegranate tree :] This is not merely a poetical supposition. It is observed of the nightingale, that, if undisturbed, she sits and sings upon the same tree for many weeks together. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. ROM. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale * ; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east : Night's candles are burnt out', and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops; I must be gone and live, or stay and die. JUL. Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I: It is some meteor that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a torch-bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua: Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not to be gone 9. * Quarto A, And not the nightingale. † Quarto B, C, D, and folio, mountain's. What Eustathius, however, has observed relative to a fig-tree mentioned by Homer, in his 12th Odyssey, may be applied to the passage before us : "These particularities, which seem of no consequence, have a very good effect in poetry, as they give the relation an air of truth and probability. For what can induce a poet to mention such a tree, if the tree were not there in reality?" STEEVENS. 7 Night's candles are burnt out,] Thus Sophocles: ἄκρας νυκτὸς, ἡνίχ ̓ ἕσπεροι Λαμπητῆρες οἰκέτ' ησθον.—Ajax, 288. It is some METEOR that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a TORCH-BEARER, BLAKEWAY. And light thee on thy way-] Compare Sidney's Arcadia, 13th edit. p. 109: "The moon, then full, (not thinking scorn to be a torch-bearer to such beauty) guided her steps." And Sir J. Davies's Orchestra, 1596, st. vii. of the sun : "When the great torch-bearer of heauen was gone And Drayton's Eng. Heroic. Epist. p. 221, where the moon is described with the stars Attending on her, as her torch-bearers." TODD. 9 — thou need'st not to be gone.] The quarto 1597, reads; "Then stay awhile, thou shalt not go soon." With a slight emendation, it appears to me to be a better line than that in the text : "Then stay awhile; thou shalt not go so soon." BOSWELL. VOL. VI. M ROM. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. 2 3 JUL. It is, it is, hie hence, be gone, away; I 1 the pale reflex-] The appearance of a cloud opposed to the moon. JOHNSON. 2 * Let's talk, it is not day.] This speech is better, I think, in the quarto 1597: "Let me stay here, let me be ta'en, and die; "I'll say, yon grey is not the morning's eye, Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so."What says my love? let's talk, 'tis not yet day." BOSWELL. 3 I have more care to stay, than will to go;] Would it not be better thus-I have more will to stay, than care to go? JOHNSON. Care was frequently used in Shakspeare's age for inclination. MALONE. 4 - Sweet DIVISION;] Division seems to have been the technical phrase for the pauses or parts of a musical composition. So, in King Henry IV. P. I.: 66 Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, "With ravishing division to her lute." To run a division, is also a musical term. STEEVENS. Does not division rather mean where the voice or instrument runs off from the air or plain song in notes of shorter duration than those of the tune in general? Divisions do not properly make part of an air, but are a sort of ornaments added to it. PHILLIPPS. |