And yet no man, like he, doth grieve my heart. lives. 3 JUL. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands. 'Would, none but I might venge my cousin's death! LA. CAP. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not: Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,— 3 Ay, madam, from, &c.] Juliet's equivocations are rather too artful for a mind disturbed by the loss of a new lover. JOHNSON. That shall bestow on him so sure a draught,] Thus the elder quarto, which I have followed in preference to the quartos 1599 and 1609, and the folio 1623, which read, less intelligibly : "Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram.” STEEVENS. The elder quarto has-That should, &c. The word shall is drawn from that of 1599. MALONE. 66 unaccustom'd dram." In vulgar language, Shall give him a dram which he is not used to. Though I have, if I mistake not, observed, that in old books unaccustomed signifies wonderful, powerful, efficacious. JOHNSON. Bar I believe Dr. Johnson's first explanation is the true one. naby Googe, in his Cupido Conquered, 1563, uses unacquainted in the same sense: "And ever as we mounted up, "I lookte upon my wynges, "And proude I was, me thought, to see "Suche unacquaynted thyngs." STEEVENS. To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt 5 LA. CAP. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man. But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl. JUL. And joy comes well in such a needful time: What are they, I beseech your ladyship? LA. CAP. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child; One, who, to put thee from thy heaviness, That thou expect'st not, nor I look'd not for. The gallant, young, and noble gentleman, 5- my cousin TYBALT] The last word of this line, which is not in the old copies, was added by the editor of the second folio. But whether this was the word omitted is uncertain. It was more probably an epithet to cousin; such as,-my murdered cousin. It is unlikely the compositor should omit the last word of a line, especially a proper name. MALONE. 6 Find thou, &c.] This line, in the quarto 1597, is given to Juliet. STEEvens. 7-in happy time,] A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected, when the hearer was not quite so well pleased as the speaker. JOHNSON. 8 The county Paris,] It is remarked, that "Paris, though in one place called Earl, is most commonly stiled the Countie in this play. Shakspeare seems to have preferred, for some reason or other, the Italian Comte to our Count: perhaps he took it from the old English novel, from which he is said to have taken his plot." He certainly did so: Paris is there first stiled a young Earle, and afterwards Counte, Countee, County; according to the unsettled orthography of the time. The word, however, is frequently met with in other writers; particularly in Fairfax : "As when a captaine doth besiege some hold, Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride o. LA. CAP. Here comes your father; tell him so yourself. And see how he will take it at your hands. () "And trieth waies and wiles a thousand fold, Godfrey of Bulloigne, book vii. stanza 90. See p. 53, n. 3. MALONE. 9 A joyful bride.] This dialogue between Juliet and her mother, is considerably altered from the first quarto, where it is thus given : "Moth. Why how now, Juliet? "Jul. Madam, I am not well. "Moth. What, evermore weeping for your cousin's death? "I think, thou'lt wash him from his grave with tears. "Jul. I cannot choose, having so great a loss. "Moth. I cannot blame thee; "But it grieves thee more, that villain lives. "Jul. What villain, madam? 66 Moth. That villain Romeo. Jul. Villain and he are many miles asunder. "Moth. Content thee, girl; if I could find a man, "I soon would send to Mantua, where he is, "That should bestow on him so sure a draught, "As he should soon bear Tybalt company. "Jul. Find you the means, and I'll find such a man. "For whilst he lives, my heart shall ne'er be light. "Till I behold him-dead-is my poor heart "Thus for a kinsman vext. "Moth. We'll let that pass. I come to bring thee joyful news. Enter CAPULET and Nurse. (1) CAP. When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew1; "Jul. And joy comes well in such a needful time. "The gallant, young, and youthful gentleman, 66 "Jul. Now, by Saint Peter's church, and Peter too, "Are these the news you had to tell me of? "Marry, here are news, indeed. Madam, I will not marry yet; "And when I do, it shall be rather Romeo, whom I hate, "Than county Paris that I cannot love. 66 Moth. Here comes your father; you may tell him so.” BOSWELL. 1 When the sun sets, the AIR doth drizzle dew ;] Thus the undated quarto. The quarto 1599, and the folio, read-the earth doth drizzle dew. The line is not in the original copy. The reading of the quarto 1599, and the folio, is philosophically true; and perhaps ought to be preferred. Dew undoubtedly rises from the earth, in consequence of the action of the heat of the sun on its moist surface. Those vapours which rise from the earth in the course of the day, are evaporated by the warmth of the air as soon as they arise; but those which rise after sun-set, form themselves into drops, or rather into that fog or mist which is termed dew. Though with the modern editors, I have followed the undated quarto, and printed-the air doth drizzle dew, I suspected when this note was written, that earth was the poet's word, and a line in The Rape of Lucrece, strongly supports that reading: "But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set -." MALONE. When our author, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, says: "And when she [the moon] weeps, weeps every little flower; he only means that every little flower is moistened with dew, as if with tears; and not that the flower itself drizzles dew. This passage sufficiently explains how the earth, in the quotation from The Rape of Lucrece, may be said to weep. STEEVENS. But for the sunset of my brother's son, How now? () a conduit, girl? what, still in tears??(||) Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind: Thy tempest-tossed body.-How now, wife? That Shakspeare thought it was the air and not the earth that drizzled dew, is evident from other passages. So, in King John : "Before the dew of evening fall." Again, in King Henry VIII. : "His dews fall every where." Again, in the same play : "The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her." Again, in Hamlet: "Dews of blood fell." RITSON. 2 How now? A CONDUIT, girl? what, still in tears?] In Thomas Heywood's Troia Britannica, cant. ii. st. 40, 1609, there is the same allusion: "You should not let such high-priz'd moysture fall, HOLT WHITE. Conduits in the form of human figures, it has been already ob served, were common in Shakspeare's time. See Winter's Tale, Act V. Sc. II. We have again the same image in The Rape of Lucrece : "A pretty while these pretty creatures stand, "Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling." So, in Turberville's Tragick Tales, 1587, p. 162: 66 66 Why leave we to lament, why keepe we in our cryes, The same image occurs more than once in the old poem of Romeus and Juliet: "His sighs are stopt, and stopped in the conduit of his teares.” Again : "So that my payned heart by conduytes of the eyne, "No more henceforth (as wont it was) shall gush forth dropping bryne." MALONE. |