Despised substance of divinest show! Nurse. There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd, Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vita:These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old 7. Shame come to Romeo! JUL. Blister'd be thy tongue, For such a wish! he was not born to shame: For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd was blunderingly coined out of raven and ravening; and if we only throw it out, we gain at once an harmonious verse, and a proper contrast of epithets and images: Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-rav'ning lamb!" THEOBALD. The quarto 1599, and folio, read— "Ravenous dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!" The word ravenous, which was written probably in the manuscript by mistake in the latter part of the line, for ravening, and then struck out, crept from thence to the place where it appears. It was properly rejected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. A DAMNED saint,] The quarto 1599, for damned, has― dimme; the first folio-dimne. The reading of the text is found in the undated quarto. MALONE. 7 These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.] So, in our author's Lover's Complaint: "Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power." MALONE. Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sIT;] So, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, tom. ii. p. 223: Is it possible that under such beautie and rare comelinesse, disloyaltie and treason may have their siedge and lodging?" The image of shame sitting on the brow, is not in the poem. STEEVENS. Sole monarch of the universal earth. O, what a beast was I to chide at him! NURSE. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin ? JUL. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name9, When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it1?But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin ? That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband: Back, foolish tears 2, back to your native spring; Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain; And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband: 9 - what tongue shall SMOOTH thy name,] To smooth, in ancient language, is to stroke, to caress, to fondle. So, in Pericles, Act I. Sc. II.: "Seem'd not to strike, but smooth." STEEVENS. Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?] So, in the poem already quoted: "Ah cruel murd'ring tongue, murderer of others' fame, "How durst thou once attempt to touch the honour of his name? "Whose deadly foes do yield him due and earned praise, "For though his freedom be bereft, his honour not decays. "Why blam'st thou Romeus for slaying of Tybalt? "Since he is guiltless quite of all, and Tybalt bears the fault. "Whither shall he, alas! poor banish'd man, now fly? "What place of succour shall he seek beneath the starry sky? "Since she pursueth him, and him defames by wrong, "That in distress should be his fort, and only rampire strong." MALONE. Again, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure: "Where from henceforth shall be his refuge? sith she, which ought to be the only bulwarke and assined repare of his distresse, doth persue and defame him." HENDERSON. 2 Back, FOOLISH tears, &c.] So, in The Tempest: I am a fool "To weep at what I am glad of." STEEVENS. All this is comfort; Wherefore weep I then? Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds: Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship*, And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,Why follow'd not, when she said-Tybalt's dead, Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, Which modern lamentation might have mov'd 5 ? But, with a rear-ward following Tybalt's death, Romeo is banished,-to speak that word, 3 Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts.] Hath put Tybalt out of my mind, as if out of being. JOHNSON. The true meaning is,-I am more affected by Romeo's banishment than I should be by the death of ten thousand such relations as Tybalt. RITSON. "Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts." That is, is worse than the loss of ten thousand Tybalts. Dr. Johnson's explanation cannot be right; for the passage itself shows that Tybalt was not out of her mind. M. MASON. 4 -sour woe delights in fellowship,] Thus the Latin hexameter: (I know not whence it comes) "Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris." STEEVENS, So, in The Rape of Lucrece : "And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage, "As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage." Again, in King Lear: 66 the mind much sufferance doth o'er-skip, MALONE. 5 Which MODERN lamentation, &c.] This line is left out of the later editions, I suppose because the editors did not remember that Shakspeare uses modern for common, or slight: I believe it was in his time confounded in colloquial language with moderate. JOHNSON. It means only trite, common. So, in As You Like It: "Full of wise saws and modern instances." STEEVENS. VOL. VI. L Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, In that word's death; no words can that woe sound. Where is my father, and my mother, nurse? NURSE. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse: Will you go to them? I will bring you thither. JUL. Wash they his wounds with tears? mine shall be spent, When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment. He made you for a highway to my bed; Come, cords; come, nurse; I'll to my wedding bed; JUL. O find him! give this ring to my true knight, And bid him come to take his last farewell. SCENE III. [Exeunt. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell. Enter Friar LAURENCE and ROMEO. FRI. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man; Affliction 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, FRI. Too familiar Is my dear son with such sour company: 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! banishment? be merciful, say—death: For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death: do not say-banishment. Hence-banished is banish'd from the world, FRI. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness! 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, and thou seest it not. ROM. 'Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here, * Quarto A, world exiled. + Quarto A, monstrous. 7 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. |