For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood, I warrant, an I should live a thousand years, he: And, pretty fool, it stinted,5 and said—Ay. LA. CAP. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace. NURSE. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot choose but laugh, could stand alone;] The 4to. 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. 5 it stinted,] i. e. it stopped, it forbore 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." Again, in The Misfortunes of King Arthur, an ancient drama, 1587: 66 -Fame's but a blast that sounds a while, "And quickly stints, and then is quite forgot." Spenser uses this word frequently in his Fairy Queen. STEEVENS. Nurse. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot choose &c.] This speech and tautology is not in the first edition. POPE. To think it should leave crying, and say―Ay: Yea, quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face? JUL. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. NURSE. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs❜d: LA. CAP. Marry, that marry is the very theme I came to talk of :-Tell me, daughter Juliet, How stands your disposition to be married? JUL. It is an honour" that I dream not of. 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, 8 Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Are made already mothers: by my count, 7 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. Well, &c.] Instead of this speech, the quarto, 1597, has only one line: 8 "Well, girl, the noble County Paris seeks thee for his STEEVENS. wife." That you are now a maid. Thus then, in brief;— The valiant Paris seeks you for his love. NURSE. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, As all the world-Why, he's a man of wax.9 LA.CAP. Verona's summer hath not such a flower. This night you shall behold him at our feast: And see how one another lends content; 9 a man of wax.] So, in Wily Beguiled: Why, he's a man as one should picture him in wax.” a man of wax. x.] 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. 1 Nurse.] After this speech of the Nurse, Lady Capulet in the old 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. La. Cap. What say you? &c.] This ridiculous speech is entirely added since the first edition. POPE. 3 Read o'er the volume &c.] The same thought occurs in Pericles, Prince of Tyre: "Her face the book of praises, where is read "Nothing but curious pleasures." STEEVENS. ↑ 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 5 And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies, 6 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: "If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, 66 By unions married, do offend thine ear." So also, in Ronsard: Again: "Phebus du milieu de la table, "Pour réjouir le front des Dieux, "Le mariant aux haleines "De trompettes qui sont pleines "D'un son furieux et grave." STEEVENS, This speech, as has been observed, is not in the quarto, 1597. The reading of the text is that of the quarto, 1599. The folio, after a later quarto, that of 1609, reads several lineament. I have no doubt that married was the poet's word, and that it was altered only because the printer of the quarto of 1609 did not understand it. MALONE. 5 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. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece: STEEVENS. "But she, that never cop'd with stranger eyes, • This precious book of love, this unbound lover, MALONE. 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. The fish lives in the sea;' and 'tis much pride, 8 NURSE. No less? nay, bigger; women grow by men. LA.CAP. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love? JUL. I'll look to like, if looking liking move:9 But no more deep will I endart mine eye,' Than your consent gives strength to make it fly. 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 Ænobarbus 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. 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. 9 I'll look to like, if looking liking move:] Such another jingle of words occurs in the second Book of Sidney's Arcadia: "and seeing to like, and liking to love, and loving straight" &c. STEEVENS. 1 – endart mine eye,] The quarto, 1597, reads " engage mine eye. 22 STEEVENS. |