Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO. BEN. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish :3 Take thou some new infection to thy eye, 3 with another's languish:] This substantive is again found in Antony and Cleopatra.-It was not of our poet's coinage, occurring also (as I think) in one of Morley's songs, 1595: "Alas, it skills not, 4 "For thus I will not, "Now tormented, "Live in love and languish." MALONE. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,- And the rank poison of the old will die.] So, in the poem: port, "With so fast-fixed eye perhaps thou may'st behold, "And as out of a plank a nail a nail doth drive, "So novel love out of the mind the ancient love doth rive.” Again, in our author's Coriolanus: "One fire drives out one fire; one nail one nail.” So, in Lyly's Euphues, 1580: " a fire divided in twayne burneth slower;-one love expelleth another, and the remembrance of the latter quencheth the concupiscence of the first." MALONE. Veterem amorem novo, quasi clavum clavo repellere, is a morsel of very ancient advice; and Ovid also has assured us, that-"Alterius vires subtrahit alter amor." Or, "Successore novo truditur omnis amor." Priorem flammam novus ignis extrudit, is also a proverbial phrase. STEEVENS. ROM. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.5 BEN. For what, I pray thee? ROM. For your broken shin. BEN. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?. ROM. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is: Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipp'd, and tormented, and-Good-e'en, good fellow. SERV. God gi' good e'en.-I pray, sir, can you read? ROм. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. SERV. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book: But I pray, can you read any thing you see? ROM. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language. SERV. Ye say honestly; Rest you merry! ROM. Stay, fellow; I can read. [Reads. Signior Martino, and his wife, and daughters; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; Mine Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.] Tackius tells us, that a toad, before she engages with a spider, will fortify herself with some of this plant; and that, if she comes off wounded, she cures herself afterwards with it. DR. GREY. The same thought occurs in Albumazar, in the following lines: Help, Armellina, help! I'm fall'n i' the cellar: 66 "Bring a fresh plantain leaf, I've broke my shin." Again, in The Case is Alter'd, by Ben Jonson, 1609, a fellow who has had his head broke, says: ""Tis nothing, a fillip, a device: fellow Juniper, prithee get me a plantain.' The plantain leaf is a blood-stauncher, and was formerly applied to green wounds. STEEVens. uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena. A fair assembly; [Gives back the Note.] Whither should they come? SERV. Up. ROM. Whither? SERV. To supper; to our house." SERV. My master's. ROM. Indeed, I should have asked you that before. SERV. Now I'll tell you without asking: My master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry. [Exit. BEN. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st; With all the admired beauties of Verona: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall show, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow. 6 To supper; to our house.] The words to supper are in the old copies annexed to the preceding speech. They undoubtedly belong to the Servant, to whom they were transferred by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. 7 crush a cup of wine.] This cant expression seems to have been once common among low people. I have met with it often in the old plays. So, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599: "Fill the pot, hostess &c. and we'll crush it.” Again, in Hoffman's Tragedy, 1631: 66 -we'll crush a cup of thine own country wine." Again, in The Pinder of Wakefield, 1599, the Cobler says: "Come, George, we'll crush a pot before we part.' We still say, in cant language to crack a bottle. STEEVENS. ROM. When the devout religion of mine eye Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires! And these,-who, often drown'd, could never die,Transparent hereticks, be burnt for liars! 8 One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun 8 SCENE III. A Room in Capulet's House. Enter Lady CAPULET and Nurse. LA. CAP. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me. NURSE. Now, by my maiden-head,-at twelve year old, -in those crystal scales,] The old copies have-that crystal, &c. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. I am not sure that it is necessary. The poet might have used scales for the entire machine. MALONE. 9 let there be weigh'd Your lady's Your lady's love against some other maid—] love is the love you bear to your lady, which in our language is commonly used for the lady herself. HEATH. I bade her come.-What, lamb! what, lady-bird!God forbid!—where's this girl?-what, Juliet! LA. CAP. This is the matter:-Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again; I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our counsel, Thou know'st, my daughter's of a pretty age. NURSE. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour, LA. CAP. She's not fourteen. NURSE. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, And yet, to my teen' be it spoken, I have but four, She is not fourteen: How long is it now To Lammas-tide? LA. CAP. A fortnight, and odd days. NURSE. Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen. Susan and she,-God rest all Christian souls!Were of an age.-Well, Susan is with God; She was too good for me: But, as I said, On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen; This old word is introduced by Shakspeare for the sake of the jingle between teen, and four, and fourteen. STEEvens. |