Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the
peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our further pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

[Exeunt Prince, and Attendants; CAPULET,
Lady CAPULET, TYBALT, Citizens, and
Servants.

MON. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach? Speak, nephew, were you by, when it began?

BEN. Here were the servants of your adversary, And yours, close fighting ere I did approach: I drew to part them; in the instant came The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar❜d; Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears, He swung about his head, and cut the winds, Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn: While we were interchanging thrusts and blows, Came more and more, and fought on part and part, Till the prince came, who parted either part.

LA. MON. O, where is Romeo!-saw you him to-day?

Right glad I am, he was not at this fray.

BEN. Madam, an hour before the worshipp❜d sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,"

To old Free-town, our common judgment-place.] This name the poet found in the Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562. It is there said to be the castle of the Capulets. MALONE.

Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,] The same

thought occurs in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. x:

A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;
Where,-underneath the grove of sycamore,
That westward rooteth from the city's side,-
So early walking did I see your son:

Towards him I made; but he was 'ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood:
I, measuring his affections by my own,-
That most are busied when they are most alone,6-
Pursu'd my humour, not pursuing his,

And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me."

MON. Many a morning hath he there been seen, With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew, Adding to clouds more clouds. with his deep sighs: But all so soon as the all-cheering sun Should in the furthest east begin to draw The shady curtains from Aurora's bed, Away from light steals home my heavy son, And private in his chamber pens himself; Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out, And makes himself an artificial night:

"Early before the morn with cremosin ray
"The windows of bright heaven opened had,
"Through which into the world the dawning day
"Might looke," &c. STEEVENS.

Again, in Summa Totalis; or All in All, or the same for ever, 4to. 1607:

"Now heaven's bright eye (awake by Vespers sheene) Peepes through the purple windowes of the East."

[ocr errors]

HOLT WHITE.

• That most are busied &c.] Edition 1597. Instead of which it is in the other editions thus:

-by my own,

"Which then most sought, where most might not be found,

"Being one too many by my weary self,

"Pursu'd my humour," &c. POPE.

And gladly shunn'd &c.] The ten lines following, not in

edition 1597, but in the next of 1599, POPE.

Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

BEN. My noble uncle, do you know the cause? MON. I neither know it, nor can learn of him. BEN. Have you impórtun'd him by any means? MON. Both by myself, and many other friends: But he, his own affections' counsellor, Is to himself-I will not say, how trueBut to himself so secret and so close, So far from sounding and discovery, As is the bud bit with an envious worm, Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.9

Ben. Have you importun'd &c.] These two speeches also omitted in edition 1597, but inserted in 1599. POPE.

9 Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.] [Old copy-same.] When we come to consider, that there is some power else besides balmy air, that brings forth, and makes the tender buds spread themselves, I do not think it improbable that the poet wrote:

Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.

Or, according to the more obsolete spelling, sunne; which brings it nearer to the traces of the corrupted text. THEOBALD.

I cannot but suspect that some lines are lost, which connected this simile more closely with the foregoing speech: these lines, if such there were, lamented the danger that Romeo will die of his melancholy, before his virtues or abilities were known to the world. JOHNSON.

I suspect no loss of connecting lines. An expression somewhat similar occurs in Timon, Act IV. sc. ii:

"A dedicated beggar to the air."

I have, however, adopted Theobald's emendation. Mr. M. Mason observes" that there is not a single passage in our author where so great an improvement of language is obtained, by so slight a deviation from the text.". STEEVENS.

Dr. Johnson's conjecture is, I think, unfounded; the simile relates solely to Romeo's concealing the cause of his melancholy, and is again used by Shakspeare in Twelfth Night:

VOL. XX.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

ROMEO AND JULIET.

ACT 1.

Id we but learn from whence his sorrows grow, would as willingly give cure, as know.

EN. See, where he comes: So please you, step

Enter ROMEO, at a distance.

aside;

know his grievance, or be much denied. hear true shrift.-Come, madam, let's away. ON. I would, thou wert so happy by thy stay, [Exeunt MONTAGUE and Lady.

BEN. Good morrow, cousin.

ROM.

66

Is the day so young

But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, "Feed on her damask cheek.'

-She never told her love,

[ocr errors]

In the last Act of this play our poet has evidently imitated the Rosamond of Daniel; and in the present passage might have remembered the following lines in one of the Sonnets of the same writer, who was then extremely popular. The lines, wheMr. Theobald's emendation, that I should have given it a place remembered by our author or not, add such support to in my text, but that the other mode of phraseology was not uncommon in Shakspeare's time:

ther

"And whilst thou spread'st unto the rising sunne,
"The fairest flower that ever saw the light,

66

Now joy thy time, before thy sweet be done."

Daniel's Sonnets, 1594.

The line quoted by Mr. Steevens does not appear to me to be adverse to this emendation. The bud could not dedicate its beauty to the sun, without at the same time dedicating it to the

air.

A similar phraseology, however, to that of my text may be found in Daniel's 14th, 32d, 44th, and 53d Sonnets.

MALONE.

The

same expression (which might once have been popular) I meet Is the day so young?] i. e. is it so early in the day? with in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540: " It is yet young nyghte, there is yet moche of the nyghte to come."

STEEVENS.

or

BEN. But new struck nine.

ROM.

Ah me! sad hours seem long.

Was that my father that went hence so fast?

[ocr errors]

BEN. It was: What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

ROM. Not having that, which, having, makes ride them short.

BEN. In love?

ROM. Out

BEN. Of love?

[ocr errors]

ROM. Out of her favour, where I am in love. BEN. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

ROM. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!2

to his will!] Sir T.

burton, read-to his ill. Tanmer, and after him Dr. War

present reading has some obscurity; the meaning may be, that love finds out means to pursue his desire. That the blind should find paths to ill is no great wonder. JOHNSON.

It is not unusual for those who are blinded by love to overlook every difficulty that opposes their pursuit. NICHOLS.

What Romeo seems to lament is, that love, though blind, should discover pathways to his will, and yet cannot avail himself of them; should perceive the road which he is forbidden to take.

The quarto, 1597, reads

Should, without laws, give pathways to our will!

i. e. being lawless itself, prescribe laws to others. STEEVENS. This passage seems to have been misapprehended. Benvolio has lamented that the God of love, who appears so gentle, should be a tyrant. It is no less to be lamented, adds Romeo, that the blind god should yet be able to direct his arrows at those whom he wishes to hit, that he should wound whomever he wills, or desires to wound. MALone.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »