Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,

A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,
To mangle me with that word-banishment?
FRI. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a
word.4

ROM. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment. FRI. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word; Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,

To comfort thee, though thou art banished.5
ROM. Yet banished?-Hang up philosophy!
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom;
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.
FRI. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.
ROM. How should they, when that wise men
have no eyes?

FRI. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

• Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word.] So the quarto, 1597. The quartos 1599 and 1609 read:

Then fond mad man, hear me a little speak. The folio:

Then fond mad man, hear me speak. MALONE.

Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,

To comfort thee, though thou art banished.] So, in Romeus and Juliet, the Friar says

"Virtue is always thrall to troubles and annoy,

"But wisdom in adversity finds cause of quiet joy." See also Lyly's Euphues, 1580: "Thou sayest banishment is better to the freeborne. There be many meates which are sowre in the mouth and sharp in the maw; but if thou mingle them with sweet sawces, they yeeld both a pleasant taste and wholesome nourishment.-I speake this to this end; that though thy exile seeme grievous to thee, yet guiding thyselfe with the rules of philosophy, it shall be more tolerable." MALONE.

Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.] The same phrase, and with the same meaning, occurs in The Winter's Tale :

ROM. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel:

Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,"
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,

Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy hair,

And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

FRI. Arise; one knocks; good Romeo, hide

thyself.

[Knocking within. ROM. Not I; unless the breath of heart-sick

groans,

Mist-like, infold me from the search of eyes.

[Knocking. FRI. Hark, how they knock!-Who's there?— Romeo, arise;

Thou wilt be taken:-Stay a while :-stand up; [Knocking. Run to my study :-By and by:-God's will!

66 can he speak? hear?

"Know man from man? dispute his own estate?” i. e. is he able to talk over his own affairs, or the present state he is in? STEEVENS.

7 Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,] Thus the original for which in the folio we have

copy;

Wert thou as young as Juliet my love.

I only mention this to show the very high value of the early quarto editions. MALONE.

then might'st thou tear thy hair,] So, in the poem:
"These heavy tidings heard, his golden locks he tare,
"And like a frantick man hath torn the garments that
he ware.-

"He riseth oft, and strikes his head against the walls;
"He falleth down again, and loud for hasty death he
calls." MALONE,

What wilfulness in this?-I come, I come.

[Knocking.

Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's

your will?

NURSE. [Within.] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand;

I come from lady Juliet.

FRI.

Welcome then.

Enter Nurse.

NURSE. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar, Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?

FRI. There on the ground, with his own tears 'made drunk.

- NURSE. O, he is even in my mistress' case, Just in her case!

ing :

Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man:
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand;
Why should you fall into so deep an O?
ROM. Nurse!

9 What wilfulness-] Thus the quarto 1597. That of 1599, and the folio, have-What simpleness. MALONE.

1O woeful sympathy!

Piteous predicament!] The old copies give these words to the Nurse. One may wonder the editors did not see that such language must necessarily belong to the Friar, FARMER.

Dr. Farmer's emendation may justly claim that place in the text to which I have now advanced it. STEEVENS,

NURSE. Ah sir! ah sir!-Well, death's the end

of all.

ROM. Spak'st thou of Juliet? how is it with her? Doth she not think me an old murderer, Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy With blood remov'd but little from her own? Where is she? and how doth she? and what My conceal'd lady to our cancell❜d love?2 NURSE. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and

weeps;

says

And now falls on her bed; and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.

ROM.

As if that name,

Shot from the deadly level of a gun,

Did murder her; as that name's cursed hand Murder'd her kinsman.-O tell me, friar, tell me, In what vile part of this anatomy

Doth my name lodge? tell me, that I

The hateful mansion.

FRI.

may sack [Drawing his Sword.

Hold thy desperate hand:

Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art; Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote

3

*- cancell❜d love?] The folio reads-conceal'd love. JOHNSON.

The quarto, cancell'd love. STEEVENS.

The epithet concealed is to be understood, not of the person," but of the condition of the lady. So, that the sense is, my lady, whose being so, together with our marriage which made her so, is concealed from the world. HEATH.

3 Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art;

Thy tears are womanish;] Shakspeare has here closely followed his original:

"Art thou, quoth he, a man? thy shape saith, so thou

art; twise

Thy crying and thy weeping eyes denote a woman's

heart.

The unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman,* in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast, in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz'd me by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady too that lives in thee, odh
By doing damned hate upon thyself?

Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and
earth ?6

"For manly reason is quite from off thy mind outchased, "And in her stead affections lewd, and fancies highly

placed;

"So that I stood in doubt, this hour at the least,
"If thou a man or woman wert, or else a brutish beast.'
Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, 1562.

MALONE.

Unseemly woman, &c.] Thou art a beast of ill qualities, under the appearance both of a woman and a man. JOHNSON. A person who seemed both man and woman, would be a monster, and of course an ill-beseeming beast. This is all the Friar meant to express. M. MASON.

And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,] Thus the first copy.
The
quarto 1599, and the folio, have-

And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives. MALONE.
My copy of the first folio reads:

And slay thy lady that in thy life lies. STEEVENS.

6 Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?] Romeo has not here railed on his birth, &c. though in his interview with the Friar as described in the poem, he is made to do so:

"First Nature did he blame, the author of his life,

"In which his joys had been so scant, and sorrows aye so rife;

"The time and place of birth he fiercely did reprove; "He cryed out with open mouth against the stars above. "On fortune eke he rail'dr*

Shakspeare copied the remonstrance of the Friar, without reviewing the former part of his scene. He has in other places fallen into a similar inaccuracy, by sometimes following and sometimes deserting his original.