Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the
pastry.
[Exit Nurse.
Enter CAPULET.
Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath
crow'd,

The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock:-
Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica:
Spare not for cost.

La. Cap.
Go, go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; 'faith, you'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.2

Cap. No, not a whit; "What! I have watch'd ere

now

All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.
La. Cap. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt' in
your time;

But I will watch you from such watching now.
[Exit LADY CAPULET.
Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!-Now,
fellow,
What's there?

Enter Servants, with Spits, Logs, and Baskets.
Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not

what.

Cap. Ha! let me see her:---Out, alas! she's cold;

Her blood is settled; and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field. Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit 1 Serv.]--Accursed time! unfortunate old man. Nurse. O, lamentable day! La. Cap. O, woful time! Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,

Sirrah, fetch drier logs;

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter.

[Exit. Cap. 'Mass, and well said; A merry whoreson ! ha,

Thou shalt be logger-head.-Good faith, 'tis day:
The county will be here with music straight.
[Music within.
For so he said he would. I hear him near:-
Nurse-Wife-what ho ;-what, nurse, I say!

Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The county Paris hath set up his rest,4

That you shall rest but little.-God forgive me,
(Marry and amen!) how sound is she asleep!'
Ineeds must wake her :--Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
He'll fright you up, in faith.---Will it not be?
What, drest! and in your clothes! and down again!

1 The room were the pastry was made.

2 This speech, which in the old copies is attributed to the Nurse, should surely be given to Lady Capulet.The Nurse would hardly call her lordly master a cotqueen, or reply to a speech addressed to her mistress. Beside that, she had been sent for spices, and is shortly after made to re-enter. I have therefore made the necessary change.

Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.*
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS, with
Musicians.

Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
Cap. Ready to go, but never to return:
O, son, the night before thy wedding-day
Hath death lain with thy bride :---See, there she
lies,

Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir;
My daughter he hath wedded! I will die,
And leave him all; life leaving, all is death's.
Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's
face,

And doth it give me such a sight as this?

La. Cap. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful

day!

Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight.
Nurse. O, wo! O, woful, woful, woful day!
Most lamentable day! most woful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O, day! O, day! O, day! O, hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this:
O, woful day, O, woful day!

Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain, | Most detestable death, by thee beguil'd,

3 The animal called the mouse-hunt is the martin, 'Dead: she's death's bride; he hath her maidenhead." which, being of the weasel tribe, prowls about in the He has the same thought in his Wonderful Year:night for its prey. 'Cat after kinde, good mouse-hunt,'|'Death rudely lay with her, and spoiled her of her is one of Heywood's proverbs. maidenhead in spite of her husband.

4 Nashe, in his Terrors of the Night, quibbles in the same manner on this expression:- You that are married and have wives of your owne, and yet hold too nere friendship with your neighbours, set up your rests, that the night will be an ill neighbour to your rest, and that you shall have as little peace of minde as the rest."

5 Shakspeare has here followed the old poem closely, without recollecting that he had made Capulet in this scene clamorous in his grief. In the poem Juliet's mother makes a long speech, but the old man utters not 2 word :

7 The quarto of 1597 continues the speech of Paris thus:

And doth it now present such prodigies?
Accurst, unhappy, miserable man,
Forlorn, forsaken, destitute I am
Born to the world to be a slave in it:
Distrest, remediless, unfortunate.

Oh, heavens' Oh, nature! wherefore did you make me
To live so vile, so wretched as I shall?
In the text the edition of 1599 is here followed
Nurse's exclamatory speech is not in the first quarte.

The

SCENE V.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!-
O, love! O, life!-not life, but love in death!
Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!
Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now
To murder murder our solemnity ?---

O, child! O, child !---my soul, and not my child!
Dead art thou, dead!---alack! my child is dead;
And, with my child, my joys are buried!

Fri. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure

lives not

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid:

Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was-her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanc'd:
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
well:
O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she
She's not well married, that lives married long;
But she's best married, that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church:
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.
Cap. All things, that we ordained festival,'
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast ;2
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
Fri. Sir, go you in,—and, madam, go with him;
And go, sir Paris;-every one prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
The heavens do lour upon you, for some ill;
Move them no more, by crossing their high will.
[Exeunt CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, PARIS,
and Friar.

1 Mus. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be
gone.
Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up; put up;
For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.
[Exit Nurse.
1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be
amended.

Enter PETER.3

Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, Heart's ease, heart's ease; O, an you will have me live, play-heart's ease. 1 Mus. Why heart's ease?

Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 1 Instead of this and the following speeches the first ouarto has only a couplet :

'Let it be so; come, woful sorrow-mates, Let us together taste this bitter fate.' The enlarged text is formed upon the poem. 2 See Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2.

3 From the quarto of 1599 it appears that the part of Peter was originally performed by William Kempe. 4 This is the burthen of the first stanza of A Pleasant New Ballad of Two Lovers :

'Hey hoe! my heart is full of woe.'

5 A dump was formerly the received term for a grave or melancholy strain in music, vocal or instrumental. It also signified a kind of poetical elegy. A merry dump is no doubt a purposed absurdity put into the mouth of Master Peter. That it was a sad or dismal strain, perhaps sometimes for the sake of contrast and effect mixed up with livelier airs, appears from Cavendish's Metrical Visions, p. 17:

'What is now left to helpe me in this case?
Nothing at all but dompe in the dance,
Among deade men to tryppe on the trace.'
6 A pun is here intended. A gleekman, or gligman,
is a minstrel. To give the gleek meant also to pass a
jest upon a person, to make him appear ridiculous; a
gleek being a jest or scoff.

7Dr. Percy thinks that the questions of Peter are
designed as a ridicule on the forced and unnatural ex-
planations given by us painful editors of ancient au-
thors'-Steevens.

-My heart is full of wo. O, play me some merry
dump, to comfort me.

5

2 Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now.
Pet. You will not then?'

Mus. No.

Pet. I will then give it you soundly.

1 Mus. What will you give us?

Pet. No money, on my faith; but the gleek:
I will give you the minstrel.

1 Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.
Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dag-
ger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll
re you, I'll fa you; Do you note me?

1 Mus. An you're us, and fa us, you note us.
2 Mus. 'Pray you, put up your dagger, and put
out your wit.

Pet. Then have at you with my wit; I will dry-
beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dag-
ger:-Answer me like men:"

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,

Then music with her silver sound-
Why, silver sound? why, music with her silver
sound? What say you, Simon Catling ??

1 Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet
sound.

Pet. Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
2 Mus. I say--silver sound, because musicians
sound for silver.

Pet. Pretty too!---What say you, James Sound-
post?

3 Mus. 'Faith, I know not what to say.

Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer:
I will say for you. It is-music with her silver sound,
because such fellows as you have seldom gold for
sounding:-

Then music with her silver sound,
With speedy help doth lend redress.
[Exit, singing.

1 Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same!
2 Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here;
tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. Mantua. A Street. Enter ROMEO.
Rom. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,10
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;
And, all this day, an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.11
dreamt, my lady came and found me dead
(Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to
think ;)

I

8 This is part of a song by Richard Edwards, to be
found in the Paradice of Dainty Devices, fol. 31, b.
Another copy of this song is to be found in Percy's Re-
liques of Ancient English Poetry.

9 This worthy takes his name from a small lutestring
instrument of the same name mentioned by many of
made of catgut. His companion the fiddler from an
of mirth :-
our old writers, and recorded by Milton as an instrument
When the merry bells ring round,
And the joyful rebecks sound.'
10 Thus the first quarto. The folio reads:-

'If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep.'
The sense appears to be, If I may repose any confidence
If I may trust the flattery of sleep,
in the flattering visions of the night, Otway reads:-

My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.'
11 These three last lines are very gay and pleasing.
But why does Shakspeare give Romeo this involuntary
cheerfulness just before the extremity of unhappiness
Perhaps to show the vanity of trusting to those uncer-
tain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many
consider as certain foretokens of good and evil.'-John

son.

The poet has explained this passage a little further

on:

How oft, when men are at the point of death,
Have they been merry? which their keepers call
A lightning before death.'

4 We learn from Nashe's Have with You to Saffron Walden, 1596, that a stuffed alligator then made part of 7 Each friar had always a companion assigned him the furniture of an apothecary's shop:-'He made an by the superior, when he asked leave to go out. In the anatomie of a rat, and after hanged her over his head, Visitatio Notabilis de Seleborne, a curious record printinstead of an apothecary's crocodile or dried alligator. ed in White's Natural History of Selborne, Wykeham Steevens was informed that formerly when an apothe- enjoins the canons not to go abroad without leave from cary first engaged with his druggist, he was gratuitously the prior, who is ordered on such occasions to assign the furnished by him with these articles of show, which brother a companion, ne suspicio sinistra vel scanda were then imported for that use only; and had met with lum oriatur.' There is a similar regulation in the sta the alligator, tortoise, &c. hanging up in the shop of an tutes of Trinity College, Cambridge. So in The Tra ancient apothecary at Limehouse, as well as in places gicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1552:more remote from the metropolis. See Hogarth's Mar-Apace our friar John to Mantua him hies, riage a la Mode, plate iii. It seems that the apothecaries dismissed their alligators, &c. sometime before the physicians parted with their amber-headed canes and solemn periwigs.

Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd."
Lau. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
John. I could not send it,-here it is again,--
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge,
Of dear import; and the neglecting it
May do much danger: Friar John, go hence;
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight
Unto my cell.

[Exit.

John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.
Lau. Now must I to the monument alone;
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake;2
She will beshrew me much, that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents:
But I will write again to Mantua,

And keep her at my cell till Romeo come:
Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!

[Exit. SCENE III. A Church Yard: in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets. Enter PARIS, and his Page, bearing Flowers and a Torch.

Par. Give me my torch, boy: Hence, and stand
aloof;-

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yon yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
(Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,)
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
Page. I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

[Retires. Par. Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy

bridal bed:

Sweet tomb, that in thy circuit dost contain
The perfect model of eternity;
Fair Juliet, that with angels dost remain,"
Accept this latest favour at my hands;
That living honour'd thee, and, being dead,
With funeral praises do adorn thy tomb!

[The Boy whistles.
The boy gives warning, something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies, and true-love's rites?
What, with a torch!--muffle me, night, a while.4
[Retires.
Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a Torch,
Mattock, &c.

Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching

iron.

Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light: Upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.

1 i. e. was not wantonly written on a trivial or idle matter, but on a subject of importance.

2 Instead of this line, and the concluding part of the speech, the first quarto reads only:

Lest that the lady should before I come
Be wak'd from sleepe, I will hye
To free her from that tomb of miserie.'

3 The folio has these lines:

Sweet flow'r, with flow'rs thy bridal bed I strew;
O wo! thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water I will nightly dew;

Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is, partly, to behold my lady's face:

But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring; a ring that I must use
In dear' employment: therefore hence, be gone :-
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,

By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce, and more inexorable far,
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.

Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship.-Take

thou that:

Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.
Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout;
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires.
Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the Door of the Monument.
And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!
Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
It is supposed the fair creature died,—
That murder'd my love's cousin ;-with which grief,

And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him :-

[Advances.

Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague;
Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Rom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I
hither.-

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence and leave me ;-think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee.-I beseech thee, youth,
Heap not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury:-O, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself:
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, begone ;-live, and hereafter say-
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,"

And do attach thee as a felon here.

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee,

boy.

[They fight.

Page. O, lord! they fight: I will go call the watch.

[Exit Page.

Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.]--If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

[Dies.

Rom. In faith I will:-Let me peruse this face;
Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris:
Did not attend him as we rode ? I think,
What said my man, when my betossed soul
He told me, Paris should have married Juliet:
Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so ?-O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave—
A grave? O, no; a lantern,' slaughter'd youth,

5 That is, in action of importance. The sense of the word dear has been explained. So Ben Jonson, in his Catiline, Act i. :

Put your known talents on so dear a business.' 6 I refuse to do as thou conjurest me to do, i. e. de part. So Constance, in King John, says :

'No, I defy all counsel, all redress.'

7 A lantern may not, in this instance, signify an enclosure for a lighted candle, but a louvre, or what in ancient records is styled lanternium, i. e. a spacious round or octagonal turret, full of windows, by means of which cathedrals and sometimes halls are illuminated. See

Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans;
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be, to strew thy grave and weep.'
In the text the seven lines are printed as they appear in the beautiful lantern at Ely Minster.
the quarto of 1597.

4 Thus in Drayton's Polyolbion :

But suddenly the clouds which on the winds do fly
Do muffle him again.'

The word was not deemed unpoetical by Milton; the
Elder Brother in Comus uses it :-

'Unmuffle, ye faint stars,' &c.

A muffler was a part of female dress

A presence is a public room, which is at times the presence-chamber of a sovereign. This thought, extravagant as it is, is borrowed by Middleton in his Blurt Master Constable :

"The darkest dungeon which spite can devise
To throw this carcase in, her glorious eyes
Can make as lightsome as the fairest chamber
In Paris Louvre."