And, where the worser is predominant,

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

Enter ROMEO.

ROM. Good morrow, father!

Benedicite!

FRI.
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?—
Young son, it argues a distemper'd head,
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth
reign:7

Therefore thy earliness doth me assure,
Thou art up-rous'd by some distemp❜rature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right-
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

Thus the quarto of 1597. The quarto of 1599, and all the subsequent ancient copies read-such opposed kings. Our author has more than once alluded to these opposed foes, contending for the dominion of man.

So, in Othello:

"Yea, curse his better angel from his side." Again, in his 44th Sonnet:

"To win me soon to hell, my female evil
"Tempteth my better angel from my side:
"Yet this I ne'er shall know, but live in doubt,
"Till my bad angel fire my good one out."

MALONE.

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.] So, in our author's 99th Sonnet:

7

"A vengeful canker eat him up to death." MALone.

·with unstuff'd brain &c.] The copy, 1597, reads:

with unstuff'd brains

Doth couch his limmes, there golden sleepe remaines.

STEEVENS.

ROM. That last is true, the sweeter rest was mine. FRI. God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline? ROM. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; I have forgot that name, and that name's woe. FRI. That's my good son: But where hast thou been then?

ROM. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine enemy; Where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me, That's by me wounded; both our remedies Within thy help and holy physick lies:8 I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo, My intercession likewise steads my foe.

FRI. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

ROM. Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is set

On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combin'd, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage: When, and where, and how,
We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us this day.

FRI. Holy Saint Francis! what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes,

Within thy help and holy physick lies:] This is one of the passages in which our author has sacrificed grammar to rhyme, M. MASON.

See Vol. XVIII. p. 475, n. 5. MALONE,

Jesu Maria! what a deal of brine

Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet:
If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline;
And art thou chang'd? pronounce this sentence

then

Women may fall, when there's no strength in men. ROM. Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rosaline. FRI. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. ROM. And bad'st me bury love.

FRI.

Not in a grave, To lay one in, another out to have.

ROM. I pray thee, chide not: she, whom I love

now,

Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow;
The other did not so.

FRI.

O, she knew well,

Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell."
But come, young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be;

For this alliance may so happy prove,

To turn your households' rancour to pure love.1

9

and could not spell.], Thus the quarto, 1597. The subsequent ancient copies all have

Thy love did read by rote that could not spell.

I mention these minute variations only to show, what I have so often urged, the very high value of first editions. MALONE. The two following lines were added since the first copy of this play. STEEVENS.

ROM. O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.2 FRI. Wisely, and slow; They stumble, that run

fast.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

:

A Street.

Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.

MER. Where the devil should this Romeo be?Came he not home to-night?

BEN. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man. MER. Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,

Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

BEN. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father's house. MER. A challenge, on my life.

BEN. Romeo will answer it.

MER. Any man, that can write, may answer a letter.

BEN. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared.

MER. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabbed with a white wench's black eye; shot thorough the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his

2

-I stand on sudden haste.] i, e. it is of the utmost consequence for me to be hasty. So, in King Richard III: 66 it stands me much upon,

"To stop all hopes" &c. STEEVENS.

heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft; And is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

BEN. Why, what is Tybalt?

MER. More than prince of cats, I can tell you.5 O, he is the courageous captain of compliments."

3

the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft;] So, in Love's Labour's Lost:

"Then she will get the upshot, by cleaving of the pin." See note on the word-pin, Vol. VII. p. 83. A butt-shaft was the kind of arrow used in shooting at butts. STEEVENS.

The allusion is to archery. The clout or white mark at which the arrows are directed, was fastened by a black pin placed in the center of it. To hit this was the highest ambition of every marksman. So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657:

"They have shot two arrows without heads,

"They cannot stick i' the but yet: hold out, knight, "And I'll cleave the black pin i' the midst of the white." Again, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590:

"For kings are clouts that every man shoots at,

"Our crown the pin that thousands seek to cleave."

MALONE.

• More than prince of cats,] Tybert, the name given to the cat, in the story-book of Reynard the Fox. WARBURTON. So, in Decker's Satiromastix, 1602:

66

tho' you were Tybert, the long-tail'd prince of

rats."

Again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. 1598: not Tibalt prince of cats," &c. STEEVENS.

66

It appears to me that these speeches are improperly divided, and that they ought to run thus:

Ben. Why, what is Tybalt more than prince of cats?
Mer. O, he's the courageous captain of

-I can tell you.] So the first quarto. omitted in all the subsequent ancient copies.

compliments, &c.

M. MASON. These words are Malone.

6 — courageous captain of compliments.] A complete master of all the laws of ceremony, the principal man in the doctrine of punctilio:

"A man of compliments, whom right and wrong
"Have chose as umpire;"