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". ROM. Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel: Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, 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. 7 Let me DISPUTE with thee of thy estate.] The same phrase, and with the same meaning, occurs in The Winter's Tale : can he speak? hear? 66 "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. 8 Wert thou as young as I, Juliet THY love,] Thus the original copy; for which in the folio we have 66 'Wert thou as young as Juliet my love." I only mention this to show the very high value of the early quarto editions. MALONE. 9 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; MALONE. 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 will1 ! 2 [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. I 1 - God's will!] This speech, and the following, are thus given in quarto 1597: 66 Romeo, arise; stand up; thou wilt be taken; God's will! what wilfullness is this? [She knocks again. "Nur. Ho, Friar, open the door! Who is there? Then come near." BOSWELL. 2 What WILFULNESS -] Thus the quarto 1597. That of 1599, and the folio, have-What simpleness. MALOne. NURSE. O, he is even in my mistress' case, Just in her case! FRI. Even so lies she, Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering: Stand up, stand up; stand, an you be a man: O woeful sympathy! ROM. Nurse! 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 says My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love 1? NURSE. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps†; And now falls on her bed; and then starts up, * Quarto A, her. + Quarto A, pules. Quarto A, Now on the ground. 3 O 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. 4 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. ROM. As if that name, Shot from the deadly level of a gun, FRI. Doth my name lodge ? tell me, that I may sack * Quarto A, Tell me, holy friar. $ Drawing his sword.] In quarto 1597: "He offers to stab himself, and Nurse snatches the dagger away. "Nur. Ah!" BOSWELL. 6 Art thou a man? thy form cries out, thou art; Thy tears are womanish ;] Thus in quarto 1597: "Hold! stay thy hand: art thou a man? thy form "Cries out, thou art; but thy wild acts denote "The unreasonable furies of a beast." Shakspeare has here closely followed his original : "Art thou, quoth he, a man? thy shape saith, so thou art; BOSWELL. 66 Thy crying and thy weeping eyes denote a woman's heart, "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, 66 If thou a man or woman wert, or else a brutish beast." MALONE. 7 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. () By doing damned hate upon thyself? (||) Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth 9? Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet In thee at once; which thou at once would'st lose. Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit. 1 8 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 lies." MALONE. 9 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'd." 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. The lines, Why rail'st thou, &c. to-thy own defence, are not in the first copy. They are formed on a passage in the poem: 66 Why cry'st thou out on love? why dost thou blame thy fate? Why dost thou so cry after death? thy life why dost thou hate?" &c. MALONE. 66 I DIGRESSING from the valour of a man:] So, in the 24th Book of Homer's Odyssey, as translated by Chapman : 66 my deservings shall in nought digress "From best fame of our race's foremost merit." STEEVENS. So, in Richard II. Act V. Sc. III. : "And thy abundant goodness shall excuse "This deadly blot in thy digressing son. So, also in Barnabe Riche's Farewell: Knowing that you should otherwise have used me than you have, you should have digressed and swarved from your kinde." 66 BOSWELL. |