Rom. For your broken shin.

Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,

Whipp'd, and tormented, and-Good-e'en, good fellow.
Serv. God gi' good e'en.-I pray, sir, can you read?
Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.
Serv. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book:
But I pray, can you read any thing you see?
Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language.
Serv. Ye say honestly; Rest you merry.
Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.

[Reads

Signior Martino, and his wife, and daughters; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena. A fair assembly; [Gives back the note.] Whither should they come?

Serv. Up.

Rom. Whither?

Serv. To supper; to our house.

Rom. Whose house?

Serv. My master's.

Rom. Indeed, I should have asked you that before. Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking: My master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest

you merry.

[Exit.

Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's
Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st;
With all the admired beauties of Verona :
Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.
Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintain such falsehood, then turn tears to fires!
And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,—
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!

One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.
Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,

Herself pois'd with herself in either eye:
But in those crystal scales, let there be weigh'd
Your lady's love against some other maid
That I will show you, shining at this feast,

And she shall scant show well, that now shows best.
Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.

SCENE III.

[Exeunt.

A Room in CAPULET'S House. Enter Lady CAPULET and

Nurse.

La. Cap. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth

to me.

Nur. Now, by my maiden-head,—at twelve years old,-I bade her come. What, lamb! what, lady bird!God forbid !—where's this girl ?—what, Juliet!

-

Enter JULIET.

Jul. How now, who calls?

Nurse. Your mother.

Jul. Madam, I am here.

What is your will?

a. Cap. This is the matter :-Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again; I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our counsel. Thou know'st, my daughter's of a pretty age. Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. La. Cap. She's not fourteen.

Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,

5

And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,—
She's not fourteen: How long is it now

To Lammas-tide ?

La. Cap. A fortnight, and odd days.

Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she,-God rest all christian souls !—
Were of an age.-Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me: But, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen ;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean'd-I never shall forget it,—
Of all the days of the year, upon that day :
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,

[5] To my teen---to my sorrow. JOHNSON.

Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall,
My lord and you were then at Mantua :-
Nay, I do bear a brain :-But, as I said,
When it did taste the worm-wood on the nipple
Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool!
To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug.

Shake, quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.

And since that time it is eleven years :

For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,
She could have run and waddled all about.
For even the day before, she broke her brow :
And then my husband-God be with his soul!
A was a merry man ;--took up the child :
Yea, quoth he, dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward, when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule? and, by my holy-dam,
The pretty wretch left crying, and said—Ay :
To see now, how a jest shall come about!

I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,

I never should forget it; Wilt thou not, Jule? quoth he And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said—Ay.

La. Cap. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace Nurse. Yes, madam; yet I cannot choose but laugh, To think it should leave crying, and say-Ay: And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow A bump as big as a young cockrel's stone; A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly. Yea, quoth my husband, fall'st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward, when thou com'st to age; Wilt thou not, Jule? it stinted, and said—Ay.

Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. Nur. Peace, I have done : God mark thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd, An I might live to see thee married once,

I have my wish.

theme

La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very
I came to talk of :-Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?
Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.

[you,

Nurse. An honour! were not I thine only.nurse, I'd say, thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat. La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now: younger than

[6] Stinted--stopped, forbore from weeping. STEEVENS.

Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,

Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then, in brief ;--
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man,
As all the world-Why, he's a man of wax.7

La. Cap. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
Nurse. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.
La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gentleman ?
This night you shall behold him at our feast:
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,

And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margin of his eyes.

This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover."

The fish lives in the sea; and 'tis much pride,
For fair without the fair within to hide.

That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story."
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.

Nurse. No less? Nay, bigger; women grow by men.
La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?
Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move :
But no more deep will I endart mine eye,
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.
Enter a Servant..

Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight.

La. Cap. We follow thee.-Juliet, the county stays.

[7] So, in Wily Beguiled:

"Why he's a man as one should picture him in wax." STEEVENS.

[8] This ridiculous speech is full of abstruse quibbles. The unbound lover, is a quibble on the binding of a book, and the binding in marriage; and the word cover is a quibble on the law phrase for a married woman, who is styled a femme couverte in law French.

MASON.

[9] The golden story is perhaps the golden legend, a book in the darker ages of popery much read, and doubtless often exquisitely embellished, but of which Canus, one of the popish doctors, proclaims the author to have been homo ferrei oris, plumbei cordis.

JOHNSON.

The poet may mean nothing more than to say, that those books are most esteem. ed by the world, where valuable contents are embellished by as valuable binding. STEEVENS.

Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

A Street. Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others.

Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without apology?

Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.'
We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper ;*
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance :
But, let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.

you

dance.

Rom. Give me a torch,3--I am not for this ambling.
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have
Rom. Not I, believe me you have dancing shoes,
With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead,
So stakes me to the ground, I cannot move.

Mer. You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft,
To soar with his light feathers; and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe :
Under love's heavy burden do I sink.

Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.

Rom. Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like thorn. Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.

[1] In Henry VIII. where the king introduces himself to the entertainment given by Wolsey, he appears like Romeo and his companions in a mask, and sends a messenger before, to make an apology for his intrusion. This was a custom observed by those who came uninvited, with a desire to conceal themselves for the sake of intrigue, or to enjoy the greater freedom of conversation. Their entry on these occasions was always prefaced by some speech in praise of the beauty of the ladies, or the generosity of the entertainer; and to the prolixity of such introductions I believe Romeo is made to allude. STEEVENS.

See King Lear, p. 237.

[3] To hold a torch was anciently no degrading office. Queen Elizabeth's gentlemen pensioners attended her to Cambridge, and held torches while a play was acted before her in the chapel of King's college, on a Sunday evening.---Before the invention of chandeliers all rooms of state were illuminated by flambeaux which attendants held upright in their hands. STEEVENS.