Hath not so green,
As Paris hath.

26

so quick, so fair an eye,
Beshrew my very heart,

I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first; or, if it did not,
Your first is dead; or 'twere as good he were,
As living here, and you no use of him.

Jul. Speakest thou from thy heart?

Nurse. And from my soul too; or else beshrew them both.

Jul. Amen!

Nurse. What?

Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.

Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,

Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,
To make confession, and to be absolv'd.

Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
[Exit.
Jul. Ancient damnation! O, most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais'd him with above compare
So many thousand times? — Go, counsellor ;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy;
If all else fail, myself have power to die.

[Exit.

So,

26 Chaucer, in The Knightes Tale, says of Emetrius, -"His nose was high, his eyen bright citrin;" which probably means that his eyes had the colour of an unripe lemon or citron. Fletcher, in The Two Noble Kinsmen: "O! vouchsafe with that thy rare green eye." And Lord Bacon says that "eyes some. what large, and the circles of them inclined to greenness, are signs of long life."

H.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Friar LAURENCE's Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS.

Fri. On Thursday, sir? the time is very short. Par. My father Capulet will have it so;

And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste.'

Fri. You say you do not know the lady's mind: Uneven is the course; I like it not.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death And therefore have I little talk'd of love ; For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous, That she doth give her sorrow so much sway, And in his wisdom hastes our marriage, To stop the inundation of her tears; Which, too much minded by herself alone, May be put from her by society.

Now do you know the reason of this haste. Fri. [Aside.] I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.2

Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

Enter JULIET.

Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife!
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

The meaning of Paris is clear; he does not wish to restrain Capulet, or to delay his own marriage; there is nothing of slowness in me, to induce me to slacken his haste: but the words given him seem rather to mean I am not backward in restraining his haste. In the first edition the line ran: "And I am nothing slack to slow his haste."

To slow and to foreslow were anciently in common use.

Par. That may be, must be, love, on Thursday

next.

Jul. What must be shall be.

Fri.

That's a certain text.

Par. Come you to make confession to this father ?
Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you.
Par. Do not deny to him that you love me.
Jul. I will confess to you that I love him.
Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me.
Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price

Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.
Jul. The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.

Par. Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.

Jul. That is no slander, sir, that is a truth; And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd i.. Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own. — Are you at leisure, holy father, now,

Or shall I come to you at evening mass?3

3

Fri. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter.

now.

My lord, we must intreat the time alone.

Par. God shield, I should disturb devotion ! Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you: Till then, adieu! and keep this holy kiss.

[Exit.

Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done

So,

Come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past

help!

Fri. Ah, Juliet! I already know thy grief;

Juliet means vespers; there is no such thing as evening mass.

It strains me past the

compass of my wits:

I hear thou must, and nothing must prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this county.

Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this, Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:

If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,

And with this knife I'll help it presently.

God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,*

Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,
Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
"Twixt iny extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

Fri. Hold, daughter! I do spy a kind of hope,

Which craves as desperate an execution

As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry county Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake

A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop'st with death himself to 'scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

Jul. O bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,

The seals of deeds formerly were appended on distinct slips or labels affixed to the deed. Hence in King Richard II. the Duke of York discovers a covenant, which his son the Duke of Aamerle had entered in 5, by the depending seal.

From off the battlements of yonder tower;'
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk

Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,

O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reek; shanks, and yellow chapless skulls ;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,

And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;

Things that, to hear them told, have made me

tremble;

And I will do it without fear or doubt,

To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.

Fri. Hold, then go home, be merry, give con

sent

To marry

Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,

Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this phial, being then in bed,

And this distilled liquor drink thou off;
When, presently, through all thy veins. shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Sha'l keep his native progress, but surcease:

So the first quarto; the other old copies, “any tower.” — In the second line below, the first quarto reads thus:

"Or chain me to some steepy mountain's top,
Where roaring bears and savage lions are."

H

So the undated quarto: the folio of 1623 has grave instead ot shroud: the quartos of 1599 and 1609 have nothing after his, inus leaving the sense incomplete. The first quarto gives the line thus: "Or lay me in a tomb with one new dead."— Instead of the last line in this speech, the quarto of 1597 has the following: "To keep myself a faithful unstain'd wife To my dear lord, my dearest Romeo."

H.

7 In the first quarto, where this whole speech extends only to fourteen lines, we have the following, which is in some respects better than the reading of the other old copies :