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But sadly tell me, who.

ROM. Bid a sick man in sadness make his willa:-
Ah, word ill urg'd to one that is so ill!—

In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

BEN. I aim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd.

ROM. A right good marksman!-And she 's fair I love.
BEN. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
ROM. Well, in that hit, you miss: she 'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit;
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,

From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd".
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor open her lap to saint-seducing gold:

O, she is rich in beauty; only poor

That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.

BEN. Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?
ROM. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starv'd with her severity,

Cuts beauty off from all posterity.

She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love; and, in that vow,

Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

BEN. Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her.
ROM. O teach me how I should forget to think.
BEN. By giving liberty unto thine eyes;

Examine other beauties.

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* The scene ends here in (A); and the three first lines in the next scene are also wanting. (B) has them.

SCENE II.-A Street.

Enter CAPULET, PARIS, and Servant.

CAP. And a Montague is bound as well as I,

In penalty alike; and 't is not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.
PAR. Of honourable reckoning are you both;
And pity 't is, you liv'd at odds so long.

But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?
CAP. But saying o'er what I have said before:
My child is yet a stranger in the world,

She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride,
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
PAR. Younger than she are happy mothers made.
CAP. And too soon marr'd are those so early made.
Earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth b:
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part;
An she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love; and you, among the store,

One more, most welcome, makes my number more.

At my poor house, look to behold this night

Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort, as do lusty young men feel

When well-apparell'd April on the heel

So (D). The folio omits And.

Lady of my earth. Fille de terre being the French phrase for an heiress, Steevens thinks that Capulet speaks of Juliet in this sense; but Shakspere uses earth for the mortal part, as in the 146th Sonnet,

and in this play,

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My will to her consent.

"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth;"

"Turn back, dull earth."

In proportion to, or with reference to, her consent.

Earth-treading stars, &c. Warburton calls this line nonsense, and would read,—

"Earth-treading stars that make dark even light."

Monck Mason would read,

"Earth-treading stars that make dark, heaven's light;"

that is, stars that make the light of heaven appear dark in comparison with them. It appears to us unnecessary to alter the original reading, and especially as passages in the masquerade scene would seem to indicate that the banqueting-room opened into a garden-as,

"Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night."

Of limping winter treads 1o, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,

And like her most, whose merit most shall be:
Which on more a view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me;-Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out,

Whose names are written there [gives a paper] and to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

[Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS. SERV. Find them out, whose names are written here? It is written-that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned:-In good time.

Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO.

BEN. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ;

Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;

One desperate grief cures with another's languish :

Take thou some new infection to the eye,

And the rank poison of the old will die.

ROM. Your plantain-leaf is excellent for that ".
BEN. For what, I pray thee?

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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?

ROм. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

SERV. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book:

But I pray, can you read anything you see? Rox. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language. SERV. Ye say honestly; Rest you merry!

ROM. Stay, fellow: I can read.

[Reads.

"Signor Martino, and his wife and daughter; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; the lady widow of Vitruvio; Signor Placentio, and his lovely nieces: Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signor Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena.”

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So the folio and (C), with the exception of one for on. (A), Such, amongst view of many.

A fair assembly [gives back the note]; Whither should they come?

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ROM. Indeed, I should have ask'd 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

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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

Maintains 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 that 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.

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.—A Room in Capulet's House.

Enter LADY CAPULET and NURSE.

LA. CAP. Nurse, where 's my daughter? call her forth to me.
NURSE. Now by my maidenhead,—at twelve year old,—
I bade her come.-What, lamb! what, ladybird!—
God forbid!-where 's this girl?-what, Juliet!

JUL. How now, who calls?

Enter JULIET.

So all the early editions. Theobald gives "To supper" to the Servant. • Scales-used as a singular noun.

NURSE.

JUL.

What is your will?

Your mother.

Madam, I am here.

LA. 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, And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,— She is not fourteen.-How long is it now

To Lammas-tide?

LA. CAP.

NURSE.

A fortnight, and odd days.

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.
"T is since the earthquake now eleven years 12;
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,
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 wormwood 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: 't was 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?

• Teen-sorrow.

The speeches of the Nurse, from hence, are given as prose in all the early editions. Capell had the great merit of first printing them as verse; and not "erroneously," as Boswell appears to think, for there is not in all Shakspere a passage in which the rhythm is more happily characteristic.

• Bear a brain-have a memory-a common expression.

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