TYB. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries That thou hast done me; therefore turn, and draw. ROM. I do protest, I never injur'd thee; But love thee better than thou canst devise, Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk? [Draws. MER. Good king of cats, nothing, but one of your nine lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out. MER. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 't is enough. Where is my page ?-go, villain, fetch a surgeon. ROM. Courage, man: the hurt cannot be much. [Exit Page. MER. No, 't is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 't is enough, 't will serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world.-A plague o' both your houses!-What, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic!-Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm. ROM. I thought all for the best. MER. Help me into some house, Benvolio, Or I shall faint.-A plague o' both your houses, They have made worm's meat of me: I have it, and soundly too:-Your houses. Love. So (C); the folio, lov'd. [Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENV. Alla stoccata-the Italian term of art for the thrust with a rapier. • Scabbard. d * We have restored the metrical arrangement of the preceding five lines, from (C) and the folio. ROM. This gentleman, the prince's near ally, Re-enter BENVOLIO. BEN. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio 's dead; Re-enter TYBALT. BEN. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again. с And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!— Staying for thine to keep him company; ROM. This shall determine that. [They fight; TYBALT falls. BEN. Romeo, away, be gone! The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain : Stand not amaz'd:-the prince will doom thee death, [Exit ROMEO. Enter PRINCE, attended; MONTAGUE, CAPULET, their Wives, and others. PRIN. Where are the vile beginners of this fray? BEN. O noble prince, I can discover all The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl: That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio. LA. CAP. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child! O prince, O cousin,-husband,—the blood is spill'd O cousin, cousin! PRIN. Benvolio, who began this fray? BEN. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did slay; How nice the quarrel was, and urg'd withal Your high displeasure:-All this uttered With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd,— Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity Retorts it: Romeo he cries aloud, Hold, friends! friends, part! and swifter than his tongue, His agile arm beats down their fatal points, And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life LA. CAP. He is a kinsman to the Montague, Affection makes him false, he speaks not true : So (C) and folio; (D), “unhappy sight, ah me,” and in that copy, "O cousin, cousin!" in the third line beyond, is omitted. All the modern editors, in this and in other passages, have adopted the arbitrary course of making up a text out of the first quarto and the quarto of 1599, without regard to the important circumstance that this later edition was "newly corrected, augmented, and amended," and that the folio, in nearly every essential particular, follows it. Slight. Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe? PRIN. And for that offence, I have an interest in your hate's a proceeding, [Exeunt. This passage has been a perpetual source of contention to the commentators. Their difficulties are well represented by Warburton's question-"What runaways are these, whose eyes Juliet is wishing to have stopped?" Warburton says Phœbus is the runaway. Steevens proves that Night is the runaway. Douce thinks that Juliet is the runaway. It has been suggested to us that in several early poems Cupid is styled Runaway. Monck Mason is confident that the passage ought to be, “That Renomy's eyes may wink," Renomy being a new personage, created out of the French Renommée, and answering, we suppose, to the "Rumour" of Spenser. An unlearned compositor, Zachary Jackson, suggests that runaways is a misprint for unawares. The word unawares, in the old orthography, is unawayres (it is so spelt in 'The Third Part of Henry VI.'), and the r, having been misplaced, produced this word of puzzle, runawayes. Mr. Collier adopts this reading. But TRAGEDIES.-VOL. I. D Lovers can see to do their amorous rites And learn me how to lose a winning match, Hood my unmann'da blood bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Come, night!-Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night! Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.— Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night, : As is the night before some festival To an impatient child, that hath new robes. And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse, Enter NURSE, with cords. And she brings news; and every tongue, that speaks JUL. Ah me! what news! why dost thou wring thy hands? [Throws them down. Mr. Dyce objects: "That ways (the last syllable of run-aways) ought to be Day's, I feel next to certain; but what word originally preceded it I do not pretend to determine. There is much force in this objection. One more conjecture: change a letter; and put a comma instead of the genitive 8: ▪ Unmann'd—a term of falconry. To man a hawk is to accustom her to the falconer who trains her. |