Enter JULIET and NURSE. JUL. Ay, those attires are best:-But, gentle nurse, To move the Heavens to smile upon my state, Enter LADY CAPULET. LA. CAP. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help? As are behoveful for our state to-morrow: And let the nurse this night sit up with you; LA. CAP. Good night. Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need. [Exeunt LADY CAPULET and NURSE. JUL. Farewell!-God knows when we shall meet again. That almost freezes up the heat of life: I'll call them back again to comfort me ;— Nurse!-What should she do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Come, phial. What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? (A), Do you need my help? > This speech of Juliet, like many others of the great passages throughout the play, received the most careful elaboration and the most minute touching. In the first edition it occupies only No, no ;-this shall forbid it :-lie thou there.- I wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point! To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, Or, if I live, is it not very like, The horrible conceit of death and night, So early waking,-what with loathsome smells; [Laying down a dagger. eighteen lines; it extends to forty-five in the "amended" edition of 1599. And yet the modern editors will make a patchwork of the two. This line in (4) is thus: "Must I of force be married to the county?" The line which follows lower down "I will not entertain so bad a thought" Steevens says he has recovered from the quarto. We print the eighteen lines of the original, that the reader may see with what consummate skill the author's corrections have been made:"Farewell, God knows when we shall meet again. Ah, I do take a fearful thing in hand. This shall forbid it. Knife, lie thou there. What if the friar should give me this drink Our former marriage? Ah, I wrong him much, I will not entertain so bad a thought. What if I should be stifled in the tomb? Awake an hour before the appointed time: And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth, And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone, Upon a rapier's point :-Stay, Tybalt, stay!— Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!—I drink to thee a. [She throws herself on the bed. SCENE IV. Capulet's Hall. Enter LADY CAPULET and NURSE. LA. CAP. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse. Enter CAPULET. CAP. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd. Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica : CAP. No, not a whit; What! I have watch'd ere now e; [Exeunt LADY CAPULET and NURSE. CAP. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!-- Now, fellow, • The ordinary reading is that of (4): Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee." In the subsequent quartos, and the folio, we have, "Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!-here 's drink-I drink to thee." We think with Mr. Dyce that "here 's drink" was the stage direction of here drink. We do not adopt the first reading, because "I come" would seem to imply that Romeo was dead, and Juliet was about to join him in another world. Enter Servants, with spits, logs, and baskets 49. 1 SERV. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what. CAP. Make haste, make haste. [Exit 1 Serv.]-Sirrah, fetch drier logs; Call Peter, he will show thee where they are. 2 SERV. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, CAP. 'Mass, and well said; A merry whoreson ! ha, Go, waken Juliet, go, and trim her up; I'll [Exit. [Music within. Make haste, I say. [Exeunt. SCENE V.-Juliet's Chamber; JULIET on the Bed. Enter NURSE. NURSE. Mistress !-what, mistress!-Juliet !-fast, I warrant her, she : Why, lamb !-Why, lady!—fie, you slug-a-bed !— Why, love, I say!-madam! sweetheart !-why, bride!— What, not a word ?-you take your pennyworths now; Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant, The county Paris hath set up his rest, That you shall rest but little.-God forgive me, I must needs wake her:-Madam, madam, madam ! What, dress'd! and in your clothes! and down again! Alas! alas-Help! help! my lady's dead!- Some aqua vita, ho!-my lord! my lady! LA. CAP. What noise is here? Enter LADY CAPULET. LA. CAP. What is the matter? O lamentable day! Look, look! O heavy day! LA. CAP. O me, O me !-my child, my only life, Enter CAPULET. CAP. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. NURSE. She's dead, deceas'd, she's dead; alack the day! Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her, like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field 2. NURSE. O lamentable day! CAP. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail, Enter FRIAR LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians. FRI. Come, is the bride ready to go to church? O son, the night before thy wedding-day Hath Death lain with thy wife :-There she lies, Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir; My daughter he hath wedded! I will die, And leave him all; life-leaving, all is death's. PAR. Have I thought long to see this morning's face, LA. CAP. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day! In lasting labour of his pilgrimage! But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, O woeful day, O woeful day! • In the original we want these four exquisite lines. And yet the modern editors have thrust in the single line which they found in (A):— "Accursed time, unfortunate old man." The scene, from the entrance of Capulet, is elaborated from forty-four lines, in the original, to seventy-four lines. |