To move the heavens to smile upon my state, La. Cap. What, are you busy? do you need my help? So please you, let me now be left alone, 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 La. CAP. and Nurse. Jul. Farewel!5-God knows, when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, My dismal scene I needs must act alone.— What if this mixture do not work at all?7 "Wherefore, I pray you, leave me here alone this night, "For you must curl my hair, and set on my attire —." Malone. Farewel! &c.] This speech received considerable additions after the elder copy was published. Steevens. 6 I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins. That almost freezes up the heat of life:] So, in Romeus and Juliet, 1562: “And whilst she in these thoughts doth dwell somewhat "The force of her imagining anon did wax so strong, "Her dainty tender parts 'gan shiver all for dread, Must I of force be married to the county ?8 [Laying down a Dagger.9 7 What if this mixture does not work at all?] Here also Shakspeare appears to have followed the poem: 66 to the end I may my name and conscience save, "I must devour the mixed drink that by me here I have: "Whose working and whose force as yet I do not know :"And of this piteous plaint began another doubt to grow: "What do I know, (quoth she) if that this powder shall "Sooner or later than it should, or else not work at all? "And what know I, quoth she, if serpents odious, "And other beasts and worms, that are of nature venomous, "That wonted are to lurk in dark caves under ground, "And commonly, as I have heard, in dead men's tombs are found, "Shall harm me, yea or nay, where I shall lie as dead? "Shall not the friar and my Romeus, when they come, "Find me, if I awake before, y-stifled in the tomb?" Malone. Must I of force be married to the county? Thus the quarto, 1597, and not, as the line has been exhibited in the late editions, Shall I of force be married to the Count? The subsequent ancient copies read, as Mr. Steevens has observed, Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? Malone. 9 Lie thou there.-[Laying down a Dagger.] This stage-direction has been supplied by the modern editors. The quarto, 1597, reads: "Knife, lie thou there." It appears from several passages in our old plays, that knives were formerly part of the accoutrements of a bride; and every thing behoveful for Juliet's state had just been left with her. So, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631: "See at my girdle hang my wedding-knives!" Again, in King Edward III. 1599: "Here by my side do hang my wedding knives: In the third Book of Sidney's Arcadia we are likewise informed, that Amphialus "in his crest carried Philocleas' knives, the only token of her forced favour." Steevens In order to account for Juliet's having a dagger, or, as it is called in old language, a knife, it is not necessary to have recourse to the ancient accoutrements of brides, how prevalent so What if it be a poison, which the friar 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, The horrible conceit of death and night, Where, for these many hundred years, the bones ever the custom mentioned by Mr. Steevens may have been; for Juliet appears to have furnished herself with this instrument immediately after her father and mother had threatened to force her to marry Paris: "If all fail else, myself have power to die." Accordingly, in the very next scene, when she is at the Friar's cell, and before she could have been furnished with any of the apparatus of a bride, (not having then consented to marry the count) she says "Give me some present counsel, or, behold, ""Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife ▲ I will not entertain so bad a thought.] This line I have restored from the quarto, 1597. Steevens. 2 As in a vault, &c.] This idea was probably suggested to our poet by his native place. The charnel at Stratford upon Avon is a very large one, and perhaps contains a greater number of bones than are to be found in any other repository of the same kind in England. I was furnished with this observation by Mr. Murphy, whose very elegant and spirited defence of Shakspeare against the criticisms of Voltaire, is not one of the least considerable out of many favours which he has conferred on the literary world. Steevens. 3 Hamlet: 66 green in earth,] i. e. fresh in earth, newly buried. So, in of our dear brother's death, "The memory be green." Steevens. Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say, So early waking,-what with loathsome smells; And madly play with my forefather's joints? [She throws herself on the Bed. Lies fest'ring-] To fester is to corrupt. So, in King Edward III, 1599: "Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds." This line likewise occurs in the 94th Sonnet of Shakspeare. The play of Edward III, has been ascribed to him. Steevens. 5 is it not like, that I,] This speech is confused, and inconsequential, according to the disorder of Juliet's mind. Johnson. 6 -run mad;] So, in Webster's Dutchess of Malfy, 1623 : "I have this night digg'd up a mandrake, "And am grown mad with 't." Again, in The Atheist's Tragedy, 1611: "The cries of mandrakes never touch'd the ear "With more sad horror, than that voice does mine." The mandrake (says Thomas Newton, in his Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587,) has been idly represented as "a creature having life and engendered under the earth of the seed of some dead person that hath beene convicted and put to death for some felonie or murther; and that they had the same in such dampish and funerall places where the saide convicted persons were buried," &c. Steevens. See Vol. IX, p. 108, n. 7; and Vol. X, p. 207, n. 7. Malone. 7 be distraught,] Distraught is distracted. So, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 10: "Is, for that river's sake, near of his wits distraught." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. I, c. ix: "What frantick fit, quoth he, hath thus distraught," &c. Steevens. SCENE IV. Capulet's Hall. Enter Lady CAPULET and Nurse. La. Cap. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse. Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.& Enter CAPULET. Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd, The curfeu bell' hath rung, 'tis three o'clock : Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica:1 Spare not for cost. Nurse. Go, go, you cot-quean, go, Get you to bed; 'faith, you'll be sick to-morrow For this night's watching. Cap. No, not a whit; What! I have watch'd ere now All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick. La. Cap. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time; 8 They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.] i. e. in the room where paste was made. So laundry, spicery, &c. Malone. The curfen bell - I know not that the morning-bell is called the curfeu in any other place. Johnson. The curfew bell was rung at nine in the evening, as appears from a passage in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608: 66 well 'tis nine o'clock, 'tis time to ring curfew." Steevens. The curfew bell is universally rung at eight or nine o'clock at night; generally according to the season. The term is here used with peculiar impropriety, as it is not believed that any bell was ever rung so early as three in the morning. The derivation of curfeu is well known, but it is a mere vulgar error that the institution was a badge of slavery imposed by the Norman Conqueror. To put out the fire became necessary only because it was time to go to bed: And if the curfeu commanded all fires to be extinguished, the morning bell ordered them to be lighted again. In short, the ringing of those two bells was a manifest and essential service to people who had scarcely any other means of measuring their time. Ritson. 1 Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica:] Shakspeare has here imputed to an Italian nobleman and his lady all the petty solici tudes of a private house concerning a provincial entertainment. To such a bustle our author might have been witness at home; but the like anxities could not well have occurred in the family of Capulet, whose wife, if Angelica be her name, is here directed to perform the office of a housekeeper. Steevens. |
