NURSE. O lamentable day!

LA. CAP.

O woful time!

CAP. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make

me wail,

Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak".

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS, with Musicians.

FRI. Come, is the bride ready to go to church? CAP. Ready to go, but never to return : O son, the night before thy wedding day Hath death lain with thy bride':-See, there she lies,

9 Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,

Ties up my tongue, and WILL NOT LET ME SPEAK.] Our author has here followed the poem closely, without recollecting that he had made Capulet, in this scene, clamorous in his grief. In The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, Juliet's mother makes a long speech, but the old man utters not a word:

"But more than all the rest the father's heart was so "Smit with the heavy news, and so shut up with sudden woe, "That he ne had the power his daughter to beweep,

"Ne yet to speak, but long is forc'd his tears and plaints to keep." MALOne.

O son, the night before thy wedding day

Hath death lain with thy bride :] Euripides has sported with this thought in the same manner. Iphig. in Aul. ver. 460. Τήνδ ̓ αὖ τάλαιναν παρθενον (τί παρθενον ;

"Αδης νιν, ὡς ἔοικε, νυμφεύσει τάχα).

SIR W. RAWLINSON.

"Hath death lain with thy bride." Perhaps this line is coarsely ridiculed in Decker's Satiromastix :

"Dead: she's death's bride; he hath her maidenhead." STEEVENS.

Decker seems rather to have intended to ridicule a former line in this play:

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I'll to my wedding bed,

"And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead."

If indeed any ridicule was intended, for he has the same thought in his Wonderful Yeare. "Death rudely lay with her, and spoiled her of a maidenhead in spite of her husband."

The word see in the line before us, is drawn from the first quarto. MALONE.

Flower as she was, deflowered by him2.
Death is my son-in-law3, 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 5,

And doth it give me such a sight as this?

LA. CAP. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful
day!

Most miserable hour, that e'er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch'd it from my sight.
NURSE. O woe, O woful, woful, woful day!

2 FLOWER as she was, DEFLOWERED by him.] This jingle was common to other writers; and, among the rest, to Greene, in his Greene in Conceipt, 1598: -a garden-house having round about it many flowers, and within it much deflowering."

66

COLLINS.

3 Death is my son-in-law, &c.] The remaining part of this speech, "death is my heir," &c. was omitted by Mr. Pope in his edition; and some of the subsequent editors, following his example, took the same unwarrantable licence. The lines were very properly restored by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

-life LEAVING, all is death's.] The old copies read-life living. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens.

MALONE. 5-morning's face.] The quarto 1597 continues the speech of Paris thus :

"And doth it now present such prodigies?

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Accurst, unhappy, miserable man,

"Forlorn, forsaken, destitute I am;

"Born to the world to be a slave in it:

"Distrest, remediless, unfortunate.

"O heavens! Oh nature! wherefore did you make me

"To live so vile, so wretched as I shall?" STEEvens.

6 O woe! O woeful, &c.] This speech of exclamations is not in the edition above-cited [that of 1597]. Several other parts unnecessary or tautology, are not to be found in the said edition; which occasions the variation in this from the common books.

РОРЕ.

Most lamentable day! most woful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was seen so black a day as this
O woful day, O woful day!

PAR. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain! Most détestable death, by thee beguil'd,

By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown !—
O love! O life!—not life, but love in death!
CAP. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd,
kill'd!-

Uncomfortable time! why cam'st thou now
To murder murder our solemnity?—

O child! O child!-my soul, and not my child!-
Dead art thou'!-alack! my child is dead;
And, with my child, my joys are buried!

FRI. Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure

lives not

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid:

Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was-her promotion;

In the text the enlarged copy of 1599 is here followed.

MALONE.

8

7 Dead art thou! &c.] From the defect of the metre it is probable that Shakspeare wrote:

Dead, dead, art thou! &c.

When the same word is repeated, the compositor often is guilty of omission. MALONE.

I have repeated the word-dead, though in another part of the line-Dead art thou, dead! STEEVENS.

8 confusion's CURE-] Old copies-care. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. These violent and confused exclamations, says the Friar, will by no means alleviate that sorrow which at present overwhelms and disturbs your minds. So, in The Rape of Lu

erece:

"Why, Collatine, is woe the cure of woe?" MALONE.

For 'twas your heaven, she should be advanc'd:
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well:
She's not well married, that lives married long;
But she's best married, that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church:
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.

CAP. All things', that we ordained festival,

9 For though FOND nature] This line is not in the first quarto. The quarto 1599, and the folio, read-though some nature. The editor of the second folio substituted fond for some. I do not believe this was the poet's word, though I have nothing better to propose. I have already shown that all the alterations made by the editor of the second folio were capricious, and generally extremely injudicious.

In the preceding line the word all is drawn from the quarto 1597, where we find

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In all her best and sumptuous ornaments," &c.

The quarto 1599, and folio, read

"And in her best array bear her to church." MALONE. I am fully satisfied with the reading of the second folio, the propriety of which is confirmed by the following passage in Coriolanus :

""Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes." STEEVENS.

All things, &c.] Instead of this and the following speeches, the eldest quarto has only a couplet :

Cap. Let it be so come woeful sorrow-mates,

"Let us together taste this bitter fate." STEEVENS. "All things, that we ordained festival," &c. So, in the poem already quoted:

"Now is the parent's mirth quite changed into mone,

"And now to sorrow is return'd the joy of every one;
"And now the wedding weeds for mourning weeds they
change,

"And Hymen to a dirge :-alas! it seemeth strange.

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"Instead of marriage gloves now funeral gowns they have, And, whom they should see married, they follow to the grave;

2

Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast 2;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
FRI. Sir, go you in,-and, madam, go with
him ;-

And go, sir Paris ;-every one prepare

To follow this fair corse unto her grave:
The heavens do low'r upon you, for some ill;
Move them no more, by crossing their high will.
[Exeunt CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, PARIS, and
Friar.

1 Mus. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone.

NURSE. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up; For, well you know, this is a pitiful case

3

[Exit Nurse. 1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

Enter PETER1.

PET. Musicians, O, musicians, Heart's ease, heart's ease: O, an you will have me live, play— heart's ease.

2

1 Mus. Why heart's ease?

PET. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays

"The feast that should have been of pleasure and of joy, "Hath every dish and cup fill'd full of sorrow and annoy." MALONE.

3

burial feast;] See Hamlet, Act I. Sc. II. STEEVENS.

a PITIFUL case.] If this speech was designed to be me

trical, we should read-piteous. STEEVENS.

4 Enter Peter.] From the quarto of 1599, it appears, that the part of Peter was originally performed by William Kempe.

MALONE.