Else would I tear the cave where echo lies, ROM. It is my soul *, that calls upon my name: How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, (Like softest musick to attending ears! () JUL. Romeo! JUL. I will not fail; 'tis twenty years till then. I have forgot why I did call thee back. ROM. Let me stand here till thou remem ber it. JUL. I shall forget to have thee still stand there, Rememb'ring how I love thy company. ROM. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget, Forgetting any other home but this. * Quartos C, D, love. 9 - TEAR the CAVE employed by Milton : I -] This strong expression is more suitably STEEVENS. In the two subWhat word was second folio sub "A shout that tore hell's concave -." Madam.] Thus the original copy of 1597. sequent copies and the folio we have-My niece. intended it is difficult to say. The editor of the stituted-My sweet. I have already shown, that all the alterations in that copy were made at random; and have therefore preserved the original word, though less tender than that which was arbitrarily substituted in its place. MALONE. As I shall always suppose the second folio to have been corrected, in many places, by the aid of better copies than fell into the hands of the editors of the preceding volume, I have in the present instance, as well as many others, followed the authority rejected by Mr. Malone. I must add, that the cold, distant, and formal appellationMadam, which has been already put into the mouth of the Nurse, would but ill accord with the more familiar feelings of the ardent Romeo, to whom Juliet has just promised every gratification that youth and beauty could bestow. STEEVENS, JUL. "Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone: And yet no further than a wanton's bird; Who lets it hop a little from her hand, * ROM. I would, I were thy bird. JUL. Sweet, so would I : Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. sorrow, That I shall say-good night, till it be morrow. [Exit. ROM. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! 'Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest†! Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell; His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell2. [Exit. SCENE III. Friar LAURENCE'S Cell. Enter Friar LAWRENCE, with a basket. FRI. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night, * Quarto A, Too loving. † Quarto A, I would that I were sleep and peace of sweet to rest. 2 Hence will I to my GHOSTLY FATHER'S cell; His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.] Thus the quarto 1597, except that it has good instead of dear. That of 1599, and the folio, read: "Hence will I to my ghostly frier's close cell, "His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell." MALONE. 3 The grey-ey'd morn, &c.] These four lines are here replaced, conformable to the first edition, where such a description is much Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's firy wheels 5: more proper than in the mouth of Romeo just before, when he was full of nothing but the thoughts of his mistress. РОРЕ. In the folio these lines are printed twice over, and given once to Romeo, and once to the Friar. JOHNSON. The same mistake has likewise happened in the quartos 1599, 1609, and 1637. STEEVENS. 4 And FLECKED darkness] Flecked is spotted, dappled, streaked, or variegated. In this sense it is used by Churchyard, in his Legend of Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Mowbray, speaking of the Germans, says: "All jagg'd and frounc'd, with divers colours deck'd, They swear, they curse, and drink till they be fleck'd." Lord Surrey uses the same word in his translation of the fourth Eneid: "Her quivering cheekes flecked with deadly staine.” The same image occurs also in Much Ado About Nothing, Act V. Sc. III. : "Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey." STEEVENS. The word is still used in Scotland, where a flecked cow" is a common expression. See the Glossary to Gawin Douglas's translation of Virgil, in v. fleckit. MALONE. s From forth day's path and Titan's firy wheels :] Thus the quarto 1597. That of 1599, and the folio, have-burning wheels. The modern editions read corruptly, after the second folio: "From forth day's path-way made by Titan's wheels." MALONE. Here again I have followed this reprobated second folio. It is easy to understand how darkness might reel " from forth day's path-way," &c. But what is meant by-forth "Titan's firy wheels? A man may stagger out of a path, but not out of a wheel. So, in Jocasta's address to the sun in the OINIZZAI of Euripides : Ω τὴν ἐν αστροις οὐρανοῦ ΤΕΜΝΩΝ ΟΔΟΝ. STEEVENS. These lines are thus quoted in England's Parnassus, or the Choysest Flowers of our Modern Poets, &c. 1600 : "The gray-eyde morne smiles on the frowning night, Cheering the easterne cloudes with streames of light; "And darknesse flected, like a drunkard reeles "From forth daye's path-way made by Titan's wheels." So that the various reading in the last line does not originate Now ere the sun advance his burning eye, The day to cheer, and night's dank dew to dry, With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers". in an arbitrary alteration by the editor of the second folio, as the ingenious commentator supposes. HOLT WHITE. It is common with our author to form the latter part of his sentence as if the first part had been differently constructed. So in Othello, Act I. Sc. I.: "As when by night and negligence, the fire "Is spied in populous cities." See notes on that passage. as it abounds with blunders. "O opportunity England's Parnassus is no authority, ""Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason.” which is thus given in England's Parnassus, p. 222: "Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at lawiers reason." MALONE. I see no difficulty: forth is away from. An amusing list might be made out of the errors in England's Parnassus. One of the most ludicrous is in a quotation from Fairfax's Tasso, where he is describing a furious bull: "And with his foot kicks up the sand on high:" which that miscellany thus exhibits: "And with his foot kicks up his hand on high." BOSWELL. "I must up-fill this osier cage of ours, &c.] So, in the 18th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion : "His happy time he spends the works of God to see, "In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow, "Whose sundry strange effects he only seeks to know. "And in a little maund, being made of oziers small, "Which serveth him to do full many a thing withal, "He very choicely sorts his simples got abroad." Drayton is speaking of a hermit. STEEVENS. 7-and precious-juiced flowers.] Shakspeare, on his introduction of Friar Laurence, has very artificially prepared us for the part he is afterwards to sustain. Having thus early discovered him to be a chemist, we are not surprized when we find him furnishing the draught which produces the catastrophe of the piece. I owe this remark to Dr. Farmer. STEEVENS. In the passage before us Shakspeare had the poem in his thoughts: "But not in vain, my child, hath all my wand'ring been ;— "What force the stones, the plants, and metals, have to work, (II) The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb 8; 1 None but for some, and yet all different. () part; 4 * Quarto A, Revolts to vice, and stumbles on abuse. "And divers other thinges that in the bowels of earth do lurk, "With care I have sought out, with pain I did them prove." MALONE. 8 The earth, that's nature's mother, is her tomb :] Omniparens, eadem rerum commune sepulchrum." 66 Lucretius. "The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave." Milton. STEEVENS. So, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609: 9 66 Time's the king of men, "For he's their parent, and he is their grave." MALONE. powerful grace,] Efficacious virtue. JOHNSON. For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,] The quarto 1597 reads 2 3 "For nought so vile that vile on earth doth live." Steevens. to the earth-] i. e. to the inhabitants of the earth. MALONE. of this SMALL flower-] So the quarto 1597. All the subsequent ancient copies have-this weak flower. MALONE. with that part] i. e. with the part which smells; with the olfactory nerves. MALONE. 4 - |