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Romeo and JulietPart 30

Part 30

129-136. Evermore ... body. This long-drawn "conceit" is evidently from the first draught of the play.

  1. Who. See on i. 1. 109 above.

  2. She will none. Cf. M.N.D. iii. 2. 169: "Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none," etc.

  3. Take me with you. Let me understand you. Cf. 1 Hen. IV. ii. 4. 506: "I would your grace would take me with you; whom means your grace?"

  4. Wrought. "Not = induced, prevailed upon, but brought about, effected" (Schmidt). Cf. Henry VIII. iii. 2. 311: "You wrought to be a delegate;" Cor. ii. 3. 254: "wrought To be set high in place," etc.

  5. Bridegroom. The 2d quarto has "Bride." This was used of both sexes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but S. never makes it masculine. The New Eng. Dict. quotes Sylvester, Du Bartas (1598): "Daughter dear ... Isis bless thee and thy Bride," etc.

  6. Chop-logic. Sophist; used by S. only here.

  7. Minion. Originally = favourite, darling (as in Temp. iv. 1. 98, Macb. i. 2. 19, etc.), then a spoiled favourite, and hence a pert or saucy person.

  8. Thank me no thankings, etc. Cf. Rich. II. ii. 3. 87: "Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle," etc.

  9. Fettle. Prepare, make ready. It is the reading of the quartos and 1st folio; the later folios have "settle," which may be what S. wrote. He does not use fettle elsewhere, and the long s and f were easily confounded in printing.

  10. Out, etc. "Such was the indelicacy of the age of S. that authors were not contented only to employ these terms of abuse in their own original performances, but even felt no reluctance to introduce them in their versions of the most chaste and elegant of the Greek or Roman poets. Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, in 1582, makes Dido call Æneas hedge-brat, cullion, and tar-breech in the course of one speech. Nay, in the interlude of The Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567, Mary Magdalene says to one of her attendants, 'Horeson, I beshrowe your heart, are you here?'" (Steevens).

  11. Lent. The 1st quarto has "sent," which some editors adopt. Clarke thinks it may be a misprint for "left," as Capulet (i. 2. 14) speaks as if he had had other children; but S. is careless in these minor matters. See on i. 5. 30 and v. 3. 207.

  12. Hilding. See on ii. 4. 43 above.

  13. God ye god-den. See on i. 2. 57 above.

  14. Peace. Theobald repeated the word for the sake of the measure. Peace may perhaps be metrically a dissyllable, as in A.Y.L. ii. 4.

175-177. God's bread! etc. The text of the early eds. is evidently corrupt here. The reading in the text is Malone's, and perhaps gives very nearly what S. wrote on the revision of the play.

  1. Stuff'd, etc. Cf. Much Ado, i. 1. 56: "stuffed with all honourable virtues," etc. For parts, cf. iii. 3. 2 above.

  2. Mammet. Puppet, doll. Cf. 1 Hen. IV. ii. 3. 95: "To play with mammets." The word is also written mawmet, and is a contraction of Mahomet. In her fortune's tender = when good fortune presents itself. Cf. iii. 4. 12 above.

  3. Use. See on ii. chor. 10 above.

  4. Lay hand on heart, advise. Consider it seriously. Cf. Brooke's poem:--

"Aduise thee well, and say that thou art warned now, And thinke not that I speake in sporte, or mynd to breake my vowe."

  1. Sweet my mother. Cf. iii. 2. 98: "Ah, poor my lord," etc.

  2. Should practise stratagems, etc. Should, as it were, entrap me into so painful and perplexing a situation. Schmidt makes stratagem sometimes = "anything amazing and appalling," and cites this passage as an instance.

  3. Faith, here 'tis, etc. S. here follows Brooke:--

"She setteth foorth at large the fathers furious rage, And eke she prayseth much to her the second mariage; And County Paris now she praiseth ten times more, By wrong, then she her selfe by right had Romeus praysde before," etc.

Mrs. Jameson remarks: "The old woman, true to her vocation, and fearful lest her share in these events should be discovered, counsels her to forget Romeo and marry Paris; and the moment which unveils to Juliet the weakness and baseness of her confidante is the moment which reveals her to herself. She does not break into upbraidings; it is no moment for anger; it is incredulous amazement, succeeded by the extremity of scorn and abhorrence, which takes possession of her mind. She assumes at once and asserts all her own superiority, and rises to majesty in the strength of her despair."

  1. Green. We have green eyes again in M.N.D. v. 1. 342: "His eyes were green as leeks." Cf. The Two Noble Kinsmen, v. 1: "With that rare green eye." Clarke remarks: "The brilliant touch of green visible in very light hazel eyes, and which gives wonderful clearness and animation to their look, has been admiringly denoted by various poets from time immemorial." In a sonnet by Drummond of Hawthornden, the gods are represented as debating of what colour a beauty's eyes shall be. Mars and Apollo vote for black:--

"Chaste Phœbe spake for purest azure dyes, But Jove and Venus green about the light, To frame thought best, as bringing most delight, That to pin'd hearts hope might for aye arise."

Cf. Longfellow, The Spanish Student: "Ay, soft emerald eyes;" and again:--

"in her tender eyes Just that soft shade of green we sometimes see In evening skies."

In a note on the former passage, the poet says: "The Spaniards, with good reason, consider this colour of the eyes as beautiful, and celebrate it in song.... Dante speaks of Beatrice's eyes as emeralds (Purgat. xxxi. 116). Lami says in his Annotazioni, 'Erano i suoi occhi d' un turchino verdiccio, simile a quel del mare.'"

  1. Beshrew. See on ii. 5. 52 above.

  2. Here. Not referring to Verona, but = "in this world" (Johnson).

  3. Ancient damnation. The abstract for the concrete, explained by what follows. Steevens cites The Malcontent, 1604: "out, you ancient damnation!"

  4. Is it more sin, etc. Mrs. Jameson remarks: "It appears to me an admirable touch of nature, considering the master-passion which, at this moment, rules in Juliet's soul, that she is as much shocked by the nurse's dispraise of her lover as by her wicked, time-serving advice. This scene is the crisis in the character; and henceforth we see Juliet assume a new aspect. The fond, impatient, timid girl puts on the wife and the woman: she has learned heroism from suffering, and subtlety from oppression. It is idle to criticise her dissembling submission to her father and mother; a higher duty has taken place of that which she owed to them; a more sacred tie has severed all others. Her parents are pictured as they are, that no feeling for them may interfere in the slightest degree with our sympathy for the lovers. In the mind of Juliet there is no struggle between her filial and her conjugal duties, and there ought to be none."

  5. Compare. See on ii. 5. 43 above.

ACT IV

SCENE I.--3. And I am nothing slow to slack his haste. Paris here seems to say the opposite of what he evidently means, and various attempts have been made to explain away the inconsistency. It appears to be one of the peculiar cases of "double negative" discussed by Schmidt in his Appendix, p. 1420, though he does not give it there. "The idea of negation was so strong in the poet's mind that he expressed it in more than one place, unmindful of his canon that 'your four negatives make your two affirmatives.'" Cf. Lear, ii. 4. 142:--

"You less know how to value her desert Than she to scant ["slack" in quartos] her duty;"

that is, you are more inclined to depreciate her than she to scant her duty.

  1. Uneven. Indirect. Cf. the use of even in Ham. ii. 2. 298: "be even and direct with me," etc. Sometimes the word is = perplexing, embarrassing; as in 1 Hen. IV. i. 1. 50: "uneven and unwelcome news," etc.

  2. Marriage. A trisyllable here; as in M. of V. ii. 9. 13, etc. So also in the quotation from Brooke in note on iii. 5. 212 above.

  3. Alone. When alone; opposed to society below.

  4. Slow'd. The only instance of the verb in S.

18-36. This part of the scene evidently came from the first draft of the play.

  1. That may be must be. That may be of yours must be.

  2. Abus'd. Marred, disfigured.

  3. Spite. Cf. i. 5. 64 above.

  4. Evening mass. Ritson and others say that Juliet means vespers, as there is no such thing as evening mass; and Staunton expresses surprise that S. has fallen into this error, since he elsewhere shows a familiarity with the usages of the Roman Catholic Church. It is the critics who are in error, not S. Walafrid Strabo (De Rebus Eccles. xxiii.) says that, while the time for mass is regularly before noon, it is sometimes celebrated in the evening ("aliquando ad vesperam"). Amalarius, Bishop of Trèves (De Eccles. Off. iv. 40), specifies Lent as the season for this hour. The Generales Rubricæ allow this at other times in the year. In Winkles's French Cathedrals, we are told that, on the occasion of the marriage of Henrietta of France, daughter of Henry IV., with the Duke of Chevreuse, as proxy for Charles I. of England, celebrated in Notre Dame at Paris, May 11, 1625, "mass was celebrated in the evening." See Notes and Queries for April 29 and June 3, 1876; also M'Clintock and Strong's Biblical Cyclopædia, under Mass.

  5. We must entreat, etc. We must beg you to leave us to ourselves. Cf. Hen. VIII. i. 4. 71:--

"Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat An hour of revels with them."

  1. God shield. God forbid. Cf. A.W. i. 3. 74: "God shield you mean it not." So "Heaven shield," in M. for M. iii. 1. 141, etc. Devotion is here a quadrisyllable.

  2. Past cure, etc. Cf. L. L. L. v. 2. 28: "past cure is still past care."

  3. Prorogue. See on ii. 2. 78 above.

  4. This knife. It was the custom of the time in Italy as in Spain for ladies to wear daggers at their girdles.

  5. The label. The seal appended by a slip to a deed, according to the custom of the day. In Rich. II. v. 2. 56, the Duke of York discovers, by the depending seal, a covenant which his son has made with the conspirators. In Cymb. v. 5. 430, label is used for the deed itself.

  6. Extremes. Extremities, sufferings. Cf. R. of L. 969:--

"Devise extremes beyond extremity, To make him curse this cursed crimeful night."

The meaning of the passage is, "This knife shall decide the struggle between me and my distresses" (Johnson).

  1. Commission. Warrant, authority. Cf. A.W. ii. 3. 279: "you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry."

  2. Be not so long to speak. So slow to speak. Clarke remarks here: "The constraint, with sparing speech, visible in Juliet when with her parents, as contrasted with her free outpouring flow of words when she is with her lover, her father confessor, or her nurse--when, in short, she is her natural self and at perfect ease--is true to characteristic delineation. The young girl, the very young girl, the girl brought up as Juliet has been reared, the youthful Southern maiden, lives and breathes in every line by which S. has set her before us."

  3. Yonder. Ulrici "cannot perceive why Juliet must designate a particular, actual tower, since all that follows is purely imaginary;" but to me the reference to a tower in sight seems both forcible and natural, and the transition to imaginary ordeals is equally natural.

  4. Reeky. Reeking with foul vapours, or simply = foul, as if soiled with smoke or reek. Cf. reechy (another form of the same word) in Much Ado, iii. 3. 143, Ham. iii. 4. 184, etc.

  5. Take thou this vial, etc. Cf. Brooke's poem:--

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