From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels: 3 With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers.* 3 None but for some, and yet all different. The Four Prentices: "We'll fleck our white steeds in your Christian blood." 3 So the first quarto; the later copies have burning instead of fiery. Fiery is preferred here, as burning occurs in the next line. H. 4 So Drayton, in the eighteenth Song of his Poly-Olbion, speaking of a hermit: "His happy time he spends the works of God to see, In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow, Shakespeare has very artificially prepared us for the part Friar Laurence is afterwards to sustain. Having thus early discovered him to be a chemist, we are not surprised when we find him furnishing the draught which produces the catastrophe of the piece. 5 Lucretius has the same thought: "Omniparens, eadem rerum commune sepulcrum." Likewise, Milton, in Paradise Lost, Book ii. "The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave." H. Within the infant rind of this weak flower Poison hath residence, and medicine power: For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Enter ROMEO. Rom. Good morrow, father! Benedicite! What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Thou art uprous'd by some distemperature: Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night. Rom. That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine. Fri. God pardon sin! wert thou with Rosaline? Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; I have forgot that name, and that name's woe. Fri. That's my good son: But where hast thou been, then? Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine enemy; 6 That is, with its odour. 7 The first quarto, alone, has foes instead of kings. Also, in the fourth line above, it has small instead of weak. H. Where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me, I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo! Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift: Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. Rom. Then, plainly know, my heart's dear love is set On the fair daughter of rich Capulet: As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine; And all combin'd, save what thou must combine Fri. Holy St. Francis! what a change is here! then, Women may fall, when there's no strength in men. Rom. Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline. Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. Rom. And bad'st me bury love. Fri. To lay one in, another out to have. Not in a grave, Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she whom I love Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell. For this alliance may so happy prove, Rom. O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste. Fri. Wisely, and slow: they stumble, that run fast. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Street. Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO. Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be?— Came he not home to-night? Ben. Not to his father's: I spoke with his man. Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father's house. Mer. A challenge, on my life. Ben. Romeo will answer it. Mer. Any man, that can write, may answer a letter. Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared. Mer. Alas, poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabb'd with a white wench's black eye; shot thorough the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: ' And is he a man to encounter Tybalt? Ben. Why, what is Tybalt? 2 Mer. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O! he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button; a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause.3 Ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hay!* Ben. The what? Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes, these new tuners of accents!" By Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall manfa very good whore!" Why, is not this a lamentable 1 The allusion is to archery. The clout, or white mark at which the arrows were directed, was fastened by a black pin, placed in the centre of it. To hit this was the highest ambition of every marksman. 2 Tybert, the name given to a cat in the old story book of Reynard the Fox. So in Dekker's Satiromastix: "Tho' you were Tybert, prince of long-tail'd cats." Again, in Have With You to Saffron Walden, by Nash: “ Not Tibalt prince of cats."-The words, "I can tell you," are from the first quarto. - Prick-song music was music pricked or written down, and so sung by note, not from memory, or as learnt by the ear. H. 3 That is, a gentleman of the first rank among these duellists; and one who understands the whole science of quarrelling, and will tell you of the first cause, and the second cause for which a man is to fight. The clown, in As You Like It, talks of the seventh cause in the same sense. 4 All the terms of the fencing school were originally Italian; the rapier, or small thrusting sword, being first used in Italy. The hay is the word hai, you have it, used when a thrust reaches the antagonist. Our fencers on the same occasion cry out ha! |