Ι LA. CAP. A crutch, a crutch! - Why call you for a sword? CAP. My sword, I say!- Old Montague is come, And flourishes his blade1 in spite of me. Enter MONTAGUE, and Lady MONTAGUE. MON. Thou villain, Capulet, Hold me not, let me go. Enter Prince, with Attendants. PRIN. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel, 3 Will they not hear? what, ho! you men, you beasts, 6 Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets; Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, 10 [Exeunt Prince, and Attendants; CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, TYBALT, Citizens, and Servants. used in war; the little sword was the weapon commonly worn, probably nothing more than a dagger. 1) i. e. his sword. 2) An enemy, an opponent. 3) i. e. who profane and stain, who spot your swords with the blood of your neighbours. 4) To quench means to extinguish fire; to still any passion or commotion, particularly to allay thirst. 5) i. e. angry weapons. 7) To wield, to govern, 8) i. e. corrupted, corroded, grown rusty. 9) What our will dictates. 10) This name the poet found in ⚫ MON. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?1 Speak, nephew, were you by, when it began? 2 BEN. Here were the servants of your adversary, LA. MON. O, where is Romeo! saw you him to-day? Right glad I am, he was not at this fray. 4 BEN. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun MON. Many a morning hath he there been seen, "The Tragicall History of Romeus | like that of a serpent; figuratively, and Juliet, 1562." It is said to be the castle of the Capulets. 1) Figuratively used by Shakspeare for setting loose, or in a state of being propagated; properly a cask is abroach, i. e. letting out or yielding liquor. 2) i. e. expressing, manifesting a challenge to fight. Defiance is an invitation or call to an adversary to encounter, if he dare. 3) To hiss, properly to utter a noise to condemn by hissing, to explode. 4) I am very glad. 5) To peer, a poetic word, to come in sight, to appear, to peep. 6) The old preterit. and part. pass. of drive. We now use drove. 7) i. e. spreads, extends itself; properly, fixes its roots, grows, is planted. 8) I approached him secretly. 9) A thicket or shady place fit to conceal one's self. 10) To shun, to avoid. The shady curtains from Aurora's bed, Black and portentous must this humour prove, 3 BEN. My noble uncle, do you know the cause? Is to himself --- I will not say, how true But to himself so secret and so close, So far from sounding and discovery, As is the bud bit with an envious worm, Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, 5 Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow, Enter ROMEO, at a distance. 6 BEN. See, where he comes: So please you, step aside; I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.7 MON. I would, thou wert so happy by thy stay, To hear true shrift.8 Come, madam, let's away. BEN. Good morrow, cousin. ROM. BEN. But new struck [Exeunt MONTAGUE and Lady. Is the day so young?9 nine. 10 Ah me! sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast? 1) Sad, sorrowful, dejected and depressed in mind. 2) To pen, to shut in a pen; thence, to confine in a small inclosure. 3) i. e. it will be found mournful and calamitous. 4) i. e. urged with frequent application. 5) He and his, instead of it and its, as often in Shakspeare. 6) i. e. condescend, be pleased, be so kind as to, etc., a phrase of ceremony of frequent use in our poet. 7) i. e. or he will prove unfaithful and violating confidence, in contradiction to his character as a friend of mine. 8) Properly, confession made to a priest, now obsolete. 9) i. e. is it so early in the day? 10) So, in Hamlet, Act I, sc. 1: 'Tis new (non) struck twelve; new having the meaning of just. PREFACE. The story on which this play is founded, was well known to the English poets before the time of Shakspeare. The original relater of it was Luigi da Porto, a gentleman of Vicenza, who died in 1529. His novel did not appear till some years after his death; being first printed at Venice, in 1535, under the title of La Giulietta. In 1554 Bandello published, at Lucca, a novel on the same subject; and shortly afterwards Boisteau brought out one in French, founded on the Italian narratives, but varying from them in many particulars. From Boisteau's novel the same story was, in 1562, formed into an English poem, with considerable alterations and large additions, by Mr. Arthur Brooke, having the following title: The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, containing a rare example of true constancie; with the subtill counsels, and practices of an old Fryar, and their ill event. Painter in the second volume of his Palace of Pleasure, 1567, published a prose translation from the French of Boisteau, which he entitled Rhomeo and Julietta. Shakspeare had probably read Painter's novel, having taken some circumstances from it or some other prose translation of Boisteau; but his play was undoubtedly formed on the poem of Arthur Brooke, |