Rom. Ay, if I know the letters, and the language.
Serv. Ye say honestly: Rest you merry!!
Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.

[Reads. Signior MARTINO, and his wife and daughters; County? ANSELME, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of VITRUVIO; Signior PLACENTIO, and his lovely nieces; MERCUTIO, and his brother VALENTINE; Mine uncle CAPULET, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece ROSALINE; Livia; Signior VALENTIO, and his cousin TYBALT; Lucio, and the lively HELENA. A fair assembly; (Gives back the Note.] Whither should they

come?
SERV. Up.
Rom. Whither?
SERV. To supper; to our house.
Rom. Whose house?
SERV. My master's.
Rom. Indeed, I should have asked you that before.

SERV. Now I'll tell you without asking: My master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. 3 merry

[Exit. BEN. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st; With all the admir'd beauties of Verona. Go thither; and, with unattainted 4 eye, Compare her face with some that I shall show, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow. Rom. When the devout religion 5 of mine eye

Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires! And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,

Transparent hereticks, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! the all- seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match,' since first the world begun.

BEN. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois’ds with herself in either eye:

Rest you

But in those crystal scales, let there be weigh'd
Your lady's love against some other maid
That I will show you, shining at this feast,
And she shall scant? show well, that now shows best.

Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of mine own.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. A Room in Capulet's House.

Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse.
LA. CAP. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth

to me.
NURSE. What, lamb! what, lady-bird! what, Juliet!

Enter JULIET.
JUL. How now, who calls ?
NURSE.

Your mother.
JUL.

Madam, 3 I am here, What is your will?

LA. CAP. This is the matter: --- Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret. -- Nurse, come back again;
I have remember'd me, thou shalt hear our counsel.
Thou know'st, my daughter's of a pretty age.

NURSE. Yes, I can tell her age unto an hour.
LA. CAP. She's not fourteen.

NURSE. I'll lay 4 fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,
She is not fourteen: How long is it now
To Lammas - tide ? 6
La. Cap.

A fortnight, and odd? days.
NURSE. Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas - eve at night, shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she were of an age,

- but Susan's dead;
She was too good for me: But as I said,
On Lammas - eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.

balance in weight; to examine, as This old word is introduced by by the balance; to weigh.

Shakspeare for the sake of the jingle 1) Your lady's love, the love you between teen, and four, and fourteen. bear to your lady, used for the lady 6) The first day of August. Lamherself.

mas, contracted from loaf-mass, bread2) Scarcely, hardly.

feast, or feast of first fruits. 3) Translate, gracious mother.

7) Odd means,

not even,

i. e. in 4) To wager, to pledge.

this phrase, something over a definite 5) To my sorrow; to my grief. I number.

'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean'd, I never shall forget it,
Of all the days in the year, upon that day:
For I had then laid wormwood to my teat,
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall,
My lord and you were th

at Mantua:
Nay, I do bear a brain,? – but, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
And felt it bitter, O the pretty fool!
To see it tetchy, 3 and fall out* with the teat.
Shake, quoth the dove - house:5 'twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.
· And since that time it is eleven years:
For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,?
She could have run and waddled 8 all about,
For even the day before, she broke her brow,9

LA. CAP. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
Jul. And hold thy peace, I pray the nurse, say I.
NURSE. Peace, I have done. * Heaven mark thee to its

10

I was your mother much upon these years!
That you are now a maid. Thus then, in brief: -
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

NURSE. A man, young lady! lady, such a man,
As all the world Why, he's a man of wax. 2

LA. CAP. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.
NURSE. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.

LA. CAP. What say you? can you love the gentleman ?
This night you shall behold him at our feast:
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content:3
And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margin of his eyes. *
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him only lacks a cover:5
The fish lives in the sea; 6 and 'tis much pride,
For fair without the fair within to hide:
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps7 locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.
Speak briefly; can you like of Paris' love?

JUL. I'll look to like, if looking liking move:

1) i. e. at the same age.

woman, who is styled a femme con2) Well made, as if he had been verte in law French. modelled in wax.

6) i. e. is not yet caught. Fish3) That is Examine how nicely skin covers to books anciently were one feature depends upon another, not uncommon.

It is evident that or accords with another, in order to this speech is to show the advantage produce that harmony of the whole of having a handsome person to coface which seems to be implied in ver a virtuous mind. the word content. Steevens.

But no more deep will I endart? mine eye,
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

Enter a Servant. Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. 8 I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight. LA. CAP. We follow thee. Juliet, the county stays.

[Exeunt.

Enter Romeo, MERCUTIO, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers, Torch

bearers, and others. Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse ? Or shall we on without apology?

BEN. The date is out of such prolixity: 5
We'll have no Cupid hood - wink'd with a scarf, 6
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath , ?
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper: 8
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke

1) To endart, or indart, to dart in, praise of the beauty of the ladies, or to thrust or strike in; here, to en- the generosity of the entertainer; gage.

and to the prolixity of such intro2) Pantry, the Latin panarium, ductions Romeo is made to allude. from panis; a closet in which pro- Steevens. visions are kept.

6) To hoodwink, to blind by cover3) That is, in an extreme state of ing the eyes. Scarf is the French confusion, in the utmost turbulence. écharpe. In Timon, Cupid precedes

4) i. e. the count attends you; a troop of ladies with a speech. count Paris waits for you.

7) The Tartarian bows, as well as 5) i. e, such prolixity is now out most of those used by the Asiatic of fashion. The diversion going nations, resemble in their form the forward at present is a masquerade. old Roman or Cupid's bow, such as In Henry VIII. where the king in- we see on medals and bas reliefs. troduces himself to the entertain- Shakspeare used the epithet to disment given by Wolsey, he appears, tinguish it from the English bow, like Romeo and his companions, in whose shape is the segment of a a mask, and sends a messenger be- circle. Malone. fore, to make an apology for

his in 8) In several counties to this day, trusion. This was a custom observ- they call a stuffed figure, represented by those who came uninvited, ing a man, and armed with a bow with a desire to conceal themselves and arrow, set up to fright the crows for the sake of intrigue, or to enjoy from the fruit and corn, a crowthe greater freedom of conversation. keeper, as well as a scare-crow. Their entry on these occasions was To scare, to fright, to terrify sudalways prefaced by some speech in denly.

2

ROMEO AND JULIET.