LA. CAP. A crutch, a crutch! - Why call you for a sword?

CAP. My sword, Í say! - Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade 1 in spite of me.

Enter MONTAGUE, and Lady MONTAGUE.
Mon. Thou villain, Capulet, Hold me not, let me go.
La. Mon. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe, 2

Enter Prince, with Attendants.
PRIN. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,
Will they not hear? — what, ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper'd5 weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls, 6 bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets ;
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partizans,' in hands as old,
Canker'd 8 with peace, to part your canker'd hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time, all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me;
And, Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our further pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgment-place. 10
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
Exeunt Prince, and Attendants; CAPULET, LADY CAPULET,

TYBALT, Citizens, and Servants.

used in war; the little sword was 5) i. e. angry weapons. the weapon commonly worn, pro 6) Quarrel, uproar. bably nothing more than a dagger. 7) To wield, to govern, to handle, 1) i. e. his sword.

to use with full command or power, 2) An enemy, an opponent. as a thing not too heavy for the 3) i.e. who profane and stain, who holder, to manage; as,

to wield a spot your swords with the blood of sword, a partizan or pike. your neighbours.

8) i. e. corrupted, corroded, grown 4) To quench means to extinguish rusty. fire; to still any passion or commo 9) What our will dictates. tion, particularly to allay thirst. 10) This name the poet found in

Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach ? 1
Speak, nephew, were you by, when it began?

BEN. Here were the servants of your adversary,
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach:
I drew to part them; in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd;
Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears,

2
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn :3
While we were interchanging thrust and blows,
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the prince came, who parted either part.

LA. Mon. 0, where is Romeo! - saw you him to-day? Right glad I am, he was not at this fray,

BEN. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun
Peer'd5 forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave 6 me to walk abroad;
Where, - underneath the grove of sycamore,
That westward rooteth? from the city's side,
So early walking did I see your son:
Towards him I made;& but he was 'ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood: 9
I, measuring his affections by my own, -
That most are busied when they are most alone,
Pursu'd my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn'd 10 who gladly fled from me.

Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs:
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the furthest east begin to draw

The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself;2
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
And makes himself an artificial night:
Black and portentous must this humour prove, 3
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

BEN. My noble uncle, do you know the cause ?
Mon. I neither know it nor can learn of him.
BEN. Have you importun'd * him by any means?

Mon. Both by myself, and many other friends :
But he, his own affections' counsellor,
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,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure, as know.

Enter Romeo, at a distance.
BEN. See, where he comes: So please you, step aside;
I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.?

Mon. I would, thou wert so happy by thy stay, To hear true shrift. 8 - Come, madam, let's away.

Exeunt MONTAGUE and Lady. BEN. Good morrow,

cousin. ROM.

Is the day so young ? 9
BEN. But new struck nine. 10
ROM.

Ah me! sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast?

1) Sad, sorrowful, dejected and of ceremony of frequent use in our depressed in mind.

poet. 2) To pen, to shut in a pen; thence, 7) i. e. or he will prove unfaithful to confine in a small inclosure. and violating confidence, in contra

3) i. e. it will be found mournful diction to his character as a friend and calamitous.

of mine. 4) i. e. urged with frequent appli 8) Properly, confession made to a 'cation.

priest, now obsolete. 5) He and his, instead of it and its, 9) i. e. is it so early in the day? as often in Shakspeare.

10) So, in Hamlet, Act I, 1: 6) i. e. condescend, be pleased, 'Tis new (nom) struck twelve; new be so kind as to, etc., a phrasel 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,