Nurse. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot choose but laugh, To think it should leave crying, and say-Ay: his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd: La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very theme La. Cap. Well, think of marriage now; younger than you, Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, in wax. tleman? a man of wax.) Well made, as if he had been modelled This night you shall behold him at our feast: 6 And see how one another lends content; That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, Nurse. No less? nay, bigger; women grow by men. La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love? Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move: 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. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow straight. La. Cap. We follow thee.-Juliet, the county 6 stays. Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days. [Exeunt. - the margin of his eyes.] The comments on ancient books were always printed in the margin. The fish lives in the sea; &c.] i. e. is not yet caught. D2 SCENE IV. A Street. 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:" Rom. Give me a torch, -I am not for this am bling; Being but heavy, I will bear the light. Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. Rom. Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes, With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead, So stakes me to the ground, I cannot move. Mer. You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings, And soar with them above a common bound. Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft, To soar with his light feathers; and so bound, * The date is out of such prolixity:] Introductory speeches are out of date or fashion. 9 We'll measure them a measure,] i. e. a dance. Give me a torch,] A torch-bearer seems to have been a constant appendage on every troop of masks, and was not reckoned a degrading office. I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe: Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burden love; Too great oppression for a tender thing. Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like thorn. Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. Give me a case to put my visage in: [Putting on a Mask. A visor for a visor!-what care I, What curious eye doth quote deformities?2 Ben. Come, knock, and enter; and no sooner in, But every man betake him to his legs. Rom. A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart, Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;3 For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase, I'll be a candle-holder, and look on, The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done. Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word: 4 If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire Rom. Nay, that's not so. Mer. I mean, sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. 2 - doth quote deformities?] To quote is to observe. 3 Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;] It has been already observed, that it was anciently the custom to strew rooms with rushes, before carpets were in use. * I'll be a candle-holder, and look on, The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.] An allusion to an old proverbial saying, which advises to give over when the game is at the fairest. Take our good meaning; for our judgment sits Rom. And we mean well, in going to this mask; But 'tis no wit to go. Mer. Why, may one ask? Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night. Mer. Rom. Well, what was yours? Mer. And so did I. That dreamers often lie. Rom. In bed, asleep, while they do dream things true. Mer. O, then, I see, queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes 5 She is the fairies' midwife;] I apprehend, and with no violence of interpretation, that by "the fairies' midwife," the poet means, the midwife among the fairies, because it was her peculiar employment to steal the new-born babe in the night, and to leave another in its place. The poet here uses her general appellation, and character, which yet has so far a proper reference to the present train of fiction, as that her illusions were practised on persons in bed or asleep; for she not only haunted women in childbed, but was likewise the incubus or night-mare. Shakspeare, by employing her here, alludes at large to her midnight pranks performed on sleepers; but denominates her from the most notorious one, of her personating the drowsy midwife, who was insensibly carried away into some distant water, and substituting a new birth in the bed or cradle. It would clear the appellation to read the fairy midwife. The poet avails himself of Mab's appropriate province, by giving her this nocturnal agency. T. WARTON. 6 of little atomies-) An obsolete substitute for atoms. |