Enter CAPULET, in his Gown; and LADY

CAPULET.

Cap. What noise is this?-Give me my long sword 8, ho!

La. Cap. A crutch, a crutch! - Why call you for a sword?

Cap. My sword, I say! - Old Montague is come, And flourishes his blade 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.

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'd weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.-
Three civil brawls, 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 partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate:

8 See vol. i. p. 214, note 14. The long sword was the weapon used in active warfare; a lighter, shorter, and less desperate weapon was worn for ornament, to which we have other allusions.

No sword worn, but one to dance with."

9 i. e. angry weapons. So in King John:

This inundation of mistemper'd humour,' &c.

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 10, our common judgment-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

[Exeunt Prince, and Attendants; CAPULET,
LA. CAP. TYBALT, Citizens, and Servants.
Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?—
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,
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn :
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the prince came, who parted either part.

La. Mon. O, 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'd forth the golden window of the east 11,

10 The poet found the name of this place in Brooke's Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1562. It is there said to be the castle of the Capulets.

11 The same thought occurs in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. 10:

'Early before the morn with cremosin ray

The windows of bright heaven opened had,
Through which into the world the dawning day
Might looke,' &c.

Again in Summa Totalis, or All in All, 4to. 1607 :—
Now heaven's bright eye (awake by Vesper's shrine)
Peepes through the purple windowes of the East.'

A troubled mind drave 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:
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 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;
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
And makes himself an artificial night:
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
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 impórtun'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 trueBut 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 12.

12 The old copy reads:

'Or dedicate his beauty to the same.' The emendation is by Theobald; who states, with great plausibility, that sunne might easily be mistaken for same.

Malone

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.-Come, madam, let's away.

[Exeunt MONTAGUE and Lady.

Ben. Good morrow, cousin.
Rom.

Ben. But new struck nine.
Rom.

Is the day so young?

Ah me! sad hours seem long.

Was that my father that went hence so fast?

Ben. It was:-What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?

Rom. Not having that, which having makes them

short.

Ben. In love?

Rom. Out

Ben. Of love?

Rom. Out of her favour, where I am in love.
Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,

Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will 13 !

observes, that Shakspeare has evidently imitated the Rosamond of Daniel in the last act of this play, and in this passage may have remembered the following lines in one of the Sonnets of the same writer, who was then extremely popular :

'And whilst thou spread'st into the rising sunne
The fairest flower that ever saw the light,
Now joy thy time before thy sweet be done.'

These lines add great support to Theobald's emendation. There are few passages in the poet where so great an improvement of language is obtained by so slight a deviation from the text of the old copy.

13 i. e. should blindly and recklessly think he can surmount all obstacles to his will.

Where shall we dine? - Ome! - What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

Here's much to do with hate, but more with love:Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate 14!

O any thing, of nothing first create !

O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well seeming forms!

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!

Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

Dost thou not laugh?

Ben.

No, coz, I rather weep.

Rom. Good heart, at what?
Ben.

At thy good heart's oppression.

Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast; Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest With more of thine: this love, that thou hast shown, Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

14 Every ancient sonnetteer characterised Love by contrarieties. Watson begins one of his canzonets:

'Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe, A living death, and ever-dying life,' &c. Turberville makes Reason harangue against it in the same

manner:

'A fierie frost, a flame that frozen is with ise!

A heavie burden light to beare! A vertue fraught with

vice!' &c.

Immediately taken from the Romaunt of the Rose:

'Love it is an hateful pees,
A free aquitaunce without relees, -
An heavie burthen light to beare,' &c.

This kind of antithesis was very much in the taste of the Provençal and Italian poets. Perhaps it might be hinted by the Ode of Sappho, preserved by Longinus: Petrarch is full of it :

'Pace non trovo, e non ho da far guerra;
E temo, e spero, e ardo, e son un ghiaccio;
E volo sopra'l ciel, e giaccio in terra;

E nulla stringo, e tutto'l mondo abbraccio, &c.

This sonnet is translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt, under the title of 'Description of the Contrarious Passions in a Lover.'-Farmer.