160. All our whole city is much bound to him.] Thus the folio and the quartos 1599 and 1609. The oldest quarto reads, I think, more grammatically: All our whole city is much bound unto. So, in Romeus and Juliet, 1562 : STEEVENS. "this is not, wife, the friar's first desert, "In all our commonweal scarce one is to be found ther bound." "But is, for some good turn, unto this holy faMALONE. 166. We shall be short-] That is, we shall be defellive. JOHNSON. 167. 'Tis now near night.] It appears in a foregoing scene, that Romeo parted from his bride at day-break on Tuesday morning. Immediately afterwards she went to Friar Lawrence, and he particularly mentions the day of the week [" Wednesday is to-morrow."] She could not well have remained more than an hour or two with the friar, and she is just now returned from shrift ;-yet lady Capulet says, " 'tis near night," and this same night is ascertained to be Tuesday. This is one out of the many instances of our author's inaccuracy in the computation of time. MALONE. 177. Enter Juliet and Nurse.] Instead of the next speech, the quarto, 1597, supplies the following short dialogue: Nurse, Come, come, what need you anie thing else? Juliet. Juliet. Nothing, good nurse, but leave me to my- Nurse. Well there's a cleane smocke under your pillow, and so good night. STEEVENS. - 179. For I have need, &c.] Juliet plays most of her pranks under the appearance of religion: perhaps Shakspere meant to punish her hypocrisy. JOHNSON. 191. Farewel! &c.] This speech received considerable additions after the elder copy was published. STEEVENS. 198. What if this mixture do not work at all?] So, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, Tom. II. p. 239. but what know I (said she) whether the operation of this pouder will be to soone or to late, or not correspondent to the due time, and that my faulte being discovered, I shall remayne a jesting stocke and fable to the people? what know I moreover, if the serpents and other venomous and crauling wormes, which commonly frequent the graves and pittes of the earth, will hurt me, thinkyng that I am dead? But how shall I indure the stinche of so many carions and bones of myne auncestors which rest in the grave, if by fortune I do awake before Romeo and Frier Laurence doe come to help me? And as she was thus plunged in the deepe contemplation of things, she thought that she sawe a certaine vision or fansie of her cousin Thibault, in the very same sort as she sawe him wounded and imbrued with blood," &c. Shakspere appears, however, to have followed the poem: -to the end I may my name and conscience save, "I must devour the mixed drink that by me here I have; "Whose working and whose force as yet I do not know: "And of this piteous plaint began another doubt to grow "What do I know (quoth she), if that this powder shall "Sooner or latter than it should, or else not work 66. -Or how shall I that always have in so fresh air been bred, "Endure the loathsome stink of such a heaped store “Of carcases not yet consum'd, and bones that long before "Intombed were, where I my sleeping place shall have, "Where all my ancestors do rest, my kindred's common grave. "Shall not the friar and my Romeus, when they come, "Find me, if I awake before, y-stifled in the tomb ?" MALONE. 199. Shall I of force be married to the count?] Thus the the eldest quarto. Succeeding quartos and the folio read : Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? STEEVENS. 200.-lie thou there. Laying down a dagger.] This stage-direction has been supplied by the modern editors. The quarto, 1597, reads : "-Knife, lie thou there." It appears from several passages in our old plays, that knives were formerly part of the accoutrements of a bride; and every thing behoveful for Juliet's state had just been left with her. So, in Decker's Match me in London, 1632: "See at my girdle hang my wedding knives!” Again, in King Edward III. 1599: "Here by my side do hang my wedding knives: "Take thou the one, and with it kill thy queen, "And with the other I'll dispatch my love." STEEVENS. In order to account for Juliet's having a dagger, or, as it is called in old language, a knife, it is not necessary to have recourse to the ancient accoutrements of brides, how prevalent soever the custom mentioned by Mr. Steevens may have been; for Juliet appears to have furnished herself with this instrument immediately after her father and mother had threatened to force her to marry Paris. If all fail else, myself have power to die. Accordingly, in the very next scene, when she is at the friar's cell, and before she could have been fur nished with the apparatus of a bride (not having then consented to marry the count), she says: Give me some present counsel, or behold, 207. I will not entertain so bad a thought.] This line I have restored from the quarto, 1597. STEEVENS. 217. As in a vault, &c.] This idea was probably suggested to our poet by his native place. The charnel at Stratford upon Avon is a very large one, and perhaps contains a greater number of bones than are to be found in any other repository of the same kind in England. I was furnished with this observation by Mr. Murphy, whose very elegant and spirited defence of Shakspere against the criticisms of Voltaire, is one of the least considerable out of many favours which he has conferred on the literary world. STEEVENS. —green in earth,] ¿. e. fresh in earth, newly buried. So, in Hamlet: 220. "of our dear brother's death, "The memory be green.". 1 Again, in The Opportunity, by Shirley: "I am but "Green in my honours." 221. STERVENS. Lies festring- To fester is to corrupt. So, in King Edward III. 1599: "Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." This line likewise occurs in the 94th Sonnet of Shakspere. The play of Edward II. has been ascribed to him. STEEVENS. |