My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?

Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use

prayer.

- in

Rom. O then! dear saint, let lips do what hands

do:

They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers'

sake.

Rom. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. [Kissing her.1 Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg'd.

Mercutious ysy hande had all to-frozen myne,

And of thy goodness thou agayne hast warmed it with thyne.""

H.

14 In Shakespeare's time, the kissing of a lady at a social gathering seems not to have been thought indecorous. So, in King Henry VIII., we have Lord Sands kissing Anne Boleyn, at the supper given by Wolsey.- Mr. R. G. White, in his Shakespeare's Scholar, has the following happy remarks on this bit of dialogue: "I have never seen a Juliet upon the stage, who appeared to appreciate the archness of the dialogue with Romeo in this scene. They go through it solemnly, or, at best, with staid propriety. They reply literally to all Romeo's speeches about saints and palmers. But it should be noticed that, though this is the first interview of the lovers, we do not hear them speak until the close of their dialogue, in which they have arrived at a pretty thorough understanding of their mutual feelings. Juliet makes a feint of parrying Romeo's advances; but does it archly, and knows that he is to have the kiss he sues for. not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?' swers with literal solemnity. But it was Capulet's Juliet was not holding forth.

He asks, - Have The stage Juliet annot a conventicle at old How demure was her

Jul. Then, have my lips the sin that they have took.

Rom. Sin from my lips? O, trespass sweetly

urg'd!

Give me my sin again.

Jul.

You kiss by th' book.

Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with

you.

Rom. What is her mother?

Nurse.

Marry, bachelor,

Her mother is the lady of the house,

And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.
I nurs'd her daughter, that you talk'd withal:
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her

Shall have the chinks.

Rom.

Is she a Capulet? O, dear account! my life is my foe's debt. Ben. Away, begone: the sport is at the best. Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest. 1 Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone; We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.15, Is it e'en so? Why, then I thank you all; I thank you, honest gentlemen; 16 good night :More torches here! Come on, then, let's to bed.

1

15

real answer: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use — in prayer.' And when Romeo fairly gets her into the corner, towards which she has been contriving to be driven; and says, Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg'd,' and does put them to that purgation; how slyly the pretty puss gives him an opportunity to repeat the penance, by replying, Then have my lips the sin that they have took.'"

H.

15 Towards is ready, at hand. A banquet, or rere-supper, as it was sometimes called, was similar to our dessert.

16 Here the quarto of 1597 adds the following:

"I promise you, but for your company,

I would have been in bed an hour ago:
Light to my chamber, ho!"

Ah, sirrah! by my fay, it waxes late;

I'll to my rest. [Exeunt all but JULIET and Nurse. Jul. Come hither, nurse: What is yond' gentle

man?

Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.

Jul. What's he, that now is going out of door? Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio. Jul. What's he, that follows there, that would not dance?

Nurse. I know not.

Jul. Go, ask his name. If he be married,

My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague; The only son of your great enemy.

Jul. My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.
Nurse. What's this? what's this?
Jul.

A rhyme I learn'd even now

Of one I danc'd withal. [One calls within, JULIET!

Nurse.

Anon, anon:

Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.

Enter CHORUS."

[Exeunt.

Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,

And young affection gapes to be his heir:

That fair, for which love groan'd for,18 and would die,

17 This Chorus is not in the quarto of 1597, but is in all the other old copies.

18 This doubling of a preposition was common with the old writers, and occurs divers times in these plays. See As You Like It, Act ii. sc. 7, note 10.- Fair, in this line, is used as a substantive, and in the sense of beauty. The usage was common.

H.

With tender Juliet match'd is now not fair.
Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,

And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new-beloved any where:

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

[Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I. An open Place, adjoining CAPULET'S

Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. Can I go forward, when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out. [He climbs the Wall, and leaps down within it.

Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO. Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Romeo! Mer. He is wise; And, on my life, hath stolen him home to bed.

Ben. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard'

wall.

Call, good Mercutio.

1 Orchard, from hort-yard, was formerly used for a garden. See Julius Cæsar, Act ii. sc. 1, note 1.

H.

Mer.

Nay, I'll conjure too.

Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;

Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;

Cry but ― Ah me! pronounce 2 but-love and dove;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young auburn Cupid, he that shot so trim,3
When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,

By

her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,

2 This is the reading of the quarto of 1597. Those of 1599 and 1609 and the folio read provant, an evident corruption. The folio of 1632 has couply, meaning couple, which has been the reading of many modern editions.

3 The old copies have " Abraham Cupid," which Upton changed to " Adam Cupid," supposing it to refer to Adam Bell the famous archer of the old ballad. The change is adopted in all modern editions excepting Knight's, who retains Abraham, explaining it to mean "the cheat- -the Abraham man'- of our old statutes." Auburn is proposed by Mr. Dyce, who shows that it was a common epithet of Cupid, and was often misprinted abraham and Abram. Thus, in Soliman and Perseda, we have "abrahamcolour'd Troion" for Trojan with auburn-colour'd hair; and in Coriolanus, Act ii. sc. 3, "not that our heads are some brown, some black, some Abram," where Abram is changed to auburn in modern editions. Trim is from the first quarto, the other old copies having true. That trim is the right word, is shown by the old ballad of " King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid," which the Poet had in his mind. One stanza is as follows:

"The blinded boy, that shoots so trim,

From heaven down did hie;

He drew a dart, and shot at him

In place where he did lie."

H.

This phrase in Shakespeare's time was used as an expression

of tenderness, like poor fool.