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What, not a word-you take your pennyworths now;
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The county Paris hath fet up his reft,

That you shall reft but littles.-God forgive me,
(Marry, and amen!) how found is the asleep!

Ì needs must wake her :-Madam! madam! madam!
Ay, let the county take you in your bed;
He'll fright you up, i'faith.-Will it not be?
What, dreft! and in your clothes! and down again!
I must needs wake you: Lady! lady! lady!
Alas! alas!-Help! help! my lady's dead!-
O, well-a-day, that ever I was born!-
Some aqua-vitæ, ho!-my lord! my lady!

5 - fet up bis reft,

That you shall reft but little.] This expreffion, which is free quently employed by the old dramatick writers, is taken from the manner of firing the harquebufs. This was fo heavy a gun, that the foldiers were obliged to carry a supporter called a reft, which they fixed in the ground before they levelled to take aim. Decker ufes it in his comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600: "fet your heart at reft, for I have fet up my reft, that unless you can run fwifter than a hart, home you go not." The fame expreffion occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother:

My reft is up,

" Nor will I go lefs-".

Again, in the Roaring Girl: "—like a musket on a rest."

See Montfaucon's Monarchie Françoife, tom. v. plate 48. STEEVENS. The origin of this phrafe has certainly been rightly explained, but the good nurse was here thinking of other matters. T. C.

The above expreffion may probably be fometimes used in the fenfe already explained; it is however oftner employed with a reference to the game at Primero, in which it was one of the terms then in use. In the fecond inftance above quoted it is certainly fo. To avoid loading the page with examples, I fhall refer to Dodley's Collection of Old Plays, Vol. X. p. 364, edit. 1780, where feveral are brought together. REED.

6 -why lady!-fie, you flug-abed I

Ay, let the county take you in your bed;] So, in The Tragicall Hyftory of Romeus and Juliet:

First foftly did the call, then louder did the cry, "Lady, you sleep too long, the earl will raife you by and by.”

MALONE.

VOL. IX.

L

Enter

Enter Lady CAPULET.

La. Cap. What noife is here?

Nurse. O lamentable day!

La. Cap. What's the matter?

Nurfe. Look, lock! O heavy day!

La. Cap. O me, O me!-my child, my only life Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!

Help, help!-call help.

Enter CAPULET.

Cap. For fhame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come. Nurfe. She's dead, deceas'd, fhe's dead; alack the day!.

La. Cap. Alack the day! fhe's dead, fhe's dead, fhe's dead.

Cap. Ha! let me fee her:-Out, alas! fhe's cold;
Her blood is fettled, and her joints are stiff;

Life and thefe lips have long been feparated:
Death lies on her, like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Accurfed time! unfortunate old man *!
Nurfe. O lamentable day!

La. Cap, O woeful time!

Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,

Ties up my tongue, and will not let me fpeak 7.
Enter Friar LAWRENCE, and PARIS, with Muficians.
Fri. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

* Accurfed time! &c.] This line is taken from the first quarto, 1597. MALONE,

7 Death, that bath ta'en ber bence to make me wail,

Ties up ber tongue, and will not let me fpeak.] Our authour has here followed the poem clofely, without recollecting that he had madeCapulet, in this fcene, clamorous in his grief. In The Tragicall Hyftory of Romeus and Juliet, Juliet's mother makes a long speech, but the old man utters not a word:

"But more than all the reft the father's heart was fo

"Smit with the heavy news, and fo fhut up with sudden woe, "That he ne had the power his daughter to beweep, "Ne yet to speak, but long is forc'd his tears and plaints to keep."

MALONE.

Cap.

Cap. Ready to go, but never to return: O fon, the night before thy wedding day

8

Hath death lain with thy bride 9:-See, there fhe lies,
Flower as the was, deflowered by him '.
Death is my fon in-law, death is my heir2;
My daughter he hath wedded! I will die,

And leave him all; life leaving, all is death's 3.

Par. Have I thought long to fee this morning's face, And doth it give me such a fight as this?

La. Cap. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day! Moft miferable hour, that e'er time saw In lafting labour of his pilgrimage!

80 fon, the night before thy wedding day

Hath death lain with thy bride:-] Euripides has fported with this thought in the fame manner. Iphig. in Aul. ver. 460.

« Τὴν αὖ τάλαιναν παρθείον (τί παρθενον ;

“Aồng viv, mg Blins, YUMPEUCHI Táx.)" Sir W. RAWLINSON. 9 Hath death lain with thy bride :] Perhaps this line is coarfely ridi culed in Decker's Satiromaftix, 1602:

"Dead: he's death's bride; he hath her maidenhead." STEEV. Decker feems rather to have intended to ridicule a former line in, this play:

-I'll to my wedding bed,

"And Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.”

The word fee in the line before us, is drawn from the first quarto. MALONE

1 Flower as she was, deflowered by him.] This jingle was com mon to other writers; and among the reft, to Greene, in his Greene Conceipt, 1598: "-in a garden-house having round about it many flowers, and within it much deflowering." COLLINS.

2 Death is my fon-in-law, &c.] The remaining part of this fpeech, "death is my heir," &c. was omitted by Mr. Pope in his edition; and fome of the fubfequent editors, following his example, took the fame unwarrantable licence. The lines were very properly restored by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

3-life leaving, ail is death's.] The old copies read-life living. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

4-morning's face,] The quarto, 1597, continues the fpeech of

Paris thus:

And doth it now prefent fuch prodigies?

Accurft, unhappy, miferable man,

Forlorn, forfaken, deftitute I am;

Born to the world to be a flave in it:

Diftreft, remedilefs, unfortunate.

O heavens! Oh nature! wherefore did you make me

To live fo vile, fo wretched as I fhall? STEEVENS.

L 2

But

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and folace in,

And cruel death hath catch'd it from my fight.
Nurje. O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day 5!
Moft lamentable day! most woeful day,
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!
Never was feen fo black a day as this:
O woeful day, O woeful day!

Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spighted, flain!
Most deteftable death, by thee beguil'd,

By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!

O love! O life!-not life, but love in death!

Cap. Defpis'd, diftreffed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!Uncomfortable time! why cam'ft thou now

To murder murder our folemnity?—

O child! O child!-my foul, and not my child!-
Dead art thou!-alack! my child is dead;

And, with my child, my joys are buried!

Fri. Peace, ho, for thame! confufion's cure 7 lives not

In thefe confufions. Heaven and yourself

Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all,

And all the better is it for the maid:

Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you fought was-her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven, the fhould be advanc'd:
And weep ye now, feeing the is advanc'd,
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?

5 O woe! ob woeful, &c.] This fpeech of exclamations is not in the edition above cited. [that of 1597.] Several other parts, unneceflary or tautology, are not to be found in the faid edition; which occafions the variation in this from the common books. POPE.

In the text the enlarged copy of 1599 is here followed. MALONE. • Dead art thou ! &c.] From the defect of the metre it is probable that Shakspeare wrote

Dead, dead, art thou, &c.

When the fame word is repeated, the compofitor often is guilty of omiffion. MALONE.

? —confufion's cure-] Old Copies-care. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. Thefe violent and confufed exclamations, fays the friar, will by no means alleviate that forrow which at prefent overwhelms and disturbs your minds. So, in The Rape of Lucrece :

"Why, Collatine, is woe the cure of woe?" MALONE.

O, in this love, you love your child fo ill,
That you run mad, feeing that she is well:
She's not well marry'd, that lives marry'd long;
But she's beft marry'd, that dies marry'd young.
Dry up your tears, and ftick your rofemary
On this fair corfe; and, as the custom is,
In all her beft array bear her to church:
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reafon's merriment.
Cap. All things, that we ordained feftival,
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our inftruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to a fad burial feaft;
Our folemn hymns to fullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers ferve for a bury'd corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

Fri. Sir, go you in,-and, madam, go with him ;And go, fir Paris ;-every one prepare

To follow this fair corfe unto her grave:

8 For though fond nature-] This line is not in the first quartos The quarto 1599, and the folio read, though fome nature. The editor of the fecond folio fubftituted fond for fome. I do not believe this was the poet's word, though I have nothing better to propofe. I have already fhewn that all the alterations made by the editor of the fecond folio were capricious, and generally extremely injudicious.

In the preceding line the word all is drawn from the quarto, 1597, where we find

In all her best and fumptuous ornaments, &c.

The quarto 1599, and folio, read:

And in ber best array bear her to church. MALONE.

9 All things, that we ordained feftival, &c.] So, in the poem already quoted:

Now is the parents' mirth quite changed into mone,
"And now to forrow is return'd the joy of every one;

"And now the wedding weeds for mourning weeds they change,
"And Hymen to a dirge:-alas! it feemeth ftrange.
"Inftead of mariage gloves now funeral gowns they have,
"And, whom they should fee married, they follow to the grave;
"The feaft that should have been of pleasure and of joy,
"Hath every dish and cup fill'd full of forrow and annoy."

MALONE.
Instead of this and the following speeches, the eldest quarto has only
a couplet:
Cap. Let it be fo, come, woeful forrow-mates,

Let us together tafte this bitter fate. STIEVENS.

L 3

The

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