Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. 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.

Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

[Kissing her.1 Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took. Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged. Give me my sin again.

Jul.
Nurse. Madam, your

you. Rom. What is her mother?

Nurse.

You kiss by the book.
mother craves a word with

Marry, bachelor!

Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise, and virtuous.
I nursed her daughter, that you talked 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.2-
Is it e'en so? Why, then I thank you all;
I thank you, honest gentlemen; 3 good night.-
More torches here!--Come on, then let's to bed.

--

1 The Poet here, without doubt, copied from the mode of his own time; and kissing a lady in a public assembly, we may conclude, was not then thought indecorous.

2 Towards is ready, at hand.

3 Here the quarto of 1597 adds :—

"I promise you, but for your company,

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

Ah, sirrah, [To 2 Cap.] by my fay, it waxes late;
I'll to my rest. [Exeunt all but JULIET and Nurse.
Jul. Come hither, nurse; what is yon gentleman?
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 learned even now
Of one I danced withal. [One calls within, Juliet.
Nurse.
Anon, anon:-
Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.

[Exeunt.

Enter CHORUS.1

Now old Desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young Affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair, which Love groaned for, and would die,
With tender Juliet matched, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is beloved, and loves again,

Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe supposed he must complain,

And she steal Love's sweet bait from fearful hooks.

1 This chorus is not in the first edition, quarto, 1597.

2 Fair, it has been already observed, was formerly used as a substantive, and was synonymous with beauty. The old copies read :—

"That fair for which love groaned for," &c. This reading Malone defends; Steevens treats it as a corruption.

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
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!

Mer.

He is wise;

And, on my life, hath stolen him home to bed.
Ben. He ran this way, and leaped this orchard

wall.

Call, good Mercutio.

Mer.

Nay, I'll conjure, too.Romeo! humors! madman! passion! lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh, Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied; Cry but-Ah me! pronounce1 but-love and dove; Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,

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

One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,1
When king Cophetua loved the beggar-maid.-
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape2 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,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.
Mer. This cannot anger him; 'twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjured it down;
That were some spite. My invocation

Is fair and honest, and in his mistress' name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.

Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among those trees,
To be consorted with the humorous 3 night.
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit,

As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.*-
Romeo, good night;-I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.
Come, shall we go?

Ben.

Go, then; for 'tis in vain To seek him here, that means not to be found.

[Exeunt.

1 All the old copies read, Abraham Cupid. The alteration was proposed by Mr. Upton. It evidently alludes to the famous archer Adam Bell. The ballad alluded to is King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid, or, as it is called in some copies, "The Song of a Beggar and a King." It may be seen in the first volume of Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry.

2 This phrase, in Shakspeare's time, was used as an expression of tenderness, like poor fool, &c.

3 i. e. the humid, the moist, dewy night. Chapman uses the word in this sense in his translation of Homer.

4 After this line in the old copies are two lines of ribaldry.

SCENE II. Capulet's Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.1 [JULIET appears above, at a window. But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid,2 since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.-
It is my lady; O, it is my love!

O that she knew she were!

Ah me!

She speaks, yet she says nothing; what of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Jul.

Rom.

O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this sight,3 being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned, wondering eyes

She speaks.

1 That is, Mercutio jests, whom he has overheard.

2 i. e. be not a votary to the moon, to Diana.

3 The old copies read, " to this night." Theobald made the emendation.

VOL. VII.

22