And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?

Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth? Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet In thee at once; which thou at once would'st lose. Fye, fye! thou sham'st thy shape, thy love, thy wit; Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,

And usest none in that true use indeed

Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man9:
Thy dear love, sworn, but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish:
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skill-less soldier's flask 10,
Is set on fire by thine own ignorance,

8 Romeo has not here railed on his birth, &c. though in his interview with the Friar, as described in the poem, he is made to do so. Shakspeare copied the remonstrance of the Friar, without reviewing the former part of this scene. He has in other

places fallen into a similar inaccuracy, by sometimes following and sometimes deserting his original. The lines from Why rail'st thou on thy birth, &c. to thy own defence, are not in the first copy, they are formed on a passage in the poem.

9 So in King Richard II. Act v. Sc. 3 :

'And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
This deadly blot in thy digressing son.'

And in Barnabe Riche's Farewell:- Knowing that
you should
otherwise have used me than you have, you should have digressed
and swarved from your kind.'

10 To understand the force of this allusion, it should be remembered that the ancient English soldiers, using match locks, instead of locks with 'flints, as at present, were obliged to carry a lighted match hanging at their belts, very near to the wooden flask in which they carried their powder. The same allusion occurs in Humor's Ordinary, an old collection of English Epigrams :

When she his flask and touch-box set on fire,

And till this hour the burning is not out.'

And thou dismember'd with thine own defence 11.
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there art thou happy too :
The law, that threaten'd death, becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,
"Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her;
But, look, thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.—
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto :
Romeo is coming 12.

Nurse. O Lord, I could have staid here all the
night,

To hear good counsel: O, what learning is !My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come. Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide. Nurse. Here, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir: Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late. [Exit Nurse.

11 And thou torn to pieces with thine own weapons. 12 Much of this speech has also been added since the first edition.

Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this! Fri. Go hence: Good night! and here stands all your state 13;

Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence:
Sojourn in Mantua; I'll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you, that chances here:
Give me thy hand; 'tis late: farewell; good night.
Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief, so brief to part with thee:

Farewell.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in Capulet's House. Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and PARIS.

Cap. Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily, That we have had no time to move our daughter: Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly, And so did I;-Well, we were born to die.'Tis very late, she'll not come down to-night: I promise you, but for your company,

I would have been a-bed an hour ago.

Par. These times of woe afford no time to woo: Madam, good night: commend me to your daughter. La. Cap. I will, and know her mind early to

morrow:

To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness.

Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate1 tender Of my child's love: I think, she will be rul'd In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.

13 The whole of your fortune depends on this.

1 Desperate means only bold, adventurous, as if he had said in the vulgar phrase, I will speak a bold word, and venture to promise you my daughter.-Johnson.

'Witness this desperate tender of mine honour.'

Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600.

Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;
Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love;

And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday nextBut, soft; What day is this?

Par.

Monday, my lord. Cap. Monday? ha! ha! Well, Wednesday is

too soon,

O'Thursday let it be;-o' Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl :-

Will you be ready? do you like this haste?
We'll keep no great ado;- —a friend, or two :-
For hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much:

Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?
Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to-

Go

morrow.

Cap. Well, get you gone :-O' Thursday be it

then :

you to Juliet ere you go to bed,

Prepare her, wife, against this wedding-day.
Farewell, my lord.-Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me, it is so very late, that we

May call it early by and by:-Good night.

SCENE V. Juliet's Chamber1.

Enter ROMEO and JULIET.

[Exeunt.

Jul. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear;

2 The latter part of this scene is a good deal varied from the first quarto.

The stage direction in the first edition is, Enter Romeo and

Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree?:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out3, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops;
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Jul. Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,

Juliet at a Window.' In the second quarto, Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft.' They appeared, probably, in the balcony which was erected on the old English stage. See Malone's Account of the Ancient Theatres, in vol. iii. of Boswell's edition of Shakspeare.

2 This is not merely a poetical supposition. It is observable that the nightingale, if undisturbed, sits and sings upon the same tree for many weeks together. [As almost all birds sing only during the period of incubation, this may be accounted for; the male bird sings near where the female is sitting.] What Eustathius has observed relative to a fig-tree mentioned by Homer, in his twelfth Odyssey, may be applied to the passage before us: These particularities, which seem of no consequence, have a very good effect in poetry, as they give the relation an air of truth and probability. For what can induce a poet to mention such a tree, if the tree were not there in reality.' -Steevens.

The

4 Compare Sidney's Arcadia, 13th edition, p. 109: moon, then full (not thinking scorn to be a torch-bearer to such beauty), guided her steps.' And Sir John Davies's Orchestra, st. vii. of the Sun :

When the great torch-bearer of heaven was gone

Downe in a maske unto the ocean's court.'

And Drayton, Eng. Heroic Epist. p. 221, where the moon is described with the stars

'Attending on her as her torch-bearers.'