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Line 233.

with man.

ACT III. SCENE II.

-unmann'd blood-] Blood yet unacquainted
JOHNSON.

Line 247. the garish sun,] Garish is gaudy, showy.

STEEVENS.

352. Hath slain ten thousand Tybults.] Hath put Tybalt

out of my mind, as if out of being.

Line 423.

ACT

ACT III. SCENE III.

-More validity,

JOHNSON.

More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion flies, than Romeo:] Validity seems here to mean worth or dignity: and courtship the state of a courtier permitted to approach the highest presence.

JOHNSON.

Line 521. Unseemly woman, &c.] Thou art a beast of ill qualities, under the appearance both of a woman and a man. JOHNSON.

Line 542. Like powder in a skill-less soldier's flask, &c.] 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 kept their powder.

STEEVENS.

Line 544. And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.] And thou torn to pieces with thine own weapons.

JOHNSON.

Line 576. - -here stands all your state;] The whole of your fortune depends on this.

JOHNSON.

ACT III. SCENE IV.

mew'd up-] This is a phrase from falconry.
STEEVENS.

Line 599.

A mew was a place of confinement for hawks.

Line 600. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender Of my child's love:] 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.

ACT III. SCENE V.

Line 631. Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree :] This is not merely a poetical supposition. It is observed of the nightingale, that, if undisturbed, she sits and sings upon the same tree for many weeks together. STEEVENS.

Line 647. the pale reflex-] The appearance of a cloud opposed to the moon.

JOHNSON.

Line 658. Some say, the lark and loathed toad change eyes; O, now I would they had chang'd voices too!] The toad having very fine eyes, and the lark very ugly ones, was the occasion of a common saying amongst the people, that the toad and lark had changed eyes. To this the speaker alludes.

WARBURTON.

Line 661. Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day.] The hunts-up was the name of the tune anciently played to wake the hunters, and collect them together. STEEVENS.

· Line 685. O God! I have an ill-divining soul: &c.] This miserable prescience of futurity I have always regarded as a circumstance particularly beautiful. STEEVENS.

Line 690. Dry sorrow drinks our blood.] This is an allusion to the proverb-" Sorrow's dry." STEEVENS.

Line 727. Ay, madam, from &c.] Juliet's equivocations are rather too artful for a mind disturbed by the loss of a new lover. JOHNSON.

Line 758. in happy time,] A la bonne heure. This phrase was interjected, when the hearer was not quite so well pleased as

the speaker.

Line 762.

count.

JOHNSON.

The county Paris,] The county, i. e. the

Line 810. out, you baggage!

You tallow-face!] Such was the indelicacy of the age of Shakspeare, that authors were not contented only to employ. these terms of abuse in their own original performances, but even felt no reluctance to introduce them in their versions of the most chaste and elegant of the Greek or Roman Poets. Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, in 1582, makes Dido call Æneas-hedgebrat, cullion, and tar-breech, in the course of one speech.

Nay, in the Interlude of The Repentance of Mary Magdalene, 1567, Mary Magdalen says to one of her attendants:

"Horeson, I beshrowe your heart, are you here?"

STEEVENS.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Line 71. Shall play the umpire ;] That is, this knife shall deeide the struggle between me and my distresses.

JOHNSON.

Line 130. If no unconstant toy, &c.] If no fickle freak, no light caprice, no change of fancy, hinder the performance.

[blocks in formation]

Line 197. For I have need &c.] Juliet plays most of her pranks under the appearance of religion: perhaps Shakspeare meant to punish her hypocrisy. JOHNSON.

Line 238. 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 Shakspeare against the criticisms of Voltaire, is not one of the least considerable out of many favours which he has conferred on the literary world. STEEVENS.

Line 241.

buried.

Line 244.

-green in earth,] i. e. fresh in earth, newly STEEVENS.

is it not like, that I,] This speech is confused,

and inconsequential, according to the disorder of Juliet's mind.

JOHNSON.

STEEVENS.

Line 248.be distraught,] Distraught is distracted.

ACT IV. SCENE V.

Line 342. O son, the night before thy wedding day

Hath death lain with thy bride:] Decker seems rather to have intended to ridicule a former line in this play: -I'll to my wedding bed,

66

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

MALONE.

Line 376. confusion's cure-] These violent and confused exclamations, says the Friar, will by no means alleviate that sorrow which at present overwhelms and disturbs your minds. MALONE.

Enter Peter.] From the quarto of 1599, it appears, that the part of Peter was originally performed by William Kempe. MAL. Line 419. O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me.] A dump anciently signified some kind of dance, as well as sorrow.

Line 427. the gleek:] To gleek is to scoff. taken from an ancient game at cards called gleek. Line 445. string made of catgut. Line 448.

STEEVENS. The term is STEEVENS.

-Simon Catling?] A catling was a small lute
STEEVENS.

Hugh Rebeck?] The fidler is so called from

an instrument with three strings, which is mentioned by several of the old writers.

STEEVENS.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Line 1. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,] The sense is, If I may trust the honesty of sleep, which I know however not to be so nice as not often to practise flattery. JOHNSON.

Line 3. My bosom's lord-] These three lines are very gay and pleasing. But why does Shakspeare give Romeo this invo luntary cheerfulness just before the extremity of unhappiness? Perhaps to show the vanity of trusting to those uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many consider as certain fore-tokens of good and evil. JOHNSON.

The poet has explained this passage himself a little further on; "How oft, when men are at the point of death,

"Have they been merry? which their keepers call

STEEVENS.

"A lightning before death." Line 48. A beggarly account of empty boxes,] Dr. Warburton would read, a braggartly account: but beggarly is probably right; if the boxes were empty, the account was more beggarly, as it was more pompous. JOHNSON.

ACT V. SCENE II.

Line 102. One of our order, to associate me,] Each friar has always a companion assigned him by the superior when he asks leave to go out; and thus, says Baretti, they are a check upon each other. STEEVENS.

Line 114. vial or idle subject.

was not nice,] i. e. was not written on a triSTEEVENS.

ACT V. SCENE III.

Line 162.dear employment: ] That is, action of importance. Gems were supposed to have great powers and virtues. JOHNS. Line 201. I do defy thy conjurations,] The obvious interpretation of these words, is, "I refuse to do as thou conjurest me to do, i. e. to depart." MALONE. -presence-] A presence is a public room. JOHNS. by a dead man interr'd.] Romeo being now determined to put an end to his life, considers himself as already dead.

Line 221.

222.

Line 245.

MALONE. -my everlasting rest;] To set up one's rest, is to

be determined to any certain purpose, to rest in perfect confidence and resolution, to make up one's mind.

Line 257. how oft to-night

Have

STEEVENS.

my old feet stumbled at graves?] This acciSTEEVENS.

dent was reckoned ominous.

Line 283. I dreamt my master and another fought,] This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakspeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream.

STEEVENS.

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