Enter a Servant. SERV. Madam, the guests are come, fupper ferved up, you called, my young lady afked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and every thing in extremity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow ftraight. LA. CAP. We follow thee.-Juliet, the county stays. NURSE. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy [Exeunt, days. SCENE IV, A Street, Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO,3 BENVOLIO, with five or fix Maskers, Torch-Bearers, and Others. Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excufe? Or fhall we on without apology ? 2 Madam, &c.] To this speech there have been likewife additions fince the elder quarto, but they are not of fufficient consequence to be quoted. STEEVENS. 3 - Mercutio,] Shakspeare appears to have formed this character on the following flight hint in the original story : "-another gentleman called Mercutio, which was a courtlike gentleman, very wel beloved of all men, and by reason of his pleasant and curteous behavior was in al companies wel intertained." Painter's Palace of Pleasure, Tom. II. p. 221. STEEVENS. Mercutio is thus described in the poem which Shakspeare followed: "At thone fide of her chair her lover Romeo, BEN. The date is out of fuch prolixity: 4 We'll have no Cupid hood-wink'd with a scarf, "A courtier that each where was highly had in price, device. "Even as a lion would among the lambs be bold, "That frozen mountain ice was never half so cold, "As were his hands, though ne'er so near the fire he did them hold." Perhaps it was this last circumftance which induced our poet to represent Mercutio, as little sensible to the paffion of love, and "a jefter at wounds which he never felt." See Othello, Act III. fc. iv: "This hand is moist, my lady ;- See also Vol. XVII. p. 19, n. 5. MALONE. 3 The date is out of fuch prolixity:] i. e. Masks are now out of fashion. That Shakspeare was an enemy to these fooleries, appears from his writing none; and that his plays discredited such entertainments, is more than probable. WARBURTON. The diverfion going forward at present is not a masque, but a masquerade. In Henry VIII. where the king introduces himself to the entertainment given by Wolfey, he appears, like Romeo and his companions, in a mask, and sends a messenger before, to make an apology for his intrusion. This was a custom observed by those who came uninvited, with a defire to conceal themselves for the fake of intrigue, or to enjoy the greater freedom of conversation. Their entry on these occafions was always prefaced by fome speech in praise of the beauty of the ladies, or the generofity of the entertainer; and to the prolixity of such introductions, I believe Romeo is made to allude. So, in Hiftriomastix, 1610, a man expresses his wonder that the muskers enter without any compliment: "What come they in so blunt, without device?" In the accounts of many entertainments given in reigns antecedent to that of Elizabeth, I find this custom preserved. Of the same kind of masquerading, see a specimen in Timon, where Cupid precedes a troop of ladies with a speech. STEEVENS. Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,5 Rom. Give me a torch, I am not for this am bling; Being but heavy, I will bear the light. Shakspeare has written a masque which the reader will find introduced in the 4th Act of The Tempest. It would have been difficult for the reverend annotator to have proved they were difcontinued during any period of Shakspeare's life. PERCY. 5 Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,] The Tartarian bows, as well as most of those used by the Afiatick nations, resemble in their form the old Roman or Cupid's bow, such as we see on medals and bas reliefs. Shakspeare used the epithet to diftinguish it from the English bow, whose shape is the fegment of a circle. DOUCE. *-like a crow-keeper;] The word crow-keeper is explained in King Lear, Act IV. sc. vi. JOHNSON. See Vol. XVII. p. 541, n. 4. STEEVENS. 7 Nor no without-book prologue, &c.] The two following lines are inferted from the first edition. POPE. 8 for our entrance:] Entrance is here ufed as trifyllable; enterance. MALONE. • We'll measure them a meafure,] i. e. a dance. See Vol. VII. p. 154, n. 9. MALONE. * Give me a torch,] The character which Romeo declares his resolution to affume, will be best explained by a passage in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "He is just like a torch-bearer to maskers; he wears good cloaths, and is ranked in good company, but he doth nothing." A torch-bearer seems to have been a constant appendage on every troop of masks. So, in the second part of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: "As on a masque; but for our torch-bearers, Again, in the fame play: "-a gallant crew, " Of courtly maskers landed at the stairs; MER. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. Rom. Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes, With nimble soles: I have a foul of lead, So stakes me to the ground, I cannot move. MER. You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings, And foar with them above a common bound. RoM. I am too fore enpierced with his shaft, To foar with his light feathers; and so bound, I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe : 3 Under love's heavy burden do I fink. 4 MER. And, to fink in it, should you burden love; + "Before whom, unintreated, I am come, Before the invention of chandeliers, all rooms of state were illuminated by flambeaux which attendants held upright in their hands. This custom is mentioned by Froissart, and other writers who had the merit of describing every thing they saw. See a wooden cut in Vol. IX. p. 359. To hold a torch, however, was anciently no degrading office. Queen Elizabeth's Gentlemen-Penfioners attended her to Cambridge, and held torches while a play was acted before her in the Chapel of King's College, on a Sunday evening. At an entertainment also, given by Louis XIV. in 1664, no less than 200 valets-de-pied were thus employed. STEEVENS. King Henry VIII. when he went masked to Wolfey's palace, (now Whitehall,) had fixteen torch-bearers. See Vol. XV. p. 55. MALONE. * Mer. You are a lover; &c.) The twelve following lines are not to be found in the first edition. POPE. 3-fo bound, I cannot bound &c.] Let Milton's example, on this occafion, keep Shakspeare in countenance: - in contempt "At one flight bound high over-leap'd all bound "Of hill," &c. Paradise Lost, Book IV. I. 180. STEEVENS, -should you burden love;) i. e. by sinking in it, you Too great oppreffion for a tender thing. Rom. Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like thorn. MER. If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.Give me a cafe to put my visage in : [Putting on a Mask. A visor for a visor!-what care I, BEN. Come, knock, and enter; and no fooner in, But every man betake him to his legs. Rom. A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart,6 Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels; 7 Should, or would, burden love. Mr. Heath, on whose sugges tion a note of interrogation has been placed at the end of this line in the late editions, entirely misunderstood the passage. Had he attended to the first two lines of Mercutio's next speech, he would have seen what kind of burdens he was thinking of. See alfo the concluding lines of Mercutio's long speech in p. 60. MALONE. doth quote deformities?] To quote is to observe. So, in Hamlet: " I am forry, that with better heed and judgment See note on this passage, and Vol. IV. p. 217, n. 8. 6 STEEVENS. let wantons, light of heart, &c.] Middleton has borrowed this thought in his play of Blurt Master-Constable, 1602: -bid him, whose heart no forrow feels, "Tickle the rushes with his wanton heels, "I have too much lead at mine." STEEVENS. 7 Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels ;] It has been already observed, that it was anciently the custom to strew rooms with rushes, before carpets were in use. See Vol. XI. p. 331, n. 8. So Hentzner, in his Itinerary, speaking of Queen Eliza, 1 |