Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

It is my lady; O! it is my love;
O, that she knew we were!]

This line and half I have replaced.

II.ii.39 (47,7) Thou art thyself, though not a Montague] I think the true reading is,

Thou art thyself, then not a Montague.

Thou art a being of peculiar excellence, and hast none of the malignity of the family, from which thou hast thy name.—Hanmer reads,

Thour't not thyself so, though a Montague.

II.iii.15 (53,6) the powerful grace, that lies/In plants] Efficacious virtue.

II.iii.27 (53,7) Two such opposed foes encamp them still] [W: opposed kin] Foes may be the right reading, or kings, but I think kin can hardly be admitted. Two kings are two opposite powers, two contending potentates, in both the natural and moral world. The word encamp is proper to commanders. (see 1765, VIII, 46, 2)

II.iv.20 (57,3) courageous captain of compliments] A complete master of all the laws of ceremony, the principal man in the doctrine of punctilio.

"A man of compliments, whom right and wrong
"Have chose as umpire;"

says our author of Don Armado, the Spaniard, in Love's Labour Lost.

II.iv.27 (57,6) the hay!] All the terms of the modern fencing-school were originally Italian; the rapier, or small thrusting sword, being first used in Italy. The hay is the word hai, you have it, used when a thrust reaches the antagonist, from which our fencers, on the same occasion, without knowing, I suppose, any reason for it, cry out, ha!

II.iv.35 (58,9) these pardonnez-moy's] Pardonnez-moi became the language of doubt or hesitation among men of the sword, when the point of honour was grown so delicate, that no other mode of contradiction would be endured.

II.iv.64 (59,3) then is my pump wall flower'd] Here is a vein of wit too thin to be easily found. The fundamental idea is, that Romeo wore pinked pumps, that is, pumps punched with holes in figures.

II.iv.87 (60,7) a wit of cheverel] Cheverel is soft-leather for gloves.

II.iv.138 (62,8) No hare, Sir] Mercutio having roared out, So ho! the cry of the sportsmen when they start a hare; Romeo asks what he has found. And Mercutio answers, No hare, &c. The rest is a series of quibbles unworthy of explanation, which he who does not understand, needs not lament his ignorance.

II.iv.162 (63,1) none of his skains-mates] The word skains-mate, I do not understand, but suppose that skains was some low play, and skains-mate, a companion at such play.

II.iv.200 (64,2) like a tackled stair] Like stairs of rope in the tackle of a ship.

II.iv.222 (65,4) Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for the nonce; I know it begins with another letter] This passage is thus in the old folio. A mocker, that's the dog's name. R is for the no, I know it begins with some other letter. In this copy the error is but small. I read, Ah, mocker. that's the dog's name. R is for the nonce, I know it begins with another letter. For the nonce, is for some design, for a sly trick.

II.vi.15 (70,2) Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow] He that travels too fast is as long before he comes to the end of his journey, as he that travels slow. Precipitation produces mishap.

III.i.2 (71,1) The day is hot] It is observed, that in Italy almost all assassinations are committed during the heat of summer.

III.i.124 (75,6) This day's black fate on more days does depend] This day's unhappy destiny hangs over the days yet to come. There will yet be more mischief.

III.i.141 (78,7) Oh! I am fortune's fool] I am always running in the way of evil fortune, like the fool in the play. Thou art death's fool, in Measure for Measure. See Dr. Warburton's note.

III.i.153 (77,8) as thou art true] As thou art just and upright.

III.i.159 (77,9) How nice the quarrel] How slight, how unimportant, how petty. So in the last act,

The letter was not nice, but full of charge
Of dear import.

III.i.182 (78,2) Affection makes him false] The charge of falshood on Bonvolio, though produced at hazard, is very just. The author, who seems to intend the character of Bonvolio as good, meant perhaps to shew, how the best minds, in a state of faction and discord, are detorted to criminal partiality.

III.i.193 (78,3) I have an interest in your hate's proceeding: Sir Thomas Hanmer saw that this line gave no sense, and therefore put, by a very easy change,

I have an interest in your heat's proceeding!

which is undoubtedly better than the old reading which Dr. Warburton has followed; but the sense yet seems to be weak, and perhaps a more licentious correction is necessary. I read therefore,

I had no interest in your heat's preceding.

This, says the prince, is no quarrel of mine, I had no interest in your former discord; I suffer merely by your private animosity.

III.ii.5 (79,3) Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,/That run-away's eyes may wink] [Warburton explained the "run-away" as the "sun"] I am not satisfied with this explanation, yet have nothing better to propose.

III.ii.10 (80,4) Come, civil night] Civil is grave, decently solemn.

III.ii.14 (80,5) unmann'd blood] Blood yet unacquainted with man.

III.ii.25 (81,6) the garish sun] Milton had this speech in his thoughts when he wrote Il Penseroso.

"—Civil night,
"Thou sober-suited matron."—Shakespeare.
"Till civil-suited morn appear."—Milton.
"Pay no worship to the gairish sun."—Shakespeare.
"Hide me from day's gairish eye."—Milton.

III.ii.46 (82,7) the death-darting eye of cockatrice] [The strange lines that follow here in the common books are not in the old edition. POPE.] The strange lines are these:

I am not I, if there be such an I,
Or these eyes shot, that makes thee answer I;
If he be slain, say I; or if not, no;
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

These lines hardly deserve emendatien; yet it may be proper to observe, that their meanness has not placed them below the malice of fortune, the two first of them being evidently transposed; we should read,

—That one vowel I shall poison more,
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice,
Or these eyes shot, that make thee answer, I.
I am not I, &c.

III.ii.114 (85,9) Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts] Hath put Tybalt out of my mind, as if out of being.

III.ii.120 (85,1) Which modern lamentation might have mov'd] This line is left out of the later editions, I suppose because the editors did not remember that Shakespeare uses modern for common, or slight: I believe it was in his time confounded in colloquial language with moderate.

III.iii.112 (89,4)