SCENE I.
The STREET.
Enter Romeo alone.
Rom.
Can I go forward, when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out.
[Exit.
Enter Benvolio, with Mercutio.
Ben.
Romeo! my cousin Romeo!
Mer.
He is wise;
And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.
Ben.
He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.
Mer.
Nay, I'll conjure too.—
Why, Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but—Ay me! couple but—love and dove6 note;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nick-name to her purblind son and heir,
-- 52 --
7 noteYoung Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
8 note
When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.—
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead 9Q1106, 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 conjur'd it down;
That were some spight: 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 night9 note
note dewy night. Chapman uses the word in that sense in
his translation of Homer, book II. edit. 1598:
“The other gods and knights at arms slept all the humorous night.”
Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, song 3:
“Such matter as she takes from the gross humorous earth.”
Again, song 13th:
“&lblank; which late the humorous night
“Bespangled had with pearl &lblank;”
Again, in his Barons' Wars, canto I:
“The humorous fogs deprive us of his light.”
Steevens.
Again, in Measure for Measure: “The vaporous night approaches.”
Malone.:
-- 53 --
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,
1 note
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.9Q1107—
Romeo, good night;—I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
Come, shall we go?
-- 54 --
Ben.
Go, then; for 'tis in vain
To seek him here, that means not to be found.
[Exeunt.
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
