Chapter CXXX: Act II: SCENE 2. Page 398

ROM. It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.

This line in particular, and perhaps the whole of the Scene, has been imitated by the ingenious author of the Latin comedy of _Labyrinthus_. In Act III. Scene 4, two lovers meet at night, and the Romeo of the piece says to his mistress, "Quid mihi noctem commemoras, mea salus? Splendens nunc subitò illuxit dies, ubi tu primum, mea lux, oculorum radiis hasce dispulisti tenebras." This excellent play was acted before King James I. at Cambridge, and for bustle and contrivance has perhaps never been exceeded.

SCENE 2. Page 398.

JUL. Thou art thyself _though_, not a Montagu.

Dr. Johnson would have substituted _then_ for _though_; but without necessity, because _in that sense_ the latter word was anciently written _tho_: unskilful printers, deceived by sound, substituted _though_; whence the ambiguity has arisen. Thus Chaucer in his _Canterbury tales_, v. 2214,

"Yet sang the larke, and Palamon right _tho_
With holy herte and with a high corāge
He rose."

And again, v. 2392,

"For thilk sorrow that was _tho_ in thyn herte."

Thus much in explanation of _though_, if put here for _then_, which is by no means clear. Mr. Malone's quotations on the other side of the question carry great weight with them.

SCENE 2. Page 400.

ROM. When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

On this occasion Shakspeare recollected the 104th _psalm_, "Who maketh the clouds his charet, who walketh upon the wings of the winde."

SCENE 2. Page 405.

JUL. ... at lovers perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.

This Shakspeare found in Ovid's _Art of love_, perhaps in Marlow's translation, book I,

"For Jove himself sits in the azure skies,
_And laughs below at lovers perjuries_."

With the following beautiful antithesis to the above lines, every reader of taste will be gratified. It is given _memoriter_ from some old play, the name of which is forgotten;

"_When lovers swear true faith_, the list'ning angels
Stand on the golden battlements of heaven,
And waft their vows to the eternal throne."

SCENE 2. Page 410.

ROM. How _silver-sweet_ sound lovers tongues by night.

In _Pericles_, Act V., we have _silver-voic'd_. Perhaps these epithets have been formed from the common notion that silver mixed with bells softens and improves their tone. We say likewise that a person is _silver-tongued_.

SCENE 3. Page 414.

FRI. O mickle is the powerful grace, that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good, but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

Thus all the copies. But in Swan's _Speculum mundi_, the first edition of which was published in 1635, they are quoted with the following variations;

"O mickle is the powerful _good_ that lies
In herbs, _trees_, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some _secret_ good doth give.
_And nought so rich on either rock or shelf;
But, if unknown, lies uselesse to itself._"

SCENE 4. Page 427.

MER. ... for this driveling love is like a great natural, that runs
lolling up and down _to hide his bauble in a hole_.

When the physical conformation of idiots is considered, the latent but obscene allusion which this speech conveys will be instantly perceived. What follows is still less worthy of _particular_ illustration. Mercutio riots in this sort of language. The epithet _driveling_ is applied to love as a _slavering idiot_; but Sir Philip Sidney has made Cupid an _old drivell_. See the lines quoted from the Arcadia by Dr. Farmer, _Much ado about nothing_, Act III. Scene 2.

SCENE 4. Page 431.

NURSE. I pray you sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so
full of his _ropery_?

Mr. Steevens has justly observed that the term _merchant_ was anciently used in contradistinction to _gentleman_. _Whetstone_, in his _Mirour for majestrates of cyties_, 1584, 4to, speaking of the usurious practices of the citizens of London who attended the gaming-houses for the purpose of supplying the gentlemen players with money, has the following remark: "The extremity of these men's dealings hath beene and is so cruell as there is a natural malice generally impressed in the hearts of the gentlemen of England towards the citizens of London, insomuch as if they odiously name a man, they foorthwith call him, a _trimme merchaunt_. In like despight the citizen calleth every rascall _a joly gentleman_. And truly this mortall envie betweene these two woorthie estates, was first engendred of the cruell usage of covetous merchaunts in hard bargaines gotten of gentlemen, and nourished with malitious words and revenges taken of both parties."

With respect to _ropery_,--the word seems to have been deemed unworthy of a place in our early dictionaries, and was probably coined in the mint of the slang or canting crew. It savours strongly of the halter, and appears to have signified a low kind of knavish waggery. From some other words of similar import, it may derive illustration. Thus a _rope-rype_ is defined in Hulæt's _Abcedarium_ to be "an ungracious waghalter, _nequam_;" and in Minsheu's dictionary, "one ripe for a rope, or for whom the gallowes grones." A _roper_ has nearly the same definition in the English vocabulary at the end of Thomasii _Dictionarium_, 1615, 4to; but the word occasionally denoted a crafty fellow, or one who would practise a fraud against another (for which he might deserve hanging). So in the book of blasing of arms or coat armour, ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, the author says, "which crosse I saw but late in tharmes of a noble man: the whiche in very dede was somtyme _a crafty man, a roper_, as he himself sayd," sig. Aij. b. _Roper_ had also another sense, which, though rather foreign to the present purpose, is so quaintly expressed in one of our old dictionaries, that the insertion of it will doubtless be excused:--"Roper, _restio_, is he that loketh in at John Roper's window by translation, he that hangeth himselfe."--Hulæt's _Abcedarium_ Anglico-Latinum, 1552, folio. _Rope-tricks_, elsewhere used by Shakspeare, belongs also to this family.

SCENE 4. Page 431.

NURSE. I am none of his skains-mates.

This has been explained _cut-throat companions_, and _frequenters of the fencing school_, from _skein_, a knife or dagger. The objection to this interpretation is, that the nurse could not very well compare herself with characters which it is presumed would scarcely be found among females of any description. One commentator thinks that she uses _skains-mates_ for _kins-mates_, and _ropery_ for _roguery_; but the latter words have been already shown to be synonymous, and the existence of such a term as _kins-mate_ may be questioned. Besides, the nurse blunders only in the use of less obvious words.

The following conjecture is therefore offered, but not with entire confidence in its propriety. It will be recollected that there are _skains of thread_; so that the good nurse may perhaps mean nothing more than _sempstresses_, a word not always used in the most honourable acceptation. She had before stated that she was "none of his flirt-gills."