Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/127

Perchance she cannot meet him: that's not so. O, she is lame! love's heralds[C 1][E 1] should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide[C 2] than the sun's beams5 Driving back[E 2] shadows over louring[C 3] hills: Therefore do nimble-pinioned[C 4] doves draw Love,[E 3] And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost[E 4] hill Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve10 Is three[C 5] long hours, yet she is not come. Had she affections, and warm youthful blood, She'd[C 6] be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would bandy[E 5] her to my sweet love, And his to me:15 But old folks, many feign[C 7][E 6] as they were dead; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.—

Enter Nurse, with Peter.

O God, she comes!—O honey nurse, what news?

1. 4. heralds] Q 1, Q; Herauld F.
2. 5. glide] F 4; glides Q, F.
3. 6. louring] Q, F (lowring); lowering Furness.
4. 7. nimble-pinioned] hyphen Pope.
5. 11. Is three] Qq 3–5, Is there Q, I three F, Ay three Rowe.
6. 13. She'd] F 2; She would Q, F.
7. 16. feign] fain Q, faine F.

1. 4. love's heralds] So in Chester's Love's Martyr, 1601 (ed. Grosart, p. 151):
   "My inward Muse can sing of nought but Love,
   Thoughts are his heralds."

   After line 4 Q 1 adds two lines, resembling Act V. i. 64, 65:
   "And runne more swift, than hastie powder fierd,
   Doth hurrie from the fearfull Cannons mouth."

2. 6. back] Collier (MS.) reads black.
3. 7. Love] love Q, F, but Venus is meant, as described in Venus and Adonis, 1190, and Tempest, iv. i. 94.
4. 9. highmost] topmost, as in Sonnets, vii. 9.
5. 14. bandy] Nares: Originally a term at tennis; from bander, Fr.
6. 16. many feign] Johnson reads marry, feign; Grant White, marry, fare; Keightley, marry, seem; Dyce conjectured move yfaith, i.e. move i' faith. In Q "And his to me" forms part of the line continued to "dead," and is preceded by the italic letter M. Cambridge editors think lines 16, 17 probably an interpolation. Collier (MS.) reads: "As his to me: but old folks seem as dead," and substitutes dull for pale.