134
ROMEO AND JULIET
[ACT IV.
Fri. | You say you do not know the lady's mind: Uneven[E 2] is the course; I like it not.5 |
Par. | Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death, And therefore have I little talk'd[C 2][E 3] of love, For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous That she doth[C 3] give her sorrow so much sway,[E 4]10 And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,[E 5] To stop the inundation of her tears, Which, too much minded by herself alone, May be put from her by society: Now do you know the reason of this haste.[C 4]15 |
Fri. | [Aside.][C 5] I would I knew not why it should be slow'd—[E 6] Look, sir, here comes the lady towards[C 6] my cell. |
Enter Juliet.
Par. | Happily met,[C 7] my lady and my wife! |
Jul. | That may be, sir, when I may be a wife. |
- ↑ 3. slow to slack] Malone: "There is nothing of slowness in me, to induce me to slacken or abate his haste." Johnson conjectured back(for slack), i.e. to abet and enforce. Knight: "I am nothing slow (so as) to slack his haste," which seems the right explanation.
- ↑ 5. Uneven] indirect, not straightforward. See New Eng. Dict., even, 4. Compare "even play of battle," Henry V. IV. viii. 114, and Hamlet, II. ii. 298: "be even and direct with me."
- ↑ 7. talk'd] Mommsen defends talk Q, F, as referring to Juliet's silence consequent on her grief.
- ↑ 10. sway] Collier (MS.) way.
- ↑ 11. marriage] a trisyllable, as occasionally elsewhere in Shakespeare.
- ↑ 16. slow'd] Steevens cites Gorges' Lucaris Pharsalia, ii.: "will you overflow The fields, thereby my march to slow."