The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (Dowden)/Act 2/Scene 3

by William Shakespeare

SCENE III.—The Same. Friar Laurence's Cell.^{[C 1]}

Enter Friar Laurence, with a basket.^{[C 2]}

Fri.

[E 1] The grey-eyed[E 2] morn smiles on the frowning night, Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; And flecked[C 3][E 3] darkness like a drunkard reels From forth day's path and Titan's fiery[C 4] wheels:[E 4] Now, ere the sun advance[E 5] his burning eye 5 The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry, I must up-fill this osier cage[E 6] of ours With baleful weeds and precious-juiced[C 5] flowers. The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;[E 7] What is her burying grave, that is her womb, 10 And from her womb children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find, Many for many virtues excellent, None but for some, and yet all different. O, mickle[E 8] is the powerful grace that lies 15 In herbs, plants,[C 6] stones, and their true qualities: For nought so vile that on the earth doth live But to[E 9] the earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling[C 7] on abuse: 20 Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's[C 8] by action dignified. Within the infant rind of this weak[C 9][E 10] flower Poison hath residence and medicine[E 11] power: For this, being smelt, with that part[E 12] cheers each part; 25 Being tasted, slays[C 10][E 13] all senses with the heart. Two such opposed kings[C 11][E 14] encamp them still In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will; And where the worser is predominant, Full soon the canker[E 15] death eats up that plant. 30

Enter Romeo.^{[C 12]}

Rom.	Good morrow, father.

Fri.

Benedicite! What early tongue so sweet[C 13] saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distemper'd head So soon to bid good morrow[E 16] to thy bed: Care keeps his watch[E 17] in every old man's eye, 35 And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised[E 18] youth with unstuff'd brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign: Therefore thy earliness doth me assure Thou art up-roused by[C 14] some distemperature[E 19]; 40 Or if not so, then here I hit it right, Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

Rom.	That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

Fri.	God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?

Rom.	With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; 45 I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.

Fri.	That's my good son: but where hast thou been, then?

Rom.	I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine enemy, Where on a sudden one hath wounded me, 50 That's by me wounded: both our remedies[E 20] Within thy help and holy physic lies: I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo, My intercession likewise steads[E 21] my foe.

Fri.	Be plain, good son, and[C 15] homely in thy drift; 55 Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

Rom.

Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set On the fair daughter of rich Capulet: As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine; And all combined, save what thou must combine 60 By holy marriage: when, and where, and how, We met, we woo'd and made exchange of vow, I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray, That thou consent to marry us to-day.

Fri.

Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! 65 Is Rosaline, whom[C 16] thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! 70 How much salt water thrown away in waste, To season[E 22] love, that of it doth not taste! The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, Thy old groans ring yet[C 17] in mine[C 18] ancient ears; Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit 75 Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet. If e'er thou wast thyself and these woes thine, Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline: And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then: Women may fall, when there's no strength in men. 80

Rom.	Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rosaline.

Fri.	For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

Rom.	And bad'st me bury love.

Fri.	Not in a grave To lay one in, another out to have.

Rom.	I pray thee, chide not: she whom I[C 19] love now 85 Doth grace for grace and love for love allow; The other did not so.

Fri.	The other did not so. O, she knew well Thy love did read by rote[E 23] that[C 20] could not spell. But come, young waverer, come, go with me, In one respect I'll thy assistant be; 90 For this alliance may so happy prove, To turn your households'[C 21] rancour to pure love.

Rom.	O, let us hence; I stand on[E 24] sudden haste.

Fri.	Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.[Exeunt.

Critical notes

1. Friar Laurence's Cell] Malone; A Monastery Rowe; Fields near a Convent Capell.
2. Enter …] Rowe; Enter Frier alone with a basket Q, F; Enter Frier Francis Q 1.
3. 3. flecked] Q 1, fleckeld Q, fleckled F.
4. 4. fiery] Q 1; burning, Q, F.
5. 8. precious-juiced] hyphen Pope.
6. 16. herbs, plants] Q 1; Plants, hearbes Q, F.
7. 20. from … stumbling] Q, F; to vice, and stumbles Q 1.
8. 22. sometime's] Capell; sometimes Q 1; sometime Q, F.
9. 23. weak] Q, F; small Q 1 and many editors.
10. 26. slays] F, staies Q (alone).
11. 27. kings] Q, F; foes, Q 1.
12. 30. Enter Romeo] Pope; after line 22 Q, F.
13. 32. sweet] Q, F; soon Q 1.
14. 40. by Q 1; with Q, F.
15. 55. and] Q, rest F.
16. 66. whom] Q 1; that Q, F.
17. 74. ring yet] Q 1; yet ringing Q, F; yet ring Qq 4, 5, Ff 2–4;
18. mine] Q; my Q 1, F.
19. 85. chide … I] Q 1; chide me not, her I Q, F.
20. 88. that] Q, F; and Q 1 and many editors.
21. 92. households'] Capell, housholds Q, houshould F.

Explanatory notes

1. 1–4. The … wheels] Attempting to remedy the confusion recorded in the last note, Ff 2–4 omit these lines here, leaving them in our Scene ii.
2. 1. grey-eyed] Tourneur in The Atheist's Tragedie, I. iii., has: "The gray eie'd Morning makes the fairest day." Grey may mean what we understand by the word, or bluish grey. See a fuller note on the word as it occurs in II. iv. 47.
3. 3. flecked] dappled (not obsolete). The fleckled of F implies little streaks or spots (diminutive fleckle). Compare Much Ado, V. iii. 27.
4. 4. From … wheels] Pope read with Q in the lines erroneously printed at the close of Scene ii., and, with Ff 2–4 here, path-way, made by.
5. 5. advance] lift up, as,(of eyelids) in Tempest, I. ii. 408.
6. 7. osier cage] Steevens quotes Drayton's description, in Polyolbion, xiii., of a hermit filling his osier maund or basket with simples. Shakespeare had the suggestion for this passage from Brooke's poem; it prepares us for the friar's skill in furnishing the sleeping-potion in IV. "Osier cage of ours," possibly not merely for the rhyme's sake, but because the Franciscan had no personal property.
7. 9. her tomb] Steevens compares Lucretius (v. 259): "Omniparens eadem rerum comnune sepulchrum," and Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 911: "The womb of nature and perhaps her grave." Malone adds Pericles, II. iii. 45, 46.
8. 15. mickle] Except in Henry V. (Pistol speaking) this word occurs only in Shakespeare's early plays.
9. 18. to] Hanmer reads to't, making earth the giver. Malone explains earth as inhabitants of the earth.
10. 23. weak] A gain on small Q 1, as opposed to power, line 24.
11. 24. medicine] Warburton conjectured medicinal, and Capell medicine's.
12. 25. that part] the odorous part; or, as Malone explains, "the olfactory nerves," with meaning together with. The comma after smelt is in F; absent from Q, which has a comma after part.
13. 26. slays] Mommsen accepts Q stays, in the sense "brings to a standstill."
14. 27. kings] Rowe reads kinds. Malone compares A Lover's Complaint, 202, 203.

    "Effects of terror and dear modesty,
    Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly."

15. 30. canker] the canker-worm, as in Midsummer Night's Dream, II. ii. 3; and Venus and Adonis, line 656.
16. 34. good morrow] Here a parting good morrow.
17. 35. watch] waking, as in Hamlet, II. ii. 148.
18. 37. unbruised] Collier (MS.) has unbusied.
19. 40. distemperature] disturbance of mind, or of body.
20. 51. both our remedies] the remedy of us both; so "both our mothers," the mother of us both, All's Well, I. iii. 160.
21. 54. steads] benefits, as frequently in Shakespeare.
22. 72. season] give a relish to. Compare All's Well, I. i. 55: "'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in." Q 1 has "that of love doth not taste."
23. 88. read by rote] repeated phrases learnt by heart, but had no intelligence of the beggarly elements of true passion.
24. 93. stand on] it imports me much to be speedy (Staunton). So II. iv. 36; "who stand so much on the new form."