The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (Dowden)/Act 4/Scene 4

SCENE IV.—The Same. Hall in Capulet's house.^{[C 1]}

Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

Lady Cap.

Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

Nurse.

They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.[E 1]

Enter Capulet.

Cap.	Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd, The curfew bell[E 2] hath rung, 'tis three o'[C 2] clock: Look to the baked meats,[E 3] good Angelica:[E 4]5 Spare not for cost.

Nurse.[E 5]

Spare not for cost. Go, you cot-quean,[E 6] go, Get you to bed; faith, you'll be sick to-morrow For this night's watching.

Cap.	No, not a whit: what, I have watch'd ere now All night for lesser[C 3] cause, and ne'er been sick.10

Lady Cap.

Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt[E 7] in your time; But I will watch you from such watching now.

[Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse.

Cap.	A jealous-hood,[C 4][E 8] a jealous-hood!— Enter three or four Servingmen, with spits, logs, and baskets. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!— Now, fellow, What's[C 5] there?

First Serv.[C 6]

Things for the cook, sir, but I know not what.15

Cap.	Make haste, make haste.[C 7]Make haste, make haste. [Exit first Serv.]— Sirrah, fetch drier logs: Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

Second Serv.[C 8]

I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter.[Exit.[C 9]

Cap.

Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!20 Thou shalt be logger-head.—Good faith,[C 10] 'tis day: The county will be here with music straight, For so he said he would.[Music within.[C 11] For so he said he would. I hear him near.— Nurse!—Wife!—What, ho!—What, nurse, I say! Re-enter Nurse. Go waken Juliet, go, and trim her up;25 I'll go and chat with Paris:—hie, make haste, Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already: Make haste, I say.[Exeunt.[C 12]

Critical notes

1. Hall …] Theobald (substantially).
2. 4. o'] Theobald; a Q, F.
3. 10. lesser] Q, lesse F, a lesse F 2.
4. 13. jealous-hood] hyphen F 4.
5. 14. What's] F 2, What is Q, What F.
6. 15. First Serv.] Capell; Fel. [=Fellow] Q, F.
7. 16. haste. [Exit …]] Capell, haste Q, haste, F.
8. 18. Second Serv.] Capell; Fel. Q, F.
9. 19. Exit] Capell.
10. 21. faith] Qq 4, 5, F 2; father Q, F.
11. 23. Music within] Capell (line 22), as here Cambridge; Play Musicke (after line 21) Q, F.
12. 28. Exeunt] Capell.

Explanatory notes

1. 2. pastry the room where paste was made; so pantry, spicery, laundry, buttery. Staunton quotes from Breton, A Floorish upon Fancie (1582): "The pastrie, mealehouse, and the roome whereas the coales do ly."
2. 4. curfew bell] Strictly this was an evening bell (couvre feu) rung at eight or nine o'clock. Shakespeare uses curfew correctly in Measure for Measure, IV. ii. 78. The word came to be used of other ringings. Thus, in Liverpool Municipal Records of 1673 and 1704 (quoted in New Eng. Dict.): "Ring Curphew all the yeare long at 4 a clock in the morning and eight at a night." Q 1 reads: "The Curfewe bell hath rung, t'is foure a clocke."
3. 5. baked meats] pastry, pies, as in Hamlet, I. ii. 180; Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement (1530): "Bake meate, viands en paste."
4. 5. Angelica] more probably Lady Capulet (to whom "Spare not for cost" seems appropriate) than the Nurse.
5. 6. Nurse] Z. Jackson suggested that this speech belongs to Lady Capulet; Singer and Hudson adopt the suggestion, sending the Nurse off the stage after line 2. But on such an occasion the old retainer might be familiar with her master. Q 1 makes Capulet reply to this speech: "I warrant thee Nurse I have," etc.
6. 6 Go, you cot-quean] Theobald and other editors read Go go, to emend the verse. Cot-quean is primarily the housewife of a labourer's cot; thence a vulgar, scolding woman; used of a man it means a man who acts the housewife. So Roaring Girl (1611)—Dekker, Works, 1873, iii. 177: "I cannot abide these aperne [apron] husbands; such cot-queanes."
7. 11. mouse-hunt] "Mouse," as a term of endearment for a woman, appears in Hamlet III. iv. 183, and elsewhere in Shakespeare; mouse- hunt would, accordingly, mean pursuer of women. "Hunt," meaning hunter, is not uncommon; thus Turbervile, Book of Venerie (1575): "Then the chiefe hunte shall take his knife, and cut off the deares ryght foote." Dyce and others, however, explain mouse-hunt as the stoat, and attribute to the animal strong sexual propensities. Cassio (Dyce notes), in Othello, calls Bianca a "fitchew"—that is, a polecat.
8. 13. jealous-hood] What are called nonce-formations (made for an occasion) are common with -hood. Here the abstract, equivalent to jealousy, is put for the concrete.