Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/72

Jul.	It is an honour[C 1] that I dream not of.

Nurse.

An honour! were not I thine only nurse, I would[E 1] say thou hadst suck'd wisdom[C 2] from thy teat.[C 3]

Lady Cap.

Well, think of marriage now; younger than you, Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, 70 Are made already mothers. By[C 4] my count, I was your mother much upon these years[E 2] That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief; The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

Nurse.

A man, young lady! lady, such a man 75 As all the world[C 5]—why, he's a man of wax.[C 6][E 3]

Lady Cap.

Verona's summer hath not such a flower.

Nurse.

Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower.

Lady Cap.

What say you?[E 4] can you love the gentleman?

1. 66, 67. honour] Q1; houre Q, F.
2. 68. wisdom] Q, F; thy wisdome Qq 4, 5.
3. 67, 68.] verse Pope; prose Q, F.
4. 71. mothers. By] F, mothers by Q.
5. 76. world—] F4; world. Q, F.
6. 75, 76.] verse Pope; prose Q, F.

1. 68. I would] many editors follow Pope in the contraction I'd.
2. 72. these years] Juliet being fourteen, Lady Capulet is "much upon" twenty-eight. Staunton observes that her husband, old Capulet, having done masking some thirty years (I. v. 37), must be at least threescore. Knight changes your mother to a mother.
3. 76. a man of wax] a man for beauty like a model in wax; see III. iii. 126. Steevens quotes from Wily Beguiled: "A man as one should picture him in wax"; White, from Euphues and his England: "So exquisite that for shape he must be framed in wax." Dyce, from Fair Em:

   "A body, were it framed of wax
   By all the cunning artists of the world,
   It could not better be proportioned."

   Field, in A Woman is a Weathercock, has, "By Jove, it is a little man of wax." Ingleby's notion that it means a man of full growth does not deserve consideration, and finds no support from 2 Henry IV. I. ii. 180, where Falstaff plays on wax of a candle and wax to grow in size.
4. 79. What say you?] This bravura speech of ingenious conceits is supposed by Ulrici to have a deep dramatic design to exhibit Lady Capulet as an artificial woman of the world in her euphuistic speech. It probably means no more than that the writer was immature and liked such conceits, as seen in Lucrece, quoted line 86, note.