Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/104

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ROMEO AND JULIET
[ACT II.

To cease thy suit,[C 1][E 1] and leave me to my grief:
To-morrow will I send.

Rom. So thrive my soul,—[C 2]
Jul. A thousand times good night![Exit.[C 3]
Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.[C 4] 155
Love goes toward love, as school-boys from their books,
But love from love, toward[C 5] school[E 2] with heavy looks.
[Retiring slowly.

Re-enter Juliet, above.

Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist!—O, for a falconer's voice,
To lure this tassel-gentle[C 6][E 3] back again!
Bondage is hoarse,[E 4] and may not speak[C 7] aloud; 160
Else would I tear the cave[E 5] where Echo lies,
  1. 152. suit] Qq 4, 5; strife Q, F.
  2. 153. soul,—] Theobald; soule. Q, F.
  3. 154. Exit] F, omitted Q.
  4. 155. light] Q, F; sight Qq 4, 5.
  5. 157. toward] Q, towards F.
  6. 159. tassel-gentle] Hanmer; Tassel gentle Q, F.
  7. 160. speak] Q, F; crie Q 1.

    Eng. Dict. quotes Cogan, Haven of Health: "Ill seeds … shew not themselves by and by, but yet in processe of time they bud forth."

  1. 152. suit] The reading suit is confirmed by the occurrence of "to cease your suit" in the corresponding passage of Brooke's poem.
  2. 157. toward school] Rolfe compares As You Like It, II. vii. 145—Jaques' "whining schoolboy."
  3. 159. lure this tassel-gentle] Madden, Diary of Master William Silence, p. 157: "The males of the hawks principally used in falconry—the peregrine and goshawk—were called 'tiercels' or 'tercels' [corrupted to tassels], because (it is said) they are smaller than the females by one third; the male of the nobler species—the peregrine—being distinguished by the addition of the word 'gentle.' There was thus a subtle tribute paid by Juliet to her lover's nobility of nature." Minsheu, Guide into the Tongues, gives rapel as a synonym for lure for a hawk, from Fr. "Rapeler, i., reappellare, i., to repeale or call backe." In Mabbe's translation of Gusman de Alfarache, 1623 (quoted by Rolfe), tassel-gentles, used metaphorically, is explained in the margin as "Kinde Lovers." In Massinger's The Guardian, I. i., the tiercel gentle is named as the bird "for an evening flight."
  4. 160. hoarse] Daniel reads husht, and in line 162 for mine he reads Fame (rhyming with name).
  5. 161. tear … cave] Milton's ear perhaps was haunted by this passage;