Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/112

Ben.	[C 1]Tybalt, the kinsman to[C 2] old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father's house.

Mer.	A challenge, on my life.

Ben.	Romeo will answer it.

Mer.	Any man that can write may answer a 10 letter.

Ben.	Nay, he will answer[E 1] the letter's master, how he dares, being dared.[E 2]

Mer.	Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabbed[E 3] with a white wench's[E 4] black eye; shot[C 3] thorough[C 4] 15 the ear with a love-song; the very pin[E 5] of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft[E 6]; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

Ben.	[C 5]Why, what is Tybalt?

Mer.	More than prince[C 6] of cats[E 7], I can tell you. O, 20

1. 6, 7.] verse Q 1; prose Q, F.
2. 6. to] Q, F; of Q 1.
3. 15. shot] Q 1; run Q, F and several editors;
4. thorough] Q 1; through Q, F.
5. 19, 20. Why … O] Capell from Q 1; Q, F omit I can tell you.
6. 20. prince] Q, F; the prince Q 1.

1. 12. answer] The same play on answer (by letter or word) and answer, encounter in person, occurs in Hamlet (see note on V. ii. 173, ed. Dowden).
2. 13. dared] challenged. So Lyly, Euphues (ed. Arber), 316: "An Englishman … [cannot] suffer … to be dared by any."
3. 14, 15.] Daniel conjectures dead-stabbed, and argues for run Q, F, instead of shot.
4. 15. white wench's] White may mean only pale-complexioned; but the word was commonly used as a term of endearment or favour; so "white boy" of a favourite son; we have even "his white villaine." See Nares' Glossary.
5. 16. pin] Malone: "The clout or white mark at which the arrows [in archery] are directed was fastened by a black pin placed in the center." See Love's Labour's Lost, IV. i. 138. So Middleton, No Wit, No Help like a Woman's, II i. 27: "And I'll cleave the black pin in the midst o' the white."
6. 17. butt-shaft] an unbarbed arrow used for shooting at butts. "The marks to shoot at," says G. Markham (Country Contentments, p. 108, ed. 1616), "are three, Buts, Pricks, and Rovers. "The Butt is a level mark, and therefore would have an arrow with a very broad feather. So Love's Lab. Lost, I. ii. 181: "Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club."
7. 20. prince of cats] Tybert is the cat's name in Reynard the Fox. Steevens quotes Dekker, Satiromastix, "Tybert, the long-tailed prince of cats," and Nash, Have with You to Saffron Walden: "not Tibalt prince of cats."