Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/126

other letter—and she hath the prettiest230 sententious[E 1] of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.

Rom.	Commend me to thy lady.[Exit Romeo.[C 1]

Nurse.

Ay, a thousand times. Peter![C 2]

Peter.

Anon?[C 3]235

Nurse.

Before, and apace.[C 4][E 2][Exeunt.

SCENE V.—The Same. Capulet's Orchard.^{[C 5]}

Enter Juliet.

Jul.	The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; In half an hour she promised to return.

1. 233. Exit Romeo] Rowe; omitted Q, F; before Peter line 234 Dyce.
2. 234. times. Peter!] Hanmer, times Peter Q, times. Peter? F.
3. 235. Anon?] Theobald; Anon. Q, F.
4. 236. Before, and apace] Q, F (without comma); Peter take my fanne, and goe before Q1, Steevens; Peter take my fan, and go before, and apace Cambridge.
5. Capulet's Orchard] Globe, Capulet's house Rowe, Capulet's garden Capell.

So Barclay names R in his Ship of Fools. The word ar serves for the name of the letter (see New Eng. Dict.) and as a verb for to growl; so Nash, Summer's Last Will, 1600: "They arre and bark at night against the moon." There is classical authority; that of Persius, and an allusion by Lucilius. A pleasant illustration appears in Baret's Alvearie, where through the loop of the large capital R, introducing the words beginning with that letter, a standing dog peers out; this design is peculiar to the letter R; the letter, says Baret jocularly, is so necessary, "no man hath any colour to barke against it.… Persius calleth R literam caninam." Milton, according to Aubrey, pronounced r very hard—on which Dryden remarked, "litera canina, the dog-letter, a certain sign of a satirical wit." Masson's Life of Milton, vi. 679.

1. 231. sententious] I think the Nurse means sentences in the sense of adages or maxims, as in Merchant of Venice, i. ii. 11: "Good sentences and well pronounced." Possibly we should read sententions.
2. 236. Before, and apace] The "take my fan" of Q1 may have been an actor's repetition of the joke of line 114, and irresistible to an actor; but Q, F are content to let the Nurse make her exit in all haste, without now thinking of her dignity.