Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/131

SCENE VI.—The Same. Friar Laurence's cell.^{[C 1]}

Enter Friar Laurence and Romeo.^{[E 1]}

Fri.	So smile the heavens upon this holy act, That after-hours[C 2] with sorrow chide us not!

Rom.	Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight.5 Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare, It is enough I[C 3] may but call her mine.

Fri.

These violent[E 2] delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,10 Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey Is loathsome in his[E 3] own deliciousness And in the taste confounds[E 4] the appetite: Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.15 Enter Juliet. Here comes the lady: O, so light[E 5] a foot

1. Friar Laurence's cell] Capell.
2. 2. after-hours] hyphen Pope.
3. 8. enough I] Q, inough. I F.

1. Enter … ] For the corresponding scene in Q 1, see p. 183.
2. 9. These violent …] Malone compares Lucrece, line 894: "Thy violent vanities can never last"; Rolfe adds Hamlet, II. i. 102, 103.
3. 12. his] its.
4. 13. confounds] destroys, ruins; the most frequent meaning of confound with Shakespeare.
5. 16. so light … The corresponding lines in Q 1 are:
   "So light of foote nere hurts the troden flower:
   Of love and joy, see see the soveraigne power."
   Critics have preferred this earlier reading, not considering the dramatic propriety of the later text. The moralising Friar thinks of the hardness and sharpness of the path of life.