SC. I.
ROMEO AND JULIET
93
|
Till thou shalt know the reason of my[C 1] love: |
| Mer. | O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Alla stoccata[C 2][E 1] carries it away.[E 2][Draws.[C 3] Tybalt, you rat-catcher,[E 3] will you walk? |
| Tyb. | What wouldst thou have with me? |
| Mer. | Good king of cats, nothing but one of your80 nine lives,[E 4] that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat[E 5] the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher[E 6] by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it85 be out. |
| Tyb. | I am for you.[Drawing.[C 4] |
| Rom. | Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up. |
| Mer. | Come, sir, your passado.[E 7][They fight.[C 5] |
- ↑ 77. stoccata] defined by Florio "a thrust, a stoccado, a foyne."
- ↑ 77. carries it away] carries the day, as in Hamlet, II. ii. 377: "Do the boys carry it away?" Lettsom conjectures "carry it away!" Clarke thinks Alla stoccata is a jocose title for Tybalt.
- ↑ 78. rat-catcher] because king of cats. See note II. iv. 20.
- ↑ 81. nine lives] For another Elizabethan reference to a cat's nine lives, see Middleton, Blurt, Master Constable, IV. ii.
- ↑ 82. dry-beat] A blow that does not draw blood is a dry blow, but often used vaguely for hard. New Eng. Dict. (dry adj. 12) quotes Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement, etc., 1530, "Blo, blewe and grene coloured, as ones bodie is after a dry stroke." So Holland, Plutarch's Morals (1603), 1281: "His body … is drie beaten, brused and broken." See IV. v. 122.
- ↑ 84. pilcher] no other example known as used here for scabbard; probably the same as pilch, a leather coat or cloak, and hence applied to a scabbard. Steevens quotes examples of "leather pilch" from Nash, Pierce Pennilesse, and Dekker, Satiromastix, Staunton conjectures pilch, sir. Singer (ed. 2) reads pitcher, but without justification. See Gifford's note on pilcher in Jonson, Poetaster, III. i.
- ↑ 89. passado] See note II. iv. 28.
