112
ROMEO AND JULIET
[ACT III.
|
Thou wilt be taken.—Stay awhile!—Stand up;75 Run to my study.—By and by! Who knocks so hard? whence come you? what's your will? |
| Nurse. | [Within.][C 3] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand; I come from Lady Juliet. |
| Fri. | Welcome then.80 |
Enter Nurse.[C 4]
| Nurse. | O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar, Where is[C 5] my lady's lord, where's Romeo? |
| Fri. | There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk. |
| Nurse. | O, he is even in my mistress' case, Just in her case! |
| Fri. | O woeful sympathy!85 Piteous predicament![E 2] |
- ↑ 75. Knocking] The puzzling stage-direction of Q "Slud knock" may, I think, be thus explained: The original word in line 76 was not study; stud was written above, but the word could not be completed, being interrupted by knock; study was written in the margin, and stud was not erased; which the printer misrepresented as Slud.
- ↑ 85, 86. Fri. O … predicament] In all the early editions these words are given to the Nurse. Farmer conjectured that they are the Friar's; Steevens and most modern editors have adopted the suggestion. Unless the Nurse, in the presence of the learned Friar, produces her longest words, predicament can hardly be hers. It means here, condition; it is used for category, condition, by Portia, Merchant of Venice, IV. i. 357, and by Hotspur, 1 Henry IV. I. iii. 168. The word sympathy, mean-
