SC. V.
ROMEO AND JULIET
121
|
I have more care to stay than will to go: |
| Jul. | It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division;[E 1] This doth not so, for she divideth us:30 Some say the lark and loathed toad[E 2] change eyes; O, now I would they had changed voices too! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,[E 3] Hunting thee hence with hunts-up[E 4] to the day. O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.35 |
| Rom. | More light and light;[E 5] more dark and dark our woes! |
- ↑ 25. How … soul?] Q, F; What sayes my Love? Q 1.
- ↑ 29. division] New Eng. Dict.: "A rapid melodic passage, originally conceived as the dividing of each of a succession of long notes into several short ones." Naylor (Shakespeare and Music, p. 28) notes the cant term "note-splitting" for the old-fashioned variation. Compare 1 Henry IV. III. i. 211: "ravishing division, to her lute." The songster (line 30) is again she; Q 1 reads this in place of she.
- ↑ 31. toad] Warburton says that the toad having fine eyes and the lark ugly ones, it was commonly said that they had changed eyes. Johnson quotes a "rustic rhyme" to this effect. Several editors follow Rowe in reading changed for change. Heath explains: If the toad and lark had changed voices, the lark's croak would be no signal of the day. Lines 33, 34 seem to show that the joy of the lark's song adds a bitterness to Juliet's grief, and that she wishes the bird had a harsh voice to sing of harshness.
- ↑ 33. affray] Not frighten (as Schmidt says), but disturb or startle from sleep or quiet, as Chaucer in Blaunche the Duchess (line 296) is affrayed out of his sleep by "smaie foules."
- ↑ 34. hunts-up] New Eng. Dict.: "Originally the hunt is up, name of an old song and its tune, sung or played to awaken huntsmen in the morning; … hence … an early morning song." Compare Titus Andronicus, II. ii. i. Cotgrave (ed. 1632) has Resveil, "a Hunts-up, or morning song for a new-married wife, the day after the marriage." B. Riche, Dialogue between Mercury, etc. (1574): "Unlesse you sometimes arise to geve your parramours the hunte is up under the windowes."
- ↑ 36. and light;] Theobald and other editors read and light? Staunton has light!
