SC. II.
ROMEO AND JULIET
141
| Second Serv. | Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook[E 1] that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me. |
| Cap. | Go, be gone.—[Exit[C 1] Second Servant.
We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.10 |
| Nurse. | Ay, forsooth. |
| Cap. | Well, he may chance to do some good on her: A peevish[E 2] self-will'd harlotry[E 3] it is. |
Enter Juliet.
| Nurse. | See where she comes from shrift with merry look.[C 2]15 |
| Cap. | How now, my headstrong! where have you been gadding? |
| Jul. | Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin Of disobedient opposition To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,20 To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you! Henceforward I am ever ruled by you. |
| Cap. | Send for the county; go, tell him of this: I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning. |
- ↑ 6. ill cook] Steevens quotes the adage, as given in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589): "A bad cooke that cannot his owne fingers lick." It is also given in Heywood's Proverbs (Spenser Soc. ed. 151).
- ↑ 14. peevish] may mean childish, thoughtless, foolish, as in other passages of Shakespeare, and in Lyly's Endimion, I. i.: "There never was any so peevish to imagine the moone either capable of affection or shape of a mistris." Perhaps childishly perverse is implied.
- ↑ 14. harlotry] Used much as "slut" might be used at a later date. Compare the description of Lady Mortimer in 1 Henry IV. III. i. 198: "a peevish self-will'd harlotry, one that no persuasion can do good upon."
