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SC. IV.
ROMEO AND JULIET
147
| Nurse. | They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.[E 1] |
Enter Capulet.
| Cap. | Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd, The curfew bell[E 2] hath rung, 'tis three o'[C 1] clock: Look to the baked meats,[E 3] good Angelica:[E 4]5 Spare not for cost. |
| Nurse.[E 5] | Spare not for cost. Go, you cot-quean,[E 6] go, Get you to bed; faith, you'll be sick to-morrow For this night's watching. |
| Cap. | No, not a whit: what, I have watch'd ere now All night for lesser[C 2] cause, and ne'er been sick.10 |
| Lady Cap. | Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt[E 7] in your time; |
- ↑ 2. pastry the room where paste was made; so pantry, spicery, laundry, buttery. Staunton quotes from Breton, A Floorish upon Fancie (1582): "The pastrie, mealehouse, and the roome whereas the coales do ly."
- ↑ 4. curfew bell] Strictly this was an evening bell (couvre feu) rung at eight or nine o'clock. Shakespeare uses curfew correctly in Measure for Measure, IV. ii. 78. The word came to be used of other ringings. Thus, in Liverpool Municipal Records of 1673 and 1704 (quoted in New Eng. Dict.): "Ring Curphew all the yeare long at 4 a clock in the morning and eight at a night." Q 1 reads: "The Curfewe bell hath rung, t'is foure a clocke."
- ↑ 5. baked meats] pastry, pies, as in Hamlet, I. ii. 180; Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement (1530): "Bake meate, viands en paste."
- ↑ 5. Angelica] more probably Lady Capulet (to whom "Spare not for cost" seems appropriate) than the Nurse.
- ↑ 6. Nurse] Z. Jackson suggested that this speech belongs to Lady Capulet; Singer and Hudson adopt the suggestion, sending the Nurse off the stage after line 2. But on such an occasion the old retainer might be familiar with her master. Q 1 makes Capulet reply to this speech: "I warrant thee Nurse I have," etc.
- ↑ 6 Go, you cot-quean] Theobald and other editors read Go go, to emend the verse. Cot-quean is primarily the housewife of a labourer's cot; thence a vulgar, scolding woman; used of a man it means a man who acts the housewife. So Roaring Girl (1611)—Dekker, Works, 1873, iii. 177: "I cannot abide these aperne [apron] husbands; such cot-queanes."
- ↑ 11. mouse-hunt] "Mouse," as a term of endearment for a woman, appears in Hamlet III. iv. 183, and elsewhere in Shakespeare; mouse-
