Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/197

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all, And all the better is it for the maid: Your part in her you could not keep from death; But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.70 The most you sought was her promotion, For 'twas your heaven she should be advanced;[E 1] And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself? O, in this love, you love your child so ill,75 That you run mad, seeing that she is well:[E 2] She's not well married that lives married long, But she's best married that dies married young. Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary[E 3] On this fair corse; and, as the custom[E 4] is,80 In all [C 1]her best array bear her to church; For though fond[C 2][E 5] nature bids us all[C 3] lament, Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.

Cap.	All things that we ordained festival, Turn from their office to black funeral;85 Our instruments to melancholy bells,

1. 81. In all] Q 1; And in Q, F.
2. 82. fond] F 2; some Q, F;
3. us all] Q, all us F.

1. 72. advanced] Advance means both promote and raise or lift up, as often in Shakespeare of a sword or a standard. Furness reads advanced—.
2. 76. well:] Rolfe: "Often thus used of the dead." Compare Winter's Tale, V. i. 30, and Ant. and Cleop. II. v. 32: "But, sirrah, mark we use To say the dead are well."
3. 79. rosemary] The evergreen, emblematic of immortality, and of remembrance, used at both weddings and funerals. See note on Hamlet, frequent IV. v. 175 (ed. Dowden). Compare Dekker (Works, ed. Grosart, i. 129): "Death rudely lay with her, and spoild her of a maidenhead … the rosemary that was washt in sweete water to set out the Bridall is now wet in teares to furnish her buriall."
4. 80. custom] See IV. i. 110, note.
5. 82. fond] foolish. Knight defends some Q, F, some impulses of nature, comparing Milton's "some natural tears." Possibly the right word is soon (misprinted some) in the sense, in Shakespeare, of readily.