Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/48

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic[E 1] of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. [Exit.[C 1]

ACT I^{[C 2]}

SCENE I.—Verona. A public Place.

Enter Sampson and Gregory, of the house of Capulet, with swords and bucklers.

Sam.	Gregory, on[C 3] my word, we'll not carry coals[E 2].

Gre.	No, for then we should be colliers[E 3].

Sam.	I mean, an[C 4] we be in choler[E 4], we'll draw.

Gre.	Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o' the[C 5] collar.5

Sam.	I strike quickly, being moved.

1. 14. Exit] Capell, omitted Q.
2. Act I. Scene I.] No marking of Acts and Scenes in Q; none except here in F.
3. 1. on] Q, A F, o' Capell.
4. 3. an] Theobald, and Q, if F.
5. 4. o' the] F, of Q.

1. 12. two hours' traffic] Compare Henry VIII. Prologue, 12, 13: "May see away their shilling Richly in two short hours." The simple material apparatus of the Elizabethan stage tended to accelerate the performance.
2. 1. carry coals] submit to menials' work, and so to humiliation or insult. New Eng. Dict. quotes J. Hooker, Girald. Ireland, in Holinshed (1586), ii. 105: "This gentleman was … one that in an upright quarrell would beare no coles."
3. 2. colliers] New Eng. Dict.: "Often used with allusion to the dirtiness of the trade in coal, or the evil repute of the collier for cheating: cf. Greene's Coosnage of Colliers (1591)." See Twelfth Night III. iv. 130.
4. 3. choler] The play on "choler," "collar," and "draw" occurs in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, III. ii. (dialogue between Cob and Cash).