Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/59

Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers'[C 1] tears[E 1]; What is it else? a madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving[E 2] sweet. Farewell, my coz.

Ben.	Soft! I will go along; An[C 2] if you leave me so, you do me wrong.200

Rom.	Tut, I have lost[E 3] myself; I am not here; This is not Romeo, he's some other where.

Ben.	Tell me in sadness[E 4], who is[E 5] that you love.

Rom.	What, shall I groan and tell thee?

Ben.	Groan! why, no; But sadly tell me who.205

Rom.	Bid a sick man in sadness make[C 3] his will: Ah, word[C 4] ill urged to one that is so ill! In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

Ben.	I aim'd so near when I supposed you loved.

Rom.	A right good mark-man! And she's fair I love.210

1. 196. lovers'] a lovers Q1; lovers Pope; loving Q, F.
2. 200. An] Hanmer; And Q, F.
3. 206. Bid … make] Qq 1, 4, 5; A sicke … makes Qq 2, 3, F; later Ff emend F by inserting good before sadness.
4. 207. Ah, word] Q1, Malone, and other editors; A word Q, F, and several editors; O, word Ff 2–4.

urged; "to urge the fire is a technical term," which occurs in Chapman's Iliad, xxi. Collier (MS.) has puff'd. White fancies a scriptural allusion (Matt. iii. 12) to the fan purging the floor.

1. 196. a sea … tears] Q1 reads "a sea raging with a lover's teares."
2. 198. preserving] The line means that love kills and keeps alive, is a bane and an antidote. Hazlitt's persevering misses the point.
3. 201. lost] I am much inclined to agree with Daniel that Allen's conjecture left is the true reading, but all the old editions have lost. With the long s the words were easily mistaken for each other. Allen notes that in Coriolanus, I. iv. 54, "Thou art left, Marcius," we should probably read "lost." Daniel adds that in Hamlet, III. i. 99, "their perfume lost" (Qq) is misprinted left in Ff.
4. 203. sadness] seriousness, as often in Shakespeare. In Romeo's groan plays upon the meaning "grief." Q1 reads, "whome she is you love," altered by editors to who.
5. 203. is] Daniel, retaining from Q, F the note of interrogation after love, reads is't.