Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/68

SCENE III.—The Same. A Room in Capulet's House.

Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

Lady Cap.

Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.

Nurse.

Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old, I bade her come.—What, lamb! what, lady-bird!— God forbid![E 1]—Where's this girl?—What, Juliet![C 1]

Enter Juliet.

Jul.	How now! who calls?

Nurse.

How now! who calls? Your mother.

Jul.	How now! who calls? Your mother. Madam, I am here. 5 What is your will?[C 2]

Lady Cap.

This is the matter.—Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret:—nurse, come back again; I have remember'd me, thou's[E 2] hear our counsel. Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age.[C 3]10

Nurse.

Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

Lady Cap.

She's not fourteen.

Nurse.

She's not fourteen.[C 4] I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,—

1. 2–4.] In Q, F prose; as verse, Johnson and many later editors.
2. 5, 6.] Capell's arrangement; three lines ending calls, mother, will Q, F.
3. 7–10.] as verse Capell; prose Q, F.
4. 12–15.] I'll … Lammas-tide] Steevens' arrangement.

1. 4. God forbid] Staunton fancied that having used lady-bird as a term of endearment, the Nurse recollected that it was a cant term for a woman of loose life. A quotation from Fletcher's Poems, given in Halliwell's Dict. of Archaic and Prov. Words, illustrates the evil sense of the word. Dyce is probably right in rejecting the notion; he explains: "God forbid that any accident should keep her away."
2. 9. thou's] Pope and other editors substitute thou shalt. The abbreviation 'se for shall occurs again in Lear, IV. vi. 246.