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24
ROMEO AND JULIET
[ACT I
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,— |
- ↑ 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."
- ↑ 9. thou's] Pope and other editors substitute thou shalt. The abbreviation 'se for shall occurs again in Lear, IV. vi. 246.