34
ROMEO AND JULIET
[ACT I
|
If thou art Dun,[E 1] we'll draw thee from the mire,[C 1] |
| Rom. | Nay, that's not so. |
| Mer. | I mean, sir, in delay[C 3] We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day.[C 4][E 4] 45 Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits[E 5] Five times in that ere once in our five[C 5] wits[E 6]. |
| Rom. | And we mean well in going to this mask; But 'tis no wit to go. |
| Mer. | Why, may one ask? |
- ↑ 41. mire] Q, mire. F.
- ↑ 42. Or … love] F4, Or save you reverence love Qq, Or save your reverence love Ff 1–3, Of this surreverence love Q1.
- ↑ 44. sir, in delay] sir in delay Q; sir in delay, Qq 4, 5; sir I delay, F.
- ↑ 45. We … day] Nicholson, We burne our lights by night, like lampes by day Q1, We waste our lights in vaine, lights lights by day Qq, and (with commas) lights, lights, Ff.
- ↑ 47. five] Malone (Wilbraham conj.); fine Q, F.
- ↑ 41. Dun] Here Dun is a dun horse. Dun is in the mire, spoken of by Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Manciple's Prologue, and still played by William Gifford when a boy, is an old Christmas game, in which a heavy log (the horse Dun) is brought into the room, is supposed to stick in the mire, and is extricated by the players. References are not infrequent in Elizabethan plays.
- ↑ 42. Or, save your reverence, love] Many editors prefer, from Q1, Of this sir-reverence love, where sir-reverence is used, as indicated in Comedy of Errors, III. ii. 93, in the same apologetic way as save your reverence. I see no good reason for departing from F.
- ↑ 43. burn daylight] burn candles by day, also waste or consume the day-light. Compare Merry Wives, II. i. 54. See The Spanish Tragedy in Hazlitt's Dodsley's Old Plays, v. p. 115 (and note).
- ↑ 45. We … day] This reading, proposed by Nicholson, is printed by Daniel; it only rejects one letter, s, from Q, F. Johnson reads like lights by day. Capell's reading, We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day, is commonly accepted, but it seems undesirable to make up a new line from halves of Q, F and Q1.
- ↑ 46. sits] Rowe and others ready fits; Collier (MS.) hits.
- ↑ 47. five wits] In Sonnets, cxli. 9, Shakespeare speaks of the five wits as different from the five senses; it is certain, however, that five wits was used for five senses. In Stephen Hawes' poem Graunde Amour and La Belle Pucelle, xxiv. (ed. 1554), the five wits are common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation [judgment], and memory (Dyce). Malone cites, from the old copies of Shakespeare's plays, other examples of the erratum fine for five, and vice versâ. Q1 has Three times a day, ere once in her right wits.
