SCENE III.--1. On the character of the Nurse Mrs. Jameson says:--

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"She is drawn with the most wonderful power and discrimination. In the prosaic homeliness of the outline, and the magical illusion of the colouring, she reminds us of some of the marvellous Dutch paintings, from which, with all their coarseness, we start back as from a reality. Her low humour, her shallow garrulity, mixed with the dotage and petulance of age--her subserviency, her secrecy, and her total want of elevated principle, or even common honesty--are brought before us like a living and palpable truth....

"Among these harsh and inferior spirits is Juliet placed; her haughty parents, and her plebeian nurse, not only throw into beautiful relief her own native softness and elegance, but are at once the cause and the excuse of her subsequent conduct. She trembles before her stern mother and her violent father, but, like a petted child, alternately cajoles and commands her nurse. It is her old foster-mother who is the confidante of her love. It is the woman who cherished her infancy who aids and abets her in her clandestine marriage. Do we not perceive how immediately our impression of Juliet's character would have been lowered, if Shakespeare had placed her in connection with any commonplace dramatic waiting-woman?--even with Portia's adroit Nerissa, or Desdemona's Emilia? By giving her the Nurse for her confidante, the sweetness and dignity of Juliet's character are preserved inviolate to the fancy, even in the midst of all the romance and wilfulness of passion."

Cf. Coleridge: "The character of the Nurse is the nearest of anything in Shakspeare to a direct borrowing from mere observation; and the reason is, that as in infancy and childhood the individual in nature is a representative of a class--just as in describing one larch-tree, you generalize a grove of them--so it is nearly as much so in old age. The generalization is done to the poet's hand. Here you have the garrulity of age strengthened by the feelings of a long-trusted servant, whose sympathy with the mother's affections gives her privileges and rank in the household; and observe the mode of connection by accidents of time and place, and the childlike fondness of repetition in a second childhood, and also that happy, humble ducking under, yet constant resurgence against, the check of her superiors!"

2. _Maidenhead._ Etymologically the same word as _maidenhood_. So _lustihead_ = lustihood, _livelihead_ = livelihood (as in Spenser, _F.Q._ ii. 2. 2: "for porcion of thy livelyhed"), etc. Cf. _Godhead_, etc.

4. _God forbid!_ Staunton suggests that the Nurse uses _lady-bird_ as a term of endearment; but, recollecting its application to a woman of loose life, checks herself--_God forbid_ her darling should prove such a one! Dyce explains it: "God forbid that any accident should keep her away!" This seems to me more probable.

7. _Give leave awhile._ Leave us alone; a courteous form of dismissal. Cf. _T.G. of V._ iii. 1. 1: "Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;" _M.W._ ii. 2. 165: "Give us leave, drawer," etc.

9. _I have remember'd me._ For the reflexive use, cf. _1 Hen. IV._ ii. 4. 468: "and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff," etc.

_Thou's._ Cf. _Lear_, iv. 6. 246. The early eds. have "thou 'se"; most modern ones substitute "thou shalt."

12. _Lay._ Wager. Cf. _L. L. L._ i. 1. 310, _T. and C._ iii. 1. 95, etc.

13. _Teen._ Sorrow; used here for the play on _fourteen_. Cf. _V. and A._ 808: "My face is full of shame, my heart of teen;" _Temp._ i. 2. 64: "the teen I have turn'd you to;" _L. L. L._ iv. 3. 164: "Of sighs and groans, of sorrow and of teen," etc.

15. _Lammas-tide._ The 1st of August. _Tide_ = time, as in _even-tide_, _springtide_, etc. Cf. _K. John_, iii. 1. 86:--

"What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done, That it in golden letters should be set Among the high tides in the calendar?"

See also the play upon the word in _T. of A._ i. 2. 57: "Flow this way! A brave fellow! he keeps his tides well."

23. _The earthquake._ Tyrwhitt suggested that this may refer to the earthquake felt in England on the 6th of April, 1580. Malone notes that if the earthquake happened on the day when Juliet was _weaned_ (presumably when she was a year old), she could not well be more than _twelve_ years old now; but the Nurse makes her almost _fourteen_--as her father (i. 2. 9) and her mother (i. 3. 12) also do.

26. _Wormwood._ Halliwell-Phillipps cites Cawdray, _Treasurie or Storehouse of Similies_, 1600: "if the mother put worme-wood or mustard upon the breast, the child sucking it, and feeling the bitternesse, he quite forsaketh it, without sucking any more," etc.

27. _Sitting in the sun_, etc. Cf. Dame Quickly's circumstantial reminiscences, _2 Hen. IV._ ii. 1. 93 fol.: "Thou didst swear to me," etc.

29. _Bear a brain._ Have a brain, that is, a good memory.

31. _Pretty fool._ On _fool_ as a term of endearment or pity, cf. _A.Y.L._ ii. 1. 22, _Lear_, v. 2. 308, etc.

32. _Tetchy._ Touchy, fretful. Cf. _Rich. III._ iv. 4. 168: "Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy."

33. _Shake, quoth the dove-house._ The dove-house shook. It refers of course to the effects of the earthquake. Daniel (in Dowden's ed.) quotes Peele, _Old Wives' Tale_: "Bounce, quoth the guns;" and Heywood, _Fair Maid of the West_: "Rouse, quoth the ship."

36. _By the rood._ That is, by the cross; as in _Ham._ iii. 4. 14, _Rich. III._ iii. 2. 77, etc. For _alone_ the 1st and 2d quartos have "high-lone," which Herford, Dowden, and some others adopt. "It is an alteration of _alone_, of obscure origin" (_New Eng. Dict._) found in Marston, Middleton, and other writers of the time. In George Washington's _Diary_ (1760) it is used of mares. According to the description here, Juliet could not have been much more than a year old at the time. See on 23 above.

38. _Mark._ Appoint, elect. Cf. _T.A._ i. 1. 125: "To this your son is mark'd, and die he must."

40. _To see thee married once._ Once see thee married.

51. _Much upon these years._ Nearly at the same age. Cf. _M. for M._ iv. 1. 17: "much upon this time;" _Rich. III._ v. 3. 70: "Much about cock-shut time," etc. As Juliet is fourteen, Lady Capulet would be about twenty-eight, while her husband, having done masking for some thirty years (see i. 5. 35 fol.), must be at least sixty. See also on v. 3. 207 below.

55. _A man of wax._ "As pretty as if he had been modelled in wax" (Schmidt). Steevens quotes _Wily Beguiled_: "Why, he's a man as one should picture him in wax." White adds from Lyly, _Euphues and his England_: "so exquisite that for shape he must be framed in wax," and refers to iii. 3. 126 below. Dyce cites _Faire Em_:--

"A sweet face, an exceeding daintie hand: A body, were it framed of wax By all the cunning artists of the world, It could not better be proportioned."

60. _Read o'er the volume_, etc. Here one quibble leads to another by the power of association. "The _volume_ of young Paris's face suggests the _beauty's pen_, which hath _writ_ there. Then the obscurities of the fair volume are written in _the margin of his eyes_ as comments of ancient books are always printed in the margin. Lastly, this _book of love_ lacks a _cover_; the _golden story_ must be locked with _golden clasps_" (Knight).

62. _Married._ The reading of 2d quarto; the other early eds. have "severall," which some editors adopt. _Married_ = "closely joined, and hence concordant, harmonious" (Schmidt). Cf. _T. and C._ i. 3. 100: "The unity and married calm of states;" and _Sonn._ 8. 6:--

"If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear."

See also Milton, _L'All._ 137: "Married to immortal verse."

65. _Margent._ Malone quotes _R. of L._ 102:--

"But she that never cop'd with stranger eyes Could pick no meaning from their parting looks, Nor read the subtle shining secrecies Writ in the glassy margent of such books."