- "Signior Martino, and his wife and daughters;
- County Anselm[o], and his beauteous sisters;
- The lady widow of Vetruvio;
- Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces;
- Mercutio, and his brother Valentine;
- Mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters;
- My fair niece Rosaline; [and] Livia;
- Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt;
- Lucio, and the lively Helena."
I have altered Anselme to the Italian form Anselmo, and in the seventh line inserted and. I think I may fairly claim this list as being in verse. It is always printed as prose.
[8] Is there not some mistake in the length of time that this sleeping-draught is to occupy, if we consider the text as it now stands to be correct? Friar Lawrence says to Juliet, when he is recommending the expedient,
"Take thou this phial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize
Each vital spirit, &c.
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours,