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.