Scene II.—
1. [Gallop apace,] etc. Malone remarks that S. probably remembered Marlowe's Edward II., which was performed before 1593:—
"Gallop apace, bright Phœbus, through the skie,
And dusky night, in rusty iron car;
Between you both, shorten the time, I pray,
That I may see that most desired day;"
and Barnaby Rich's Farewell, 1583: "The day to his seeming passed away so slowely that he had thought the stately steedes had bin tired that drawe the chariot of the Sunne, and wished that Phaeton had beene there with a whippe." For the thought, cf. Temp. iv. 1. 30.
3. [Phaethon.] For other allusions to the ambitious youth, see T.G. of V. iii. 1. 153, Rich. II. iii. 3. 178, and 3 Hen. VI. i. 4. 33, ii. 6. 12.
6. [That runaways' eyes may wink.] This is the great crux of the play, and more has been written about it than would fill a volume like this. The condensed summary of the comments upon it fills twenty-eight octavo pages of fine print in Furness, to which I must refer the curious reader. The early eds. have "runnawayes," "run-awayes," "run-awaies," or "run-aways." Those who retain this as a possessive singular refer it variously to Phœbus, Phaethon, Cupid, Night, the sun, the moon, Romeo, and Juliet; those who make it a possessive plural generally understand it to mean persons running about the streets at night. No one of the former list of interpretations is at all satisfactory. Personally, I am quite well satisfied to read runaways', and to accept the explanation given by Hunter and adopted by Delius, Schmidt, Daniel, and others. It is the simplest possible solution, and is favoured by the untalk'd of that follows. White objects to it that "runaway seems to have been used only to mean one who ran away, and that runagate, which had the same meaning then that it has now, would have suited the verse quite as well as runaway;" but, as Furnivall and others have noted, Cotgrave apparently uses runaway and runagate as nearly equivalent terms. In a letter in the Academy for Nov. 30, 1878, Furnivall, after referring to his former citations in favour of runaways = "runagates, runabouts," and to the fact that Ingleby and Schmidt have since given the same interpretation, adds, "But I still desire to cite an instance in which Shakspere himself renders Holinshed's 'runagates' by his own 'runaways.' In the second edition of Holinshed's Chronicle, 1587, which Shakspere used for his Richard III., he found the passage (p. 756, col. 2): 'You see further, how a company of traitors, thieves, outlaws, and runagates, be aiders and partakers of this feate and enterprise,' etc. And he turned it thus into verse (1st folio, p. 203):—
"'Remember whom you are to cope withall,
A sort of Vagabonds, Rascals, and Run-awayes,
A scum of Brittaines, and base Lackey Pezants,
Whom their o're-cloyed Country vomits forth
To desperate Aduentures, and assur'd Destruction.
You sleeping safe, they bring you to vnrest.'" etc.
Herford regards this interpretation as "a prosaic idea;" but it seems to me perfectly in keeping with the character and the situation. The marriage was a secret one, and Juliet would not have Romeo, if seen, supposed to be a paramour visiting her by night. She knows also the danger he incurs if detected by her kinsmen. Cf. ii. 2. 64 fol. above.
10. [Civil.] Grave, sober. Cf. M.W. ii. 2. 101: "a civil modest wife," etc.
12. [Learn.] Teach; as often. Cf. A.Y.L. i. 2. 5, Cymb. i. 5. 12, etc.
14. [Hood my unmann'd blood,] etc. The terms are taken from falconry. The hawk was hooded till ready to let fly at the game. Cf. Hen. V. iii. 7. 121: "'tis a hooded valour; and when it appears it will bate." An unmanned hawk was one not sufficiently trained to know the voice of her keeper (see on ii. 2. 159 above). To bate was to flutter or flap the wings, as the hawk did when unhooded and eager to fly. Cf. T. of S. iv. 1. 199:—
"as we watch these kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient."
Dyce quotes Holmes, Acad. of Armory: "Bate, Bateing or Bateth, is when the Hawk fluttereth with her Wings either from Pearch or Fist, as it were striveing to get away; also it is taken from her striving with her Prey, and not forsaking it till it be overcome."
15. [Strange.] Reserved, retiring.
17. [Come, Night,] etc. Mrs. Jameson remarks: "The fond adjuration, 'Come, Night, come, Romeo, come thou day in night!' expresses that fulness of enthusiastic admiration for her lover which possesses her whole soul; but expresses it as only Juliet could or would have expressed it—in a bold and beautiful metaphor. Let it be remembered that, in this speech, Juliet is not supposed to be addressing an audience, nor even a confidante; and I confess I have been shocked at the utter want of taste and refinement in those who, with coarse derision, or in a spirit of prudery, yet more gross and perverse, have dared to comment on this beautiful 'Hymn to the Night,' breathed out by Juliet in the silence and solitude of her chamber. She is thinking aloud; it is the young heart 'triumphing to itself in words.' In the midst of all the vehemence with which she calls upon the night to bring Romeo to her arms, there is something so almost infantine in her perfect simplicity, so playful and fantastic in the imagery and language, that the charm of sentiment and innocence is thrown over the whole; and her impatience, to use her own expression, is truly that of 'a child before a festival, that hath new robes and may not wear them.' It is at the very moment too that her whole heart and fancy are abandoned to blissful anticipation that the Nurse enters with the news of Romeo's banishment; and the immediate transition from rapture to despair has a most powerful effect."
18. [For thou,] etc. "Indeed, the whole of this speech is imagination strained to the highest; and observe the blessed effect on the purity of the mind. What would Dryden have made of it?" (Coleridge).
20. [Black-brow'd Night.] Cf. King John, v. 6. 17: "Why, here walk I in the black brow of night."
25. [The garish sun.] Johnson remarks: "Milton had this speech in his thoughts when he wrote in Il Pens., 'Till civil-suited morn appear,' and 'Hide me from day's garish eye.'" S. uses garish only here and in Rich. III. iv. 4. 89: "a garish flag."
26, 27. [I have bought,] etc. There is a strange confusion of metaphors here. Juliet is first the buyer and then the thing bought. She seems to have in mind that what she says of herself is equally true of Romeo. In the next sentence she reverts to her own position.
30. [That hath new robes,] etc. Cf. Much Ado, iii. 2. 5: "Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it." See also Macb. i. 7. 34.
40. [Envious.] Malignant; as in i. 1. 148 and iii. 1. 171 above.
45. [But ay.] In the time of S. ay was commonly written and printed I, which explains the play upon the word here. Most editors print "but 'I'" here, but it does not seem necessary to the understanding of the quibble. Lines 45-51 evidently belong to the first draft of the play.
47. [Death-darting eye,] etc. The eye of the fabled cockatrice or basilisk was said to kill with a glance. Cf. T.N. iii. 4. 215: "they will kill one another by the look, like two cockatrices;" Rich. III. iv. 1. 55:—
"A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murtherous," etc.
49. [Those eyes.] That is, Romeo's.
51. [Determine of.] Decide. Cf. 2 Hen IV. iv. 1. 164:—
"To hear and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon."
See also T.G. of V. ii. 4. 181, Rich. III. iii. 4. 2, etc.
53. [God save the mark!] An exclamation of uncertain origin, commonly = saving your reverence, but sometimes, as here = God have mercy! Cf. 1 Hen. IV. i. 3. 56. So God bless the mark! in M. of V. ii. 2. 25, Oth. i. 1. 33, etc.
56. [Gore-blood.] Clotted blood. Forby remarks that the combination is an East-Anglian provincialism. Halliwell-Phillipps cites Vicars, trans, of Virgil, 1632: "Whose hollow wound vented much black gore-bloud." Swounded is the reading of the 1st quarto; the other early eds. have "sounded," "swouned," and "swooned." In R. of. L. 1486 we have "swounds" rhyming with "wounds."
57. [Bankrupt.] The early eds. have "banckrout" or "bankrout," as often in other passages and other writers of the time.
64. [Contrary.] The adjective is accented by S. on the first or second syllable. Cf. Ham. iii. 2. 221, etc. For the verb, see on i. 5. 87 above.
73. [O serpent heart,] etc. Cf. Macb. i. 5. 66:—
"look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it."
Mrs. Jameson remarks on this passage: "This highly figurative and antithetical exuberance of language is defended by Schlegel on strong and just grounds; and to me also it appears natural, however critics may argue against its taste or propriety. The warmth and vivacity of Juliet's fancy, which plays like a light over every part of her character—which animates every line she utters—which kindles every thought into a picture, and clothes her emotions in visible images, would naturally, under strong and unusual excitement, and in the conflict of opposing sentiments, run into some extravagance of diction." Cf. i. 1. 168 fol. above.
83. [Was ever book,] etc. Cf. i. 3. 66 above.
84. [O, that deceit,] etc. Cf. Temp. i. 2. 468: "If the ill spirit have so fair a house," etc.
86, 87. Mr. Fleay improves the metre by a slight transposition, which Marshall adopts:—
"No faith, no honesty in men; all naught,
All perjur'd, all dissemblers, all forsworn;"
which may be what S. wrote.
[Naught] = worthless, bad. Cf. Much Ado, $1. $2. 157, Hen. V. i. 2. 73, etc. The word in this sense is usually spelt naught in the early eds., but nought when = nothing. Dissemblers is here a quadrisyllable. See p. 159 above.
90. [Blister'd,] etc. "Note the Nurse's mistake of the mind's audible struggle with itself for its decisions in toto" (Coleridge).
92. [Upon his brow,] etc. Steevens quotes Paynter: "Is it possible that under such beautie and rare comelinesse, disloyaltie and treason may have their siedge and lodging?" The image of shame sitting on the brow is not in Brooke's poem.
98. [Poor my lord.] Cf. "sweet my mother," iii. 5. 198 below. The figurative meaning of smooth is sufficiently explained by the following mangle. Cf. i. 5. 98 above, and see Brooke's poem:—
"Ah cruell murthering tong, murthrer of others fame:
How durst thou once attempt to tooch the honor of his name?
* * * * * * * *
Whether shall he (alas) poore banishd man, now flye?
What place of succor shall he seeke beneth the starry skye?
Synce she pursueth him, and him defames by wrong:
That in distres should be his fort, and onely rampier strong."
108. [Worser.] Cf. ii. 3. 29 above. S. uses it often, both as adjective and adverb.
112. [Banished.] Note how the trisyllabic pronunciation is emphatically repeated in this speech; as in Romeo's in the next scene (19-50).
116. [Sour woe delights,] etc. That is, "misfortunes never come single." Cf. Ham. iv. 5. 78:—
"When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions."
117. [Needly will.] Needs must. Needly was not coined by S., as some have supposed, being found in Piers Plowman and other early English. He uses it only here.
120. [Modern.] Trite, commonplace; the only meaning of the word in S. See A.Y.L. ii. 7. 156, Macb. iv. 3. 170, etc.
121. [Rearward.] Cf. Sonn. 90. 6:—
"Ah! do not, when my heart hath scap'd this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe"—
(that is, to attack me anew); and Much Ado, iv. 1. 128:—
"Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
Strike at thy life."
The metaphor is a military one, referring to a rear-guard or reserve which follows up the attack of the vanguard or of the main army.
126. [Sound.] Utter, express; or "'to sound as with a plummet' is possible" (Dowden). That word's death = the death implied in that word.
130. [Wash they,] etc. That is, let them wash, etc. Some eds. put an interrogation mark after tears, as the 2d quarto does.
137. [Wot.] Know; used only in the present tense and the participle wotting.