Scene III.—

[A Churchyard,] etc. Hunter says: "It is clear that S., or some writer whom he followed, had in mind the churchyard of Saint Mary the Old in Verona, and the monument of the Scaligers which stood in it." See the cut on p. 136, and cf. Brooke, who refers to the Italian custom of building large family tombs:—

"For euery houshold, if it be of any fame;

Doth bylde a tombe, or digge a vault, that beares the housholdes name:

Wherein (if any of that kindred hap to dye)

They are bestowde; els in the same no other corps may lye.

The Capilets her corps in such a one dyd lay

Where Tybalt slaine of Romeus was layde the other day."

At the close of the poem we are told that—

"The bodies dead, remoued from vaulte where they did dye,

In stately tombe, on pillers great of marble, rayse they hye.

On euery syde aboue were set, and eke beneath,

Great store of cunning Epitaphes, in honor of theyr death.

And euen at this day the tombe is to be seene;

So that among the monumentes that in Verona been,

There is no monument more worthy of the sight,

Then is the tombe of Iuliet and Romeus her knight."

See also the quotation in note on iv. 1. 93 above. Brooke's reference to the "stately tombe, on pillers great," etc., was doubtless suggested by the Tomb of the Scaligers.

3. [Lay thee all along.] That is, at full length. Cf. A.Y.L. ii. 1. 30: "As he lay along Under an oak;" J.C. iii. 1. 115: "That now on Pompey's basis lies along," etc.

6. [Unfirm.] Cf. J.C. i. 3. 4, T.N. ii. 4. 34, etc. S. also uses infirm, as in Macb. ii. 2. 52, etc.

8. [Something.] The accent is on the last syllable, as Walker notes; and Marshall prints "some thing," as in the folio.

11. [Adventure.] Cf. ii. 2. 84 above.

14. [Sweet water.] Perfumed water. Cf. T.A. ii. 4. 6: "call for sweet water;" and see quotation in note on iv. 5. 75 above.

20. [Cross.] Thwart, interfere with. Cf. iv. 5. 91 above.

21. [Muffle.] Cover, hide. Cf. i. 1. 168 above; and see J.C. iii. 2. 191, etc. Steevens intimates that it was "a low word" in his day; but, if so, it has since regained its poetical character. Tennyson uses it repeatedly; as in The Talking Oak: "O, muffle round thy knees with fern;" The Princess: "A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight;" In Memoriam: "muffled round with woe," etc. Milton has unmuffle in Comus, 321: "Unmuffle, ye faint stars."

32. [Dear.] See on v. 2. 19 above.

33. [Jealous.] Suspicious; as in Lear, v. 1. 56, J.C. i. 2. 71, etc.

34. [In.] Into. See on v. 1. 36 above.

37. [Savage-wild.] Cf. ii. 2. 141 above.

39. [Empty.] Hungry. Cf. V. and A. 55: "Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast" (see also 2 Hen. VI. iii. 1. 248 and 3 Hen. VI. i. 1. 268); and T. of S. iv. 1. 193: "My falcon now is sharp and passing empty."

44. [Doubt.] Distrust; as in J.C. ii. 1. 132, iv. 2. 13, etc.

45. [Detestable.] See on iv. 5. 52 above.

47. [Enforce.] Force; as often. Cf. Temp. v. 1. 100: "Enforce them to this place," etc.

50. [With.] Often used to express the relation of cause.

59. [Good gentle youth,] etc. "The gentleness of Romeo was shown before [iii. 1. 64 fol.] as softened by love, and now it is doubled by love and sorrow, and awe of the place where he is" (Coleridge).

68. [Conjurations.] Solemn entreaties; as in Rich. II. iii. 2. 23, Ham. v. 2. 38, etc. Some have taken it to mean incantations. Defy = refuse; as in K. John, iii. 4. 23: "I defy all counsel," etc.

74. [Peruse.] Scan, examine. Cf. Ham. iv. 7. 137: "peruse the foils," etc.

76. [Betossed.] Agitated; used by S. nowhere else.

82. [Sour.] See on iii. 3. 7 above.

84. [Lantern.] Used in the architectural sense of "a turret full of windows" (Steevens). Cf. Parker, Glossary of Architecture: "In Gothic architecture the term is sometimes applied to louvres on the roofs of halls, etc., but it usually signifies a tower which has the whole height, or a considerable portion of the interior, open to the ground, and is lighted by an upper tier of windows; lantern-towers of this kind are common over the centre of cross churches, as at York Minster, Ely Cathedral, etc. The same name is also given to the light open erections often placed on the top of towers, as at Boston, Lincolnshire," etc. The one at Boston was used as a lighthouse lantern in the olden time.

86. [Presence.] Presence-chamber, state apartment; as in Rich. II. i. 3. 289 and Hen. VIII. iii. 1. 17.

87. [Death.] The abstract for the concrete. The dead man is Romeo, who is so possessed with his suicidal purpose that he speaks of himself as dead. Steevens perversely calls it one of "those miserable conceits with which our author too frequently counteracts his own pathos."

88-120. [How oft when men,] etc. "Here, here, is the master example how beauty can at once increase and modify passion" (Coleridge).

90. [A lightning before death.] "A last blazing-up of the flame of life;" a proverbial expression. Steevens quotes The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601:—

"I thought it was a lightning before death,

Too sudden to be certain."

Clarke notes "the mingling here of words and images full of light and colour with the murky grey of the sepulchral vault and the darkness of the midnight churchyard, the blending of these images of beauty and tenderness with the deep gloom of the speaker's inmost heart."

92. [Suck'd the honey,] etc. Cf. Ham. iii. 1. 164: "That suck'd the honey of his music vows." Steevens quotes Sidney, Arcadia: "Death being able to divide the soule, but not the beauty from her body."

96. [Death's pale flag.] Steevens compares Daniel, Complaint of Rosamond:—

"And nought-respecting death (the last of paines)

Plac'd his pale colours (th' ensign of his might)

Upon his new-got spoil."

97. [Tybalt,] etc. Cf. Brooke's poem:—

"Ah cosin dere, Tybalt, where so thy restles sprite now be,

With stretched handes to thee for mercy now I crye,

For that before thy kindly howre I forced thee to dye.

But if with quenched lyfe not quenched be thine yre,

But with revengeing lust as yet thy hart be set on fyre,

What more amendes, or cruell wreke desyrest thou

To see on me, then this which here is shewd forth to thee now?

Who reft by force of armies from thee thy living breath,

The same with his owne hand (thou seest) doth poyson himselfe to death."

106. [Still.] Constantly, always; as very often. Cf. 270 below.

110. [Set up my everlasting rest.] That is, remain forever. To set up one's rest was a phrase taken from gaming, the rest being the highest stake the parties were disposed to venture; hence it came to mean to have fully made up one's mind, to be resolved. Here the form of expression seems to be suggested by the gaming phrase rather than to be a figurative example of it.

112-118. [Eyes ... bark.] Whiter points out a coincidence between this last speech of Romeo's and a former one (i. 4. 103 fol.) in which he anticipates his misfortunes. "The ideas drawn from the stars, the law, and the sea succeed each other in both speeches, in the same order, though with a different application."

115. [Dateless.] Limitless, eternal. Cf. Sonn. 30. 6: "death's dateless night;" Rich. III. i. 3. 151: "The dateless limit of thy dear exile," etc.

[Engrossing.] Malone says that the word "seems here to be used in its clerical sense." There seems to be at least a hint of that sense, suggested by seal and bargain; but the leading meaning is that of all-seizing, or "taking the whole," as Schmidt explains it.

116. [Conduct.] See on iii. 1. 127 above. For unsavoury, cf. V. and A. 1138: "sweet beginning, but unsavoury end." Schmidt, who rarely makes such a slip, treats both of these examples as literal rather than metaphorical. The only example of the former sense in S. (not really his) is Per. ii. 3. 31: "All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury."

118. [Thy.] Pope substituted "my," but thy may be defended on the nautical principle that the pilot is the master of the ship after he takes her in charge. That seems to be Romeo's thought here; he gives up the helm to the "desperate pilot," and says, "The ship is yours, run her upon the rocks if you will."

121. [Be my speed.] Cf. Hen. V. v. 2. 194: "Saint Denis be my speed!" A. Y. L. i. 2. 222: "Hercules be thy speed!" etc.

122. [Stumbled at graves.] The idea that to stumble is a bad omen is very ancient. Cicero mentions it in his De Divinatione. Melton, in his Astrologaster, 1620, says that "if a man stumbles in a morning as soon as he comes out of dores, it is a signe of ill lucke." Bishop Hall, in his Characters, says of the "Superstitious Man" that "if he stumbled at the threshold, he feares a mischief." Stumbling at graves is alluded to in Whimzies, or a New Cast of Characters, 1631: "His earth-reverting body (according to his mind) is to be buried in some cell, roach, or vault, and in no open space, lest passengers (belike) might stumble on his grave." Steevens cites 3 Hen. VI. iv. 7. 11 and Rich. III. iii. 4. 86.

127. [Capels'.] See on v. 1. 18 above.

138. [I dreamt,] etc. Steevens considers this a touch or nature: "What happens to a person under the manifest influence of fear will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream." It seems to me more likely that the man confuses what he saw while half asleep with what he might have dreamt.

145. [Unkind.] Usually accented on the first syllable before a noun, but otherwise on the second. This often occurs with dis-syllabic adjectives and participles. Unkind and its derivatives are often used by S. in a much stronger sense than at present. In some cases, the etymological sense of unnatural (cf. kind and kindly = natural) seems to cling to them. Cf. J.C. iii. 2. 187, Lear, i. 1. 263, iii. 4. 73, etc.

148. [Comfortable.] Used in an active sense = ready to comfort or help; as in A.W. i. 1. 86, Lear, i. 4. 328, etc.

158. [The watch.] It has been asserted by some of the critics that there was no watch in the old Italian cities; but, however that may have been, S. follows Brooke's poem:—

"The watchemen of the towne the whilst are passed by,

And through the gates the candel light within the tombe they spye."

162. [Timeless.] Untimely. Cf. T.G. of V. iii. 1. 21: "your timeless grave;" Rich. II. iv. 1. 5: "his timeless end," etc.

163. [Drunk all, and left.] The reading of 2nd quarto. The 1st has "drink ... leave," and the folio "drink ... left."

170. [There rest.] From 1st quarto; the other early eds. have "rust," which some editors prefer. To me rest seems both more poetical and more natural. That at this time Juliet should think of "Romeo's dagger, which would otherwise rust in its sheath, as rusting in her heart," is quite inconceivable. It is a "conceit" of the worst Elizabethan type.

The tragedy here ends in Booth's Acting Copy (Furness).

173. [Attach.] Arrest; as in C. of E. iv. 1. 6, 73, iv. 4. 6, Rich. II. ii. 3. 156, Hen. VIII. i. 1. 217, i. 2. 210, etc.

176. [These two days.] See on iv. 1. 105 above.

181. [Without circumstance.] Without further particulars. Cf. ii. 5. 36 above.

203. [His house.] Its sheath. See on ii, 6. 12 above.

204. [On the back.] The dagger was commonly turned behind and worn at the back, as Steevens shows by sundry quotations.

207. [Old age.] A slip which, strangely enough, no editor or commentator has noticed. Furness notes no reference to it, and I find none in more recent editions. See on i. 3. 51 above.

211. [Grief of my son's exile.] Cf. Much Ado, iv. 2. 65: "and upon the grief of this suddenly died." For the accent of exile, cf. iii. 1. 190 and iii. 3. 20 above.

After this line the 1st quarto has the following: "And yong Benuolio is deceased too;" but, as Ulrici remarks, "the pacific, considerate Benvolio, the constant counseller of moderation, ought not to be involved in the fate which had overtaken the extremes of hate and passion."

214. [Manners.] S. makes the word either singular or plural, like news, tidings (see on iii. 5. 105 above), etc. Cf. A. W. ii. 2. 9, W. T. iv. 4. 244, etc. with T. N. iv. 1. 53, Rich. III. iii. 7. 191, etc.

216. [Outrage.] Cf. 1 Hen. VI. iv. 1. 126:—

"Are you not asham'd

With this immodest clamorous outrage

To trouble and disturb the king and us?"

There, as here, it means a mad outcry. Dyce quotes Settle, Female Prelate: "Silence his outrage in a jayl, away with him!"

221. [Patience.] A trisyllable. See on v. 1. 27 above. In the next line suspicion is a quadrisyllable.

229. [I will be brief,] etc. Johnson and Malone criticise S. for following Brooke in the introduction of this long narrative. Ulrici well defends it as preparing the way for the reconciliation of the Capulets and Montagues over the dead bodies of their children, the victims of their hate. For date, see on i. 4. 105 above.

237. [Siege.] Cf. the same image in i. 1. 209.

238. [Perforce.] By force, against her will; as in C. of E. iv. 3. 95, Rich. II. ii. 3. 121, etc.

241. [Marriage.] A trisyllable. See on iv. 1. 11 above, and cf. 265 below.

247. [As this dire night.] This redundant use of as in statements of time is not uncommon. Cf. J.C. v. 1. 72: "as this very day was Cassius born," etc.

253. [Hour.] A dissyllable; as in iii. 1. 198 above.

257. [Some minute.] We should now say "some minutes," which is Hanmer's reading. Cf. "some hour" in 268 below.

258. [Untimely.] For the adverbial use, see on iii. 1. 121 above.

270. [Still.] Always. See on 106 above.

273. [In post.] In haste, or "post-haste." Cf. v. 1. 21 above. We find "in all post" in Rich. III. iii. 5. 73, and "all in post" in R. of L. 1.

276. [Going in.] See on v. 1. 36 above.

280. [What made your master?] What was your master doing? Cf. A. Y. L. i. 1. 3, ii. 3. 4, etc.

284. [By and by.] Presently. See on ii. 2. 151 above.

289. [Pothecary.] Generally printed "'pothecary" in the modern eds., but not in the early ones. It was a common form of the word. Cf. Chaucer, Pardoneres Tale:—

"And forth he goth, no longer wold he tary,

Into the toun unto a potecary."

[Therewithal.] Therewith, with it. Cf. T.G. of V. iv. 4. 90:—

"Well, give her that ring and therewithal

This letter," etc.

291. [Be.] Cf. Ham. iii. 2. 111, v. 1. 107, etc.

295. [A brace of kinsmen.] Mercutio and Paris. For the former, see iii. 1. 112; and for the latter, iii. 5. 179 and v. 3. 75. Steevens remarks that brace as applied to men is generally contemptuous; as in Temp. v. 1. 126: "But you, my brace of lords," etc. As a parallel to the present passage, cf. T. and C. iv. 5. 175: "You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither!"

305. [Glooming.] Used by S. only here. Steevens cites Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1578: "If either he gaspeth or gloometh." Cf. Spenser, F.Q. i. 14: "A little glooming light, much like a shade." Young uses the verb in his Night Thoughts, ii.: "A night that glooms us in the noontide ray."

308. [Some shall be pardoned,] etc. In the novel, Juliet's attendant is banished for concealing the marriage; Romeo's servant set at liberty because he had acted under his master's orders; the apothecary tortured and hanged; and Friar Laurence permitted to retire to a hermitage, where he dies five years later.

APPENDIX

Concerning Arthur Brooke

Little is known of the life of Arthur Broke, or Brooke, except that he wrote Romeus and Juliet (1562) and the next year published a book entitled Agreement of Sundry Places of Scripture, seeming in shew to jarre, serving in stead of Commentaryes not only for these, but others lyke; a translation from the French. He died that same year (1563), and an Epitaph by George Turbervile (printed in a volume of his poems, 1567) "on the death of maister Arthur Brooke" informs us that he was "drowned in passing to Newhaven."

So far as I am aware, no editor or commentator has referred to the singular prose introduction to the 1562 edition of Romeus and Juliet. It is clear from internal evidence that it was written by Brooke, and it is signed "Ar. Br."—the form in which his name also appears on the title-page; but its tone and spirit are strangely unlike those of the poem. We have seen (p. 25 above) that he refers to the perpetuation of "the memory of so perfect, sound, and so approved love" by the "stately tomb" of Romeo and Juliet, with "great store of cunning epitaphs in honour of their death;" but in the introduction he expresses a very different opinion of the lovers and finds a very different lesson in their fate. He says: "To this end (good Reader) is this tragical matter written, to describe unto thee a couple of unfortunate lovers, thralling themselves to unhonest desire, neglecting the authority and advice of parents and friends, conferring their principal counsels with drunken gossips and superstitious friars (the naturally fit instruments of unchastity), attempting all adventures of peril for the attaining of their wicked lusts, using auricular confession (the key of whoredom and treason) for furtherance of their purpose, abusing the honourable name of lawful marriage to cloak the shame of stolen contracts; finally, by all means of unhonest life, hasting to most unhappy death." The suggestion is added that parents may do well to show the poem to their children with "the intent to raise in them an hateful loathing of so filthy beastliness."

It is curious that there is not the slightest hint of all this anywhere in the poem; not a suggestion that the love of Romeo and Juliet is not natural and pure and honest; not a word of reproach for the course of Friar Laurence. Even the picture of the Nurse, with her vulgarity and unscrupulousness, is drawn with a kind of humour.

I have quoted above (note on ii. 2. 142) what Brooke makes Juliet say to her lover in the balcony scene. In their first interview, she says:—

"You are no more your owne (deare frend) then I am yours

(My honor saved) prest tobay [to obey] your will while life endures.

Lo here the lucky lot that sild [seldom] true lovers finde:

Eche takes away the others hart, and leaves the owne behinde.

A happy life is love if God graunt from above

That hart with hart by even waight doo make exchaunge of love."

And Romeo has just said:—

"For I of God woulde crave, as pryse of paynes forpast,

To serve, obey, and honor you so long as lyfe shall last."

Of the Friar the poet says:—

"This barefoote fryer gyrt with cord his grayish weede,

For he of Frauncis order was, a fryer as I reede.

Not as the most was he, a grosse unlearned foole:

But doctor of divinitie proceeded he in schoole.

* * * * * * *

The bounty of the fryer and wisdom hath so woune

The townes folks harts that welnigh all to fryer Lawrence ronne.

To shrive them selfe the olde, the yong, the great and small:

Of all he is beloved well and honord much of all.

And for he did the rest in wisdome farre exceede

The prince by him (his counsell cravde) was holpe at time of neede.

Betwixt the Capilets and him great frendship grew:

A secret and assured frend unto the Montegue."

At the end of the tragic story the poet asks:—

"But now what shall betyde of this gray-bearded syre?

Of fryer Lawrence thus araynde, that good barefooted fryre?

Because that many times he woorthely did serve

The commen welth, and in his lyfe was never found to swerve,

He was discharged quyte, and no marke of defame

Did seeme to blot or touch at all the honor of his name.

But of him selfe he went into an Hermitage,

Two myles from Veron towne, where he in prayers past forth his age;

Till that from earth to heaven his heavenly sprite dyd flye:

Fyve yeres he lived an Hermite, and an Hermite dyd he dye."

The puzzling prose preface to the poem is followed, in the original edition, by another in verse, similarly headed "To the Reader," from which we learn that Brooke had written other poems, which with this he compares to unlicked whelps—"nought els but lumpes of fleshe withouten heare" (hair)—but this poem, he says, is "the eldest of them" and his "youthfull woorke." He has decided to publish it, but "The rest (unlickt as yet) a whyle shall lurke" (that is, in manuscript)—

"Till tyme give strength to meete and match in fight

With slaunders whelpes."

I suspect that after this poem was written he had become a Puritan,—or more rigid in his Puritanism,—but nevertheless lusted after literary fame and could not resist the temptation to publish the "youthfull woorke." But after writing the verse prologue it occurred to him—or some of his godly friends may have admonished him—that the character of the story and the manner in which he had treated it, needed further apology or justification; and the prose preface was written to serve as a kind of "moral" to the production. After the suggestion to parents quoted above he adds: "Hereunto if you applye it, ye shall deliver my dooing from offence, and profit your selves. Though I saw the same argument lately set foorth on stage with more commendation then I can looke for (being there much better set forth then I have or can dooe) yet the same matter penned as it is, may serve to lyke good effect, if the readers do brynge with them lyke good myndes, to consider it, which hath the more incouraged me to publishe it, such as it is."

The reader may be surprised that Brooke refers to having seen the story "on stage;" but the Puritans did not altogether disapprove of plays that had a moral purpose. It will be remembered that Stephen Gosson, in his Schoole of Abuse (1579), excepts a few plays from the sweeping condemnation of his "plesaunt invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters, and such like caterpillers of a Commonwelth"—among them being "The Jew,... representing the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and the bloody minds of usurers," which may have anticipated Shakespeare in combining the stories of the caskets and the pound of flesh in The Merchant of Venice.

That Brooke was a Puritan we may infer from the religious character of the only other book (mentioned above) which he is known to have published. His death the same year probably prevented his carrying out the intention of licking the rest of his poetical progeny into shape for print.

Comments on Some of the Characters

Juliet.—Juliet is not fortunate in her parents. Her father is sixty or more years old (as we may infer from what he says in i. 5. 29 fol.), while her mother is about twenty-eight (see i. 3. 50), and must have been married when she was half that age. Her assertion that Juliet was born when she herself was "much upon these years" of her daughter (who will be fourteen in about a fortnight, as the Nurse informs us in the same scene) is somewhat indefinite, but must be within a year or two of the exact figure. Her marriage was evidently a worldly one, arranged by her parents with little or no regard for her own feelings, much as she and her husband propose to marry Juliet to Paris.

We may infer that Capulet had not been married before, though, as he himself intimates and the lady declares (iv. 4. 11 fol.), he had been a "mouse-hunt" (given to flirtation and intrigue) in his bachelor days; and she thinks that he needs "watching" even now, lest he give her occasion for jealousy.

Neither father nor mother seems to have any marked affection for Juliet, or any interest in her welfare except to get her off their hands by what, from their point of view, is a desirable marriage. Capulet says (iii. 5. 175):—

"God's bread! it makes me mad! Day, night, late, early,

At home, abroad, alone, in company,

Waking, or sleeping, still my care hath been

To have her match'd; and having now provided

A gentleman of noble parentage,

Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,

Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,

Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man,—

And then to have a wretched puling fool,

A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,

To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love,

I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.'"

It is more than he can endure; and his wife, when Juliet begs her to interpose and "delay the marriage for a month, a week," refuses to "speak a word" in opposition to his determination to let her "die in the streets" if she does not marry Paris that very week. "Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee," the Lady adds, and leaves the hapless girl to her despair. A moment before she had said, "I would the fool were married to her grave!"

Earlier in the play (i. 2. 16) Capulet has said to Paris:—

"But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,

My will to her consent is but a part;

An she agree, within her scope of choice,

Lies my consent and fair according voice;"—

but from the context we see that this is merely a plausible excuse for not giving the count a definite answer just then. The girl, he says, is "yet a stranger in the world" (has not yet "come out," in modern parlance), and it is best to wait a year or two:—

"Let two more summers wither in their pride

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride."

He sees no reason for haste; but later, influenced by the noble wooer's importunities and the persuasions of his wife, who has favoured an early marriage from the first (i. 3), he takes a different tone (iii. 4. 12):—

"Capulet. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender

Of my child's love. I think she will be rul'd

In all respects by me; nay, more, I doubt it not.—

Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;

Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love,

And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next—

But, soft! what day is this?

Paris. Monday, my lord.

Capulet. Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.

O' Thursday let it be; o' Thursday, tell her,

She shall be married to this noble earl."

"She shall be married," and the day is fixed. Already he calls Paris "my son." No question now of delay, and getting her "consent" as a condition of securing his own!

At the supposed sudden death of their daughter the parents naturally feel some genuine grief; but their conventional wailing (iv. 5) belongs to the earlier version of the play, and it is significant that Shakespeare let it stand when revising his work some years afterwards. As Tieck remarks, it "had not the true tragic ring"—and why should it?

Most of the critics have assumed that Shakespeare makes Juliet only fourteen, because of her Italian birth; but in the original Italian versions of the story she is eighteen, and Brooke makes her sixteen. All of Shakespeare's other youthful heroines whose ages are definitely stated or indicated are very young. Miranda, in The Tempest, is barely fifteen, as she has been "twelve year" on the enchanted island and was "not out [full] three years old" when her father was driven from Milan. Marina, in Pericles, is only fifteen at the end of the play; and Perdita only sixteen, as we learn from the prologue to act iv. of The Winter's Tale.

In Juliet's case, I believe that the youthfulness was an essential element in Shakespeare's conception of the character. With the parents and the Nurse he has given her, she could only have been, at the opening of the play, the mere girl he makes her. She must be too young to have discovered the real character of her father and mother, and to have been chilled and hardened by learning how unlike they were to the ideals of her childhood. She must not have come to comprehend fully the low coarse nature of the Nurse, her foster-mother. The poet would not have dared to leave the maiden under the influence of that gross creature till she was eighteen, or even sixteen. As it is, she has not been harmed by the prurient vulgarity of the garrulous dame. She never shows any interest in it, or seems even to notice it. When her mother first refers to the suit of Paris (i. 3) we see that no thought of love or marriage has ever occurred to her, and the glowing description of a noble and wealthy young wooer does not excite her imagination in the least. Her only response to all that the Lady and the Nurse have urged in praise of Paris is coldly acquiescent:—

"I'll look to like, if looking liking move;

But no more deep will I endart mine eye

Than your consent gives strength to make it fly."

The playful manner in which Juliet receives the advances of Romeo (i. 5. 95-109) is thoroughly girlish, though we must note that his first speech, as given in the play ("If I profane," etc.), is not the beginning of their conversation, which has been going on while Capulet and Tybalt were talking. This is the first and the last glimpse that we get of her bright young sportiveness. With the kiss that ends the pretty quibbling the girl learns what love means, and the larger life of womanhood begins.

The "balcony scene" (ii. 2)—the most exquisite love scene ever written—is in perfect keeping with the poet's conception of Juliet as little more than a child—still childlike in the expression of the new love that is making her a woman. Hence the absolute frankness in her avowal of that love—an ideal love in which passion and purity are perfectly interfused. There is not a suggestion of sensuality on Romeo's part any more than on hers. When he asks, "O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?" it is only the half-involuntary utterance of the man's impatience—so natural to the man—that the full fruition of his love must be delayed. Juliet knows that it involves no base suggestion, and a touch of tender sympathy and pity is mingled with the maiden wisdom of the innocent response, "What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?"

Lady Martin (Helena Faucit), who has played the part of Juliet with rare power and grace, and has written about it no less admirably, remarks on this scene: "Women are deeply in debt to Shakespeare for all the lovely and noble things he has put into his women's hearts and mouths, but surely for nothing more than for the words in which Juliet's reply [to Romeo, when he has overheard her soliloquy in the balcony] is couched. Only one who knew of what a true woman is capable, in frankness, in courage, and self-surrender when her heart is possessed by a noble love, could have touched with such delicacy, such infinite charm of mingled reserve and artless frankness, the avowal of so fervent, yet so modest a love, the secret of which had been so strangely stolen from her. As the whole scene is the noblest pæan to Love ever written, so is what Juliet says supreme in subtlety of feeling and expression, where all is beautiful. Watch all the fluctuations of emotion which pervade it, ... the generous frankness of the giving, the timid drawing back, fearful of having given too much unsought; the perplexity of the whole, all summed up in that sweet entreaty for pardon with which it closes."

Juliet's soliloquy in iii. 3 is no less remarkable for its chaste and reverent dealing with a situation even more perilous for the dramatist. We must not forget that it is a soliloquy, "breathed out in the silence and solitude of her chamber," as Mrs. Jameson reminds us; or, we may say, not so much as breathed out, but only thought and felt, unuttered even when no one could have heard it. As spoken to a theatrical audience, it is only to a sympathetic listener who appreciates the situation that it can have its true effect, and one feels almost guilty and ashamed at having intruded upon the sacred privacy of the maiden meditation. Even to comment upon it seems like profanity.

Here, as in the balcony scene, Juliet is simply the "impatient child" to whom she compares herself, looking forward with mingled innocence and eagerness to the fruition of the "tender wishes blossoming at night" that inspire the soliloquy.

In one of Romeo's speeches in the interview with Friar Laurence after the death of Tybalt (iii. 3), there is a delicate tribute to the girlish purity and timidity of Juliet, though it occurs in a connection so repellent to our taste that we may fail to note it. This is the passage:—

"heaven is here,

Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

Live here in heaven and may look on her,

But Romeo may not. More validity,

More honourable state, more courtship lives

In carrion-flies than Romeo. They may seize

On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand

And steal immortal blessing from her lips,

Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,

Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin:

But Romeo may not, he is banished.

This may flies do, when I from this must fly;

They are free men, but I am banished."

This is unquestionably from the earliest draft of the play, and is a specimen of the most intolerable class of Elizabethan conceits. As another has said, "Perhaps the worst line that Shakespeare or any other poet ever wrote, is the dreadful one where Romeo, in the very height of his passionate despair, says, 'This may flies do, but I from this must fly.'" It comes in "with an obtrusive incongruity which absolutely makes one shudder." The allusion to the "carrion flies" is bad enough, but the added pun on fly, which makes the allusion appear deliberate and elaborate rather than an unfortunate lapse due to the excitement of the moment, forbids any attempt to excuse or palliate it. But we must not overlook the exquisite reference to Juliet's lips, that—

"even in pure and vestal modesty

Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin."

There we have the true Juliet—the Juliet whose maiden modesty and innocence certain critics (in their comments upon the soliloquy in iii. 3) have been too gross to comprehend. It is to Romeo's honour that he can understand and feel it even when recalling the passionate exchange of conjugal kisses.

The scene (iv. 3) in which Juliet drinks the potion has been misinterpreted by some of the best critics. Coleridge says that she "swallows the draught in a fit of fright," for it would have been "too bold a thing" for a girl of fourteen to have done it otherwise. Mrs. Jameson says that, "gradually and most naturally, in such a mind once thrown off its poise, the horror rises to frenzy,—her imagination realizes its own hideous creations,"—that is, after picturing all the possible horrors of the tomb, she sees, or believes she sees, the ghost of Tybalt, and drinks the potion in the frenzied apprehension the vision excites. On the contrary, as George Fletcher remarks, "the very clearness and completeness with which her mind embraces her present position make her pass in lucid review, and in the most natural and logical sequence, the several dismal contingencies that await her"—thus leading up, "step by step, to this climax of the accumulated horrors, not which she may, but which she must encounter, if she wake before the calculated moment. This pressure on her brain, crowned by the vivid apprehension of anticipated frenzy, does, indeed, amid her dim and silent loneliness, produce a momentary hallucination [of Tybalt's ghost], but she instantly recovers herself, recognizes the illusion, ... embraces the one chance of earthly reunion with her lord—'Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee!'"

This is substantially Lady Martin's interpretation of the scene, and that which she carried out in action on the stage. She says: "For the moment the great fear gets the better of her great love, and all seems madness. Then in her frenzy of excitement she seems to see Tybalt's figure 'seeking out Romeo.' At the mention of Romeo's name I used to feel all my resolution return. Romeo! She goes to meet him, and what terror shall hold her back? She will pass through the horror of hell itself to reach what lies beyond; and she swallows the potion with his name upon her lips." The lady adds: "What it is to act it I need not tell. What power it demands! and yet what restraint!"

Romeo.—Some critics have expressed surprise that Shakespeare should have preluded the main story of the drama with the "superfluous complication" of Romeo's love for Rosaline. On the other hand, Coleridge considers it "a strong instance of the fineness of his insight into the nature of the passions." He adds: "The necessity of loving creates an object for itself in man and woman; and yet there is a difference in this respect between the sexes, though only to be known by a perception of it. It would have displeased us if Juliet had been represented as already in love, or as fancying herself so; but no one, I believe, ever experiences any shock at Romeo's forgetting his Rosaline, who had been a mere name for the yearning of his youthful imagination, and rushing into his passion for Juliet." Mrs. Jameson says: "Our impression of Juliet's loveliness and sensibility is enhanced when we find it overcoming in the bosom of Romeo a previous love for another. His visionary passion for the cold, inaccessible Rosaline forms but the prologue, the threshold, to the true, the real sentiment which succeeds to it. This incident, which is found in the original story, has been retained by Shakspeare with equal feeling and judgment; and, far from being a fault in taste and sentiment, far from prejudicing us against Romeo by casting on him, at the outset of the piece, the stigma of inconstancy, it becomes, if properly considered, a beauty in the drama, and adds a fresh stroke of truth to the portrait of the lover. Why, after all, should we be offended at what does not offend Juliet herself? for in the original story we find that her attention is first attracted towards Romeo by seeing him 'fancy-sick and pale of cheer,' for love of a cold beauty."

The German critic Kreyssig aptly remarks: "We make the acquaintance of Romeo at the critical period of that not dangerous sickness to which youth is liable. It is that 'love lying in the eyes' of early and just blossoming manhood, that humorsome, whimsical 'love in idleness,' that first bewildered, stammering interview of the heart with the scarcely awakened nature. Strangely enough, objections have been made to this 'superfluous complication,' as if, down to this day, every Romeo had not to sigh for some Junonian Rosaline, nay, for half a dozen Rosalines, more or less, before his eyes open upon his Juliet."

Young men of ardent and sentimental nature, as Kreyssig intimates, imagine themselves in love—sometimes again and again—before a genuine passion takes possession of them. As Rosalind expresses it, Cupid may have "clapped them on the shoulder," but, they are really "heart-whole." Such love is like that of the song in The Merchant of Venice:

—

"It is engender'd in the eyes,

By gazing fed, and fancy dies

In the cradle where it lies."

It lives only until it is displaced by a healthier, more vigorous love, capable of outgrowing the precarious period of infancy.[8] This is not the only instance of the kind in Shakespeare. Orsino's experience in Twelfth Night is similar to Romeo's. At the beginning of the play he is suffering from unrequited love for Olivia, but later finds his Juliet in Viola.

Romeo is a very young man—if indeed we may call him a man when we first meet him. We may suppose him to be twenty, but hardly older. He has seen very little of society, as we infer from Benvolio's advising him to go to the masquerade at Capulet's, in order to compare "the admired beauties of Verona" with Rosaline. He had thought her "fair, none else being by." He is hardly less "a stranger in the world" than Juliet himself. Love develops him as it does her, but more slowly.

Contrast the strength of Juliet's new-born heroism in her budding womanhood, when she drinks the potion that is to consign her to the horrors of the charnel-house, with the weakness of Romeo who is ready to kill himself when he learns that he is to be banished from Verona,—an insignificant fate compared with that which threatens her—banishment from home, a beggar in the streets,—the only alternative a criminal marriage that would forever separate her from her lawful husband, or death to escape that guilt and wretchedness. No wonder that the Friar cannot control his contempt and indignation when Romeo draws his sword:—

"Hold thy desperate hand!

Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art;

Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote

The unreasonable fury of a beast,

Unseemly woman in a seeming man!

Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!

Thou hast amaz'd me; by my holy order,

I thought thy disposition better temper'd.

Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?

And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,

By doing damned hate upon thyself?

* * * * *

What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,

For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;

There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,

But thou slew'st Tybalt; there art thou happy too.

The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend

And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.

A pack of blessings lights upon thy back,

Happiness courts thee in her best array;

But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,

Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.

Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable."

He has the form of a man, but talks and acts like a weak girl, while the girl of fourteen whom he loves—a child three days before, we might say—now shows a self-control and fortitude worthy of a man.

Romeo does not attain to true manhood until he receives the tidings of Juliet's supposed death. "Now, for the first time," as Dowden says, "he is completely delivered from the life of dream, completely adult, and able to act with an initiative in his own will, and with manly determination. Accordingly, he now speaks with masculine directness and energy: 'Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!' Yes; he is now master of events; the stars cannot alter his course. 'Nothing,' as Maginn has observed, 'can be more quiet than his final determination, "Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to night." ... It is plain Juliet. His mind is made up; the whole course of the short remainder of his life so unalterably fixed that it is perfectly useless to think more about it.' These words, because they are the simplest, are amongst the most memorable that Romeo utters. Now passion, imagination, and will are fused together, and Romeo who was weak has at length become strong."

Mercutio.—Dryden quotes a traditional saying concerning Mercutio, that if Shakespeare had not killed him, he would have killed Shakespeare. But Shakespeare was never driven to disposing of a personage in that way, because he was unequal to the effort of maintaining the full vigour or brilliancy of the characterization. He did not have to kill off Falstaff, for instance, until he had carried him through three complete plays, and then only because his "occupation," dramatically speaking, "was gone." There was the same reason for killing Mercutio. The dramatist had no further use for him after the quarrel with Tybalt which leads to his death. In both the novel and the poem, Romeo kills Tybalt in a street brawl between the partisans of the rival houses. The dramatic effect of the scene in the play where Romeo avoids being drawn into a conflict with Tybalt until driven to incontrollable grief and wrath by the death of his friend is far more impressive. The self-control and self-restraint of Romeo, in spite of the insults of Tybalt and the disgust of Mercutio at what seems to him "calm, dishonourable, vile submission," show how reluctant the lover of Juliet is to fight with her kinsman. He does his best to restrain his friend from the duel: "Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up—" but to no purpose; nor is his appeal to Benvolio to "beat down their weapons" more successful. He then attempts to do this himself, but the only result is to bring about the death of Mercutio, who exclaims: "Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm." Poor Romeo can only plead, "I thought all for the best."

But at this point in the play, when the tragic complication really begins, the dramatist must dismiss Mercutio from the stage, as he does with Falstaff after Prince Hal has become King. Mercutio must not come in contact with Juliet, nor will Romeo himself care to meet him. He is the most foul-mouthed of Shakespeare's characters, the clowns and profligates not excepted. The only instance in Shakespeare's works in which the original editions omit a word from the text is in a speech of Mercutio's; and Pope, who could on occasion be as coarse as any author of that licentious age, felt obliged to drop two of Mercutio's lines from his edition of the dramatist. Fortunately, the majority of the knight's gross allusions are so obscure that they would not be understood nowadays, even by readers quite familiar with the language of the time.

And yet Mercutio is a fellow of excellent fancy—poetical fancy—as the familiar description of Queen Mab amply proves. Critics have picked it to pieces and found fault with some of the details; but there was never a finer mingling of exquisite poetry with keen and sparkling wit. Its imperfections and inconsistencies, if such they be, are in keeping with the character and the situation. It was meant to be a brilliant improvisation, not a carefully elaborated composition. Shakespeare may, indeed, have written the speech as rapidly and carelessly as he makes Mercutio speak it.

The Time-analysis of the Play

This is summed up by Mr. P.A. Daniel in his valuable paper "On the Times or Durations of the Actions of Shakspere's Plays" (Trans. of New Shaks. Soc. 1877-79, p. 194) as follows:—

"Time of this Tragedy, six consecutive days, commencing on the morning of the first, and ending early in the morning of the sixth.

Day 1. (Sunday) Act I. and Act II. sc. i. and ii.

" 2. (Monday) Act II. sc. iii.-vi., Act III. sc. i.-iv.

Day 3. (Tuesday) Act III. sc. v., Act IV. sc. i.-iv.

" 4. (Wednesday) Act IV. sc. v.

" 5. (Thursday) Act V.

" 6. (Friday) End of Act V. sc. iii."

After the above was printed, Dr. Furnivall called Mr. Daniel's attention to my note on page 249 fol. in which I show that the drama may close on Thursday morning instead of Friday. Mr. Daniel was at first disinclined to accept this view, but on second thought was compelled to admit that I was right.

List of Characters in the Play

The numbers in parentheses indicate the lines the characters have in each scene.

Escalus: i. 1(23); iii. 1(16); v. 3(36). Whole no. 75.

Paris: i. 2(4); iii. 4(4); iv. 1(23), 5(6); v. 3(32). Whole no. 69.

Montague: i. 1(28); iii. 1(3); v. 3(10). Whole no. 41.

Capulet: i. 1(3), 2(33), 5(56); iii. 4(31), 5(63); iv. 2(26), 4(19), 5(28); v. 3(10). Whole no. 269.

2d Capulet: i. 5(3). Whole no. 3.

Romeo: i. 1(65), 2(29), 4(34), 5(27); ii. 1(2), 2(86), 3(25), 4(54), 6(12); iii. 1(36), 3(71), 5(24); v. 1(71), 3(82). Whole no. 618.

Mercutio: i. 4(73); ii. 1(34), 4(95); iii. 1(71). Whole no. 273.

Benvolio: i. 1(51), 2(20), 4(13). 5(1); ii. 1(9). 4(14); iii. 1(53). Whole no. 161.

Tybalt: i. 1(5), 5(17); iii. 1(14). Whole no. 36.

Friar Laurence: ii. 3(72), 6(18); iii. 3(87); iv. 1(56), 5(25); v. 2(17), 3(75). Whole no. 350.

Friar John: v. 2(13). Whole no. 13.

Balthasar: v. 1(11), 3(21). Whole no. 32.

Sampson: i. 1(41). Whole no. 41.

Gregory: i. 1(24). Whole no. 24.

Peter: iii. 4(7); iv. 5(30). Whole no. 37

Abram: i. 1(5). Whole no. 5.

Apothecary: v. 1(7). Whole no. 7.

1st Musician: iv. 5(16). Whole no. 16.

2d Musician: iv. 5(6). Whole no. 6.

3d Musician: iv. 5(1). Whole no. 1.

1st Servant: i. 2(21), 3(5), 5(11); iv. 4(1). Whole no. 38.

2d Servant: i. 5(7); iv. 2(5), 4(2). Whole no. 14.

1st Watchman: v. 3(19). Whole no. 19.

2d Watchman: v. 3(1). Whole no. 1.

3d Watchman: v. 3(3). Whole no. 3.

1st Citizen: i. 1(2); iii. 1(4). Whole no. 6.

Page: v. 3(9). Whole no. 9.

Lady Montague: i. 1(3). Whole no. 3.

Lady Capulet: i. 1(1), 3(36), 5(1); iii. 1(11), 4(2), 5(37); iv. 2(3), 3(3), 4(3), 5(13); v. 3(5). Whole no. 115.

Juliet: i. 3(8), 5(19); ii. 2(114), 5(43), 6(7); iii. 2(116), 5(105); iv. 1(48), 2(12), 3(56); v. 3(13). Whole no. 541.

Nurse: i. 3(61), 5(15); ii. 2(114), 6(43), 7(7); iii. 2(116), 5(105); iv. 1(48), 2(12), 3(56); v. 3(13). Whole no. 290.

"Prologue": (14). Whole no. 14.

"Chorus": end of act i. (14). Whole no. 14.

In the above enumeration, parts of lines are counted as whole lines, making the total in the play greater than it is. The actual number in each scene is as follows: Prologue (14); i. 1(244), 2(106), 3(106), 4(114), 5(147); Chorus (14); ii. 1(42), 2(190), 3(94), 4(233), 5(80), 6(37); iii. 1(202), 2(143), 3(175), 4(36), 5(241); iv. 1(126), 2(47), 3(58), 4(28), 5(150); v. 1(86), 2(30), 3(310). Whole number in the play, 3053. The line-numbering is that of the Globe ed.

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