“Lady, by yonder blessed Moone I vow,
That tips with siluer all these frute tree tops.”
When Shakespeare could give us in words so vivid a picture of moonlight, Ben Jonson could well afford to have a fling at Inigo Jones’s mechanical scenery, and say:
“What poesy e’er was painted on a wall?”
Romeo goes direct from Capulet’s orchard to Friar Lawrence’s cell to make confession of his “deare hap.” He loves now in earnest, and love teaches him to brave all dangers, and even to face matrimony; and his virtuous mood wins for him the good-will of the Friar, who sees in the alliance of the two houses their reconciliation. In the poem and novel both the lovers avow a similar disinterested motive to justify their union, but the mind of reason never enters the heart of love, and Shakespeare, in their case, wisely omits this bit of sophistry. The advance of the love episode must move side by side with the quarrel episode, so in the next scene we hear of Romeo receiving a challenge from Tybalt. The Irving-version omits most of the good-natured banter between Romeo and Mercutio, which is all telling comedy if spoken lightly and quickly. The Nurse enters, and Mercutio and Benvolio set off for Montague’s house, where they propose dining. The incident that follows must have been very irritating to the Elizabethan Puritans, who complained of the corruption of morals begot in “the chapel of Satan” by witnessing the carrying and recarrying of letters by laundresses “to beguile fathers of their children.” Here more excellent comedy is omitted in the Irving-version, including the Nurse’s allusion to Paris as being “the properer man” of the two, and her naïve question, “Doth not Rosemarie and Romeo begin both with a letter?” The Nurse had overheard Juliet talk about “Rosemarie and Romeo.” Later on we see rosemary strewed over the body of the apparently dead Juliet.
The scene in which Romeo and Juliet meet to be married at the Friar’s Cell ends on the stage the second act. But to drop the curtain here interrupts the dramatic movement just as it is about to reach a climax in the death of Tybalt, followed by the banishment of Romeo. These incidents require action that is all hurry and excitement, and are therefore out of place at the beginning of an act, unless it be the opening act of a play. Besides, they are immediately connected with the scene in which allusion is made to Tybalt having challenged Romeo. We are shown Mercutio and Benvolio returning from Montague’s house, where they proposed dining. And Mercutio has, apparently, indulged too freely in his host’s wine, for the prudent Benvolio is anxious to get his friend out of the public streets as quickly as possible. Benvolio’s worst fears are realized by the entrance of the quarrelsome Tybalt, whom Mercutio, as is the way with fuddled people, at once offers to fight. But Tybalt hesitates to cross swords with a relative of the Prince, and is glad of the excuse of Romeo’s appearance to transfer the quarrel to him. Romeo will not draw sword upon his wife’s cousin, and Mercutio, exasperated, takes up the challenge, is stabbed by Tybalt under Romeo’s arm, and dies cursing the two houses. This tragedy rouses Romeo to action; he will now defend his own honour since he was Mercutio’s dear friend. Tybalt is challenged and killed. The citizens “are up,” and for the second time we hear their ominous shout:
“Downe with the Capulets, downe with the Montagues!”
They enter, followed by the Prince, with the heads of the two houses and their wives. The Capulets call for Romeo’s death. The Montagues protest that Romeo in killing a man whose life was already forfeited has but taken the law into his own hands. For that offence he is exiled by the Prince.
“I haue an interest in your hates proceeding:
My bloud for your rude brawles doth lie a bleeding.
But ile amerce you with so strong a fine,
That you shall all repent the losse of mine.
I will be deafe to pleading and excuses,
Nor teares, nor prayers, shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none, let Romeo hence in hast,
Else when he is found, that houre is his last.”
The whole of the latter part of this scene is brilliant in the variety and rapidity of its action, and should not, I consider, be omitted in representation as is directed to be done in the Irving-version. To take out the second renewal of hostilities between the two houses; not to show, in action on the stage, the rage of the Capulets at the death of Tybalt, and the grief of the Montagues at the banishment of Romeo, is to weaken the tragic significance of the scenes that follow. Without it the audience cannot vividly realize that the hatred of the two houses has reached its acutest stage, and that all hope of reconciliation is at an end.
Mercutio at the commencement of this scene says to Benvolio: “Thou wilt quarell with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes.” Did Shakespeare, who, according to tradition had hazel eyes, act the part of Benvolio? I think he did. It is the only part in the play I can fancy him able to act. A study of both the bust and the Droeshout portrait of the poet-dramatist leads me to believe that he would not have been able to disguise easily his identity on the stage. His flexibility was essentially of a mental and not of a physical nature. The face is entirely wanting in mobility, and the head is so large that no wig could hide its unusual size. Shakespeare, moreover, became bald probably early in life. The Droeshout portrait shows undoubtedly the likeness of a youngish man, about thirty-five years old, while his baldness would still justify the epithet of “grandsire” with which Mercutio dubs Benvolio; and “grandsire” may have been a nickname of Shakespeare’s suggested by his baldness. “Come hither, goodman bald-pate”—words spoken by Lucio in “Measure for Measure”—have been quoted as a reason for presuming that Shakespeare played the Duke in that comedy. Sir William Davenant, who liked to be thought a natural son of the poet, in an adaption of this play altered the words to, “She has been advised by a bald dramatic poet of the next cloister.” If the audience recognized their “gentle Will” in the part of the peace-loving Benvolio, we may imagine the laughter that would arise at Mercutio’s words: “Thy head is as full of quarelles, as an egg is full of meate”—Shakespeare’s head being egg-shaped. If my supposition be correct, we may honour the self-abnegation, the entire absence of personal vanity that enabled Shakespeare, like Molière, to direct laughter against himself. The scattered references to him which we find in the writings of his contemporaries show us, says Professor Dowden, “the poet concealed and sometimes forgotten in the man, and make it clear that he moved among his fellows with no assuming of the bard or prophet, no air of authority as of one divinely commissioned; that, on the contrary, he appeared as a pleasant comrade, genial, gentle, full of civility in the large meaning of the word, upright in dealing, ready and bright in wit, quick and sportive in conversation.” How aptly does this description fit the character of Benvolio! One quality was especially common to the two men—tact. It was the possession of tact that made Shakespeare so invaluable to his fellow-actors as a manager. Benvolio’s tact is shown in his conversation with Romeo’s parents, with Romeo himself, with Mercutio when hot-headed, and with the Prince, Mercutio’s relative. It is true that Benvolio attributes Mercutio’s death to Tybalt’s interference, while in reality it was due to Mercutio’s indiscretion; but we have no pity for Tybalt, who, as Brooke says, thirsting after the death of others, lost his life.