To-morrow night look that thou lie alone," etc.
This agrees with the preceding dates. The conversation in iii. 4 is late on Monday evening (cf. lines 5 and 18), and Lady Capulet's talk with Juliet about marrying Paris (iii. 5. 67 fol.) is early the next (Tuesday) morning. The visit to the Friar is evidently on the same day; and the next scene (iv. 2) is in the evening of that day. Juliet comes home and tells her father that she has been to the Friar's, and is ready to marry Paris. The old man at once decides to have the wedding "to-morrow morning" (that is, Wednesday) instead of Thursday. Lady Capulet objects, but finally yields to her husband's persistency; and so Juliet goes to her chamber, and drinks the potion on Tuesday evening, or twenty-four hours earlier than the Friar had directed. He of course is notified of the change in the time for the wedding, as he is to perform the ceremony, and will understand that Juliet has anticipated the time of taking the potion, and that she will wake on Thursday morning instead of Friday. If so, instead of extending the "two and forty hours," as Maginn does, we need rather to shorten the interval. We may suppose the time of v. 3 to be as early as three o'clock in the morning. It is summer, and before daylight. Paris and Romeo come with torches, and the Friar with a lantern. Romeo tells his servant to deliver the letter to his father "early in the morning." The night watchmen are still on duty. Since we can hardly send Juliet to bed before nine in the evening on Tuesday, thirty hours is the most that can be allowed for the interval, unless we add another day and accept the fifty-two of Maginn. But this does not seem required by anything in act v.—not even by the "two days buried" of v. 3. 176, for Thursday would be the second day that she had lain in the tomb. The marriage was to be early on Wednesday morning, and the funeral took its place. Balthasar "presently took post" (v. 1. 21) to tell the news to Romeo at Mantua, less than twenty-five miles distant. He arrives before evening (cf. v. 1. 4: "all this day," which indicates the time), and Romeo at once says, "I will hence to-night." He has ample time to make his preparations and to reach Verona before two o'clock the next morning. He has been at the tomb only half an hour or so (v. 3. 130) before the Friar comes. It must have been near midnight (see v. 2. 23) when Friar John returned to Laurence's cell; so that, even if he had not been despatched to Mantua until that morning, he would have had time to go and return, but for his unexpected detention. I see no difficulty, therefore, in assuming that the drama closes on Thursday morning; the difficulty would be in prolonging the time to the next morning without making the action drag.
110. [In thy best robes,] etc. The Italian custom here alluded to, of carrying the dead body to the grave richly dressed and with the face uncovered (which is not mentioned by Paynter), S. found particularly described in Romeus and Juliet:—
"Now throughout Italy this common vse they haue,
That all the best of euery stocke are earthed in one graue;
* * * * * * *
An other vse there is, that whosoeuer dyes,
Borne to their church with open face vpon the beere he lyes,
In wonted weede attyrde, not wrapt in winding sheete."
Cf. Ham. iv. 5. 164: "They bore him barefac'd on the bier." Knight remarks that thus the maids and matrons of Italy are still carried to the tomb; and he quotes Rogers, Italy:—