APPENDIX

"And nought-respecting death (the last of paines)Plac'd his pale colours (th' ensign of his might)Upon his new-got spoil."

"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 thouTo 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."

"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. Toset up one's restwas a phrase taken from gaming, therestbeing 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 thestars, thelaw, and theseasucceed 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 thatsense, suggested bysealandbargain; 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. Forunsavoury, 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) isPer.ii. 3. 31: "All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury."

118.Thy.Pope substituted "my," butthymay 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 hisDe Divinatione. Melton, in hisAstrologaster, 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 hisCharacters, says of the "Superstitious Man" that "if he stumbled at the threshold, he feares a mischief." Stumbling at graves is alluded to inWhimzies, 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 3Hen. VI.iv. 7. 11 andRich. 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-syllabicadjectives and participles.Unkindand its derivatives are often used by S. in a much stronger sense than at present. In some cases, the etymological sense ofunnatural(cf.kindandkindly= 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 inA.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."

"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 merestseems 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 inC. 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 commentatorhas 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 ofexile, cf. iii. 1. 190 and iii. 3. 20 above.

After this line the 1st quarto has the following: "And yongBenuoliois 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, likenews,tidings(see on iii. 5. 105 above), etc. Cf.A. W.ii. 2. 9,W. T.iv. 4. 244, etc. withT. N.iv. 1. 53,Rich. III.iii. 7. 191, etc.

216.Outrage.Cf. 1Hen. VI.iv. 1. 126:—

"Are you not asham'dWith this immodest clamorous outrageTo trouble and disturb the king and us?"

"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 linesuspicionis 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. Fordate, see on i. 4. 105 above.

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

238.Perforce.By force, against her will; as inC. 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 ofasin statementsof 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" inRich. III.iii. 5. 73, and "all in post" inR. 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."

"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 therewithalThis letter," etc.

"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 thatbraceas applied to men is generally contemptuous; as inTemp.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 citesTom Tyler and his Wife, 1578: "If either he gaspeth or gloometh." Cf. Spenser,F.Q.i. 14: "A little glooming light, much like ashade." Young uses the verb in hisNight 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.

Concerning Arthur Brooke

Little is known of the life of Arthur Broke, or Brooke, except that he wroteRomeus and Juliet(1562) and the next year published a book entitledAgreement 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 anEpitaphby 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 ofRomeus 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 theattaining 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 aboveThat hart with hart by even waight doo make exchaunge of love."

"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."

"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 wouneThe 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 exceedeThe 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."

"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 wouneThe 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 exceedeThe 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."

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 serveThe commen welth, and in his lyfe was never found to swerve,He was discharged quyte, and no marke of defameDid 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."

"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)—butthispoem, 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 fightWith slaunders whelpes."

"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 whichhe 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 shalldeliver 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 hisSchoole 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 inThe 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.

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 uponthese 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 beenTo have her match'd; and having now providedA 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.'"

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

"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 tenderOf my child's love. I think she will be rul'dIn 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."

"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."

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."

"Sheshallbe 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 someyears 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, inThe 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, inPericles, is only fifteen at the end of the play; and Perdita only sixteen, as we learn from the prologue to act iv. ofThe 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 eyeThan your consent gives strength to make it fly."

"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 everwritten, 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 itisa 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 dogAnd 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 livesIn carrion-flies than Romeo. They may seizeOn the white wonder of dear Juliet's handAnd 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."

"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 mayfliesdo, but I from this mustfly.'" 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 onfly, 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 modestyStill blush, as thinking their own kisses sin."

"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 oncethrown off its poise, the horror rises tofrenzy,—her imagination realizes its own hideous creations,"—that is, after picturing all the possible horrors of the tomb, shesees, or believes shesees, 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 shemay, but which shemustencounter, if she wake before the calculated moment. This pressure on her brain, crowned by the vivid apprehension ofanticipatedfrenzy, 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 inThe Merchant of Venice:

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