SCENE II. A Room in Capulet's House. Enter JULIET. Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds 1, The sentiment here enforced is different from that found in the first edition, 1597. There the Prince concludes his speech with these words: 'Pity shall dwell, and govern with us still; Mercy to all but murderers,—pardoning none that kill.' 1 The poet probably remembered Marlowe's King Edward II. which was performed before 1593 : Gallop apace, bright Phoebus, through the skie, And duskie night in rusty iron car; Between you both, shorten the time, I pray, That I may see that most desired day.' There is also a passage in Barnabe Riche's Farewell to the Militarie Profession, 1583, which bears some resemblance to this. 2 Here ends this speech in the original quarto. The rest of the scene has likewise received considerable alterations and additions. 3 A great deal of ingenious criticism has been bestowed in endeavouring to ascertain the meaning of this expression. Dr. Warburton thought that the run-away in question was the sun; but Mr. Heath has most completely disproved this opinion. Mr. Steevens considers the passage as extremely elliptical, and regards the night as the run-away; making Juliet wish that its eyes, the stars, might retire, to prevent discovery. Mr. Justice Blackstone can perceive nothing optative in the lines, but simply a reason for Juliet's wish for a cloudy night; yet, according to this construction of the passage, the grammar is not very easily to be discovered. Whoever attentively reads over Juliet's speech will be inclined to think, or even to be altogether satisfied, that the whole tenor of it is optative. With respect to the calling night a run-away, one might surely ask how it can possibly be so termed in an abstract point of view? Is it a greater fugitive than the morning, the noon, or the evening? Mr. Steevens Leap to these arms, untalk'd of, and unseen! Come, night!—Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night! For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night lays great stress on Shakspeare's having before called the night a run-away in The Merchant of Venice: For the close night doth play the run-away.' But there it was already far advanced, and might therefore with great propriety be said to play the run-away; here it was not begun. The same remark will apply to the passage cited from the Fair Maid of the Exchange. Where then is this run-away to be found? or can it be Juliet herself? She who had just been secretly married to the enemy of her parents might with some propriety be termed a run-away from her duty; but she had not abandoned her native pudency. She therefore invokes the night to veil those rites which she was about to perform, and to bring her Romeo to her arms in darkness and silence. The lines that immediately follow may be thought to favour this interpretation; and the whole scene may possibly bring to the reader's recollection an interesting part in the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche.-Douce. 4 So in Marlowe's Hero and Leander : dark night is Cupid's day.' Milton, in his Comus, might have been indebted to Shakspeare :— 'Virtue can see to do what virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk.' 5 Civil is grave, solemn. 6 These are terms of falconry. An unmanned hawk is one that is not brought to endure company. Bating is fluttering or beating the wings as striving to fly away. Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night7, Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die, And he will make the face of heaven so fine, 8 And pay no worship to the garish sun.— O, I have bought the mansion of a love, To an impatient child, that hath new robes, Enter Nurse, with Cords. And she brings news: and every tongue, that speaks But Romeo's name, speaks heavenly eloquence.Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there, the cords, That Romeo bade thee fetch? Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords. [Throws them down. Jul. Ah me! what news! why dost thou wring thy hands? Nurse. Ah well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead! We are undone, lady, we are undone !— Alack the day!-he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead! 7 Romeo can, Why here walk I, in the black brow of night,' King John. 8 Milton had this speech in his thoughts when he wrote Il Penseroso: Hide me from day's garish eye.' Hence also Till civil-suited morn appear.' Garish is gaudy, glittering. Though heaven cannot:-O Romeo! Romeo!- Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus? This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell. Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer, I. Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine To prison, eyes! ne'er look on liberty! Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here; Jul. What storm is this, that blows so contrary? Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished; Romeo, that kill'd him, he is banished. 9 In Shakspeare's time the affirmative particle ay was usually written I, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling. 10 See what is said of the basilisk, King Henry VI. Part 11. Act iii. Sc. 2. See Othello, Act i. Sc. 1. Jul. O God!-did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood? Nurse. It did, it did; alas the day! it did. Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face 1! Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! Nurse. All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitæ:These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Shame come to Romeo! Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue, For such a wish! he was not born to shame : 12 The same image occurs in Macbeth :- But be the serpent under it.' The succeeding line has its parallel in King John :— 'Rash, inconsiderate, firy voluntaries, With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens.' Again in King Henry VIII.: 'You have angels' faces, but Heaven knows your hearts.' The line Did ever dragon,' &c. and the following eight lines, are not in the quarto, 1597. So in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, tom. ii. p. 223 :-' Is it possible that under such beautie and rare comelinesse, disloyaltie and treason may have their siege and lodging?' |