Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

"There were (and that wot I full well)

Of pomegranates a full great deal."

The "orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits" was one of the beautiful objects described by Soloman in his Canticles. Amongst the fruit-bearing trees, the pomegranate is in some respects the most beautiful; and, therefore, in the south of Europe and in the East it has become the chief ornament of the garden. But where did Shakspere find that the nightingale haunted the pomegranate-tree, pouring forth her song from the same bough, week after week? Doubtless in some of the old travels with which he was familiar. Chaucer puts his nightingale "in a fresh green laurel-tree;" but the preference of the nightingale for the pomegranate is unquestionable. "The nightingale sings from the pomegranate-groves in the day-time," says Russel in his account of Aleppo. A friend, whose observations as a traveller are as acute as his descriptions are graphic and forcible, informs us that throughout his journeys in the East he never heard such a choir of nightingales as in a row of pomegranate-trees that skirt the road from Smyrna to Boudjia. In the truth of details such as these the genius of Shakspere is as much exhibited as in his wonderful powers of generalization.

* SCENE V.-" It was the lark, the herald of the morn."

Shakspere's power of describing natural objects is unequalled in this beautiful scene, which, as we think, was amongst his very early productions. The Venus and Adonis, published in 1593, is also full of this power. Compare the following passage with the description of morning in the scene before us :

"Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,

From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;

Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold."

"SCENE V.-"Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day."

There was one Gray, a maker of "certain merry ballads," who, according to Puttenham in his "Art of English Poesy" (1589), grew into good estimation with Henry VIII., and the Protector Somerset, for the said merry ballads, "whereof one chiefly was, The hunte is up, the bunte is up." Douce thinks he has recovered the identical song, which he reprints. One stanza will, perhaps, satisfy our readers :

[blocks in formation]

which we may properly quote here: "Mark in this scene Shakspere's gentleness in touching the tender superstitions, the terræ incognita of presentiments, in the human mind; and how sharp a line of distinction he commonly draws between these obscure forecastings of general experience in each individual, and the vulgar errors of mere tradition. Indeed, it may be taken, once for all, as the truth, that Shakspere, in the absolute universality of his genius, always reverences whatever arises out of our moral nature; he never profanes his muse with a contemptuous reasoning away of the genuine and general, however unaccountable, feelings of Inankind." (Literary Remains, vol. ii. page 174.) --Shakspere has himself given us the key to his philosophy of presentiments. Venus, dreading the death of Adonis by the boar, says—

"The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed; And fear doth teach it divination;

I prophesy thy death."

Such presentiments, which may or may not be realised, appertain to the imagination when in a highly excited state. Our poet has exhibited the feeling under three different aspects in Romeo and Juliet; when Romeo, before going to the masquerade, exclaims

my mind misgives

Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels;"

he is under the influence of his habitual melancholy, the sentiment of unrequited love, which colours all his imagination with a gloomy foreshadowing of coming events. In the passage

before us, when Juliet sees her husband

"As one dead in the bottom of a tomb,"

we have "the fear" which doth "teach" her heart "divination." But Romeo, in the fifth Act, has a presentiment directly contrary to the approaching catastrophe: and this arises out of his " unaccustomed "animal spirits :

"My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne."

All these states of mind are common to the imagination deeply stirred by passionate emotions. Nothing, in all Shakspere's philosophy, appears to us finer than the deceiving nature of Romeo's presages in the last Act, as compared with the true-divining fears of Juliet.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS. Fri. On Thursday, sir? the time is very short. Par. My father Capulet will have it so: And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste." Fri. You say, you do not know the lady's mind; Uneven is the course, I like it not.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,

And therefore have I little talk'd of love :
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society;
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
Fri. I would I knew not why it should be
slow'd.

[Aside.

Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

a In (4) the passage is

"And I am nothing slack to slow his haste." Jackson conjectures that the to of all the editions should be too. But the meaning is obvious as it stands :-

"I am nothing slow, (so as) to slack his haste."

Enter JULIET.

Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife!
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Par. That may be, must be, love, on Thurs-
day next.
Jul. What must be shall be.

Fri.

That's a certain text. Par. Come you to make confession to this father?

Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you. Par. Do not deny to him, that you love me. Jul. I will confess to you, that I love him. Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me. Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back, than to your face. Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,

Come weep with me: Past hope, past care, past help!

Fri. O Juliet, I already know thy grief; It strains me past the compass of my wits: I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this county.

Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,

Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our
hands;

And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both :
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,^
Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire; arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.
Fri. Hold, daughter; I do spy a kind of
hope,

Which craves as desperate an execution

As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry county Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely, thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop'st with death himself to 'scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring
bears;

Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,

Nine lines, ending with this, are not in (A). In (4), yonder. In (C) and folio, any.

O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling

bones,

With reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls; Or bid me go into a new-made grave,

And hide me with &, dead man in his shroud;" Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;

And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.
Fri. Hold, then; go home, be merry, give

consent

To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this phial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.b
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'st;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death :
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:
Then (as the manner of our country is,)
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier,1
Be borne to burial in thy kindreds' grave:d
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault,
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
And hither shall he come; and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

a In (D), shroud. In folio, grave. b (4) gives this passage thus:

"A dull and heavy slumber, which shall seize Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep His natural progress, but surcease to beat." We give the text of (C) and the folio. This speech of the friar, in the author's "amended" edition (B), is elaborated from thirteen lines to thirty-three; and yet the variorum editors have been bold enough even here, to give us a text made up of Shakspere's first thoughts and his last. e In (D), paly. In (C), many.

d This line, which is in all the ancient copies, has been left out in all the modern. The editors have here gone far beyond their office;-nor can we understand why the more particular working out of the idea in the next two lines should have given them offence. "Be borne," means "to be borne."

[blocks in formation]

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, NURSE, and Servants.

Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.[Exit Servant. Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.2 2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick their fingers.

Cap. How canst thou try them so?

2 Serv. Marry, sir, 't is an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me. Cap. Go, begone.— [Exit Servant. We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence? Nurse. Ay, forsooth.

Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good on her:

A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

Enter JULIET.

Nurse. See, where she comes from shrift with merry look.

Cap. How now, my headstrong? where have you been gadding?

Jul. Where I have learn'd me to repent the sin Of disobedient opposition

To you, and your behests; and am enjoin'd
By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,
To beg your pardon :-Pardon, I beseech you!
Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.

Cap. Send for the county; go tell him of this;

I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning. Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell; And gave him what becomed" love I might, Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.

Cap. Why, I am glad on 't; this is well,

stand up:

This is as 't should be.-Let me see the county;
Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.-
Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.

a Becomed-becoming.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Nurse!-What should she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.Come, phial.

[ocr errors]

What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
No, no;-this shall forbid it :-lie thou there.-
[Laying down a dagger.
What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead;
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear, it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man:
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romico
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,

To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,

And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,-
As in a vault,3 an ancient receptacle,

Where, for these many hundred years, the bones

Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort ;-
Alack, alack! it is not like, that I,

So early waking,-what with loathsome smells;
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,

This speech of Juliet, like many others of the great passages throughout the play, received the most careful elaboration and the most minute touching. In the first edition it occupies only eighteen lines; it extends to fortyfive in the "amended" euition of 1599. And yet it was a recent custom to make a patchwork of the two. This line in (4) is thus:

"Must I of force be married to the county?" The line which follows lower down

"I will not entertain so bad a thought "— Steevens says he has recovered from the quarto. We print the eighteen lines of the original, that the reader may see with what consummate skill the author's corrections have been made.

"Farewell, God knows when we shall meet again.
Ah, I do take a fearful thing in hand.
What if this potion should not work at all,
Must I of force be married to the county?
This shall forbid it. Knife, lie thou there.
What if the friar should give me this drink
To poison me, for fear I should disclose

Our former marriage? Ah, I wrong him much,
He is a holy and religious man :

I will not entertain so bad a thought.
What if I should be stifled in the tomb?
Awake an hour before the appointed time:
Ah, then I fear I shall be lunatic:
And playing with my dead forefathers' bones,
Dash out my frantic brains. Methinks I see
My cousin Tybalt weltering in his blood,
Seeking for Romeo: Stay, Tybalt, stay.
Romeo I come, this do I drink to thee."

That living mortals, hearing them, run mad ;-
O! if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefathers' joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O, look! methinks, I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point :-Stay, Tybalt, stay!—
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, I drink to thee."
[She throws herself on the bed.

SCENE IV.-Capulet's Hall.
Enter Lady CAPULET and NURSE.

La. Cap. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

Enter CAPULET.

Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock

hath crow'd.

The curfeu bell hath rung, 't is three o'clock :-
Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica:
Spare not for cost.

Nurse.
Go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; 'faith, you'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.

Cap. No, not a whit; What! I have watch'd

ere now

All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick. La. Cap. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in

your time;

But I will watch you from such watching now. [Exeunt Lady CAPULET and NURSE. Cap. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!-Now, fellow,

What's there?

Enter Servants, with spits, logs, and baskets.
1 Serv. Things for the cook, sir; but I know
not what.

Cup. Make haste, make haste. [Exil 1 Serv.]
-Sirrah, fetch drier logs;

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

2 Serv. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter. [Exit. Cap. 'Mass, and well said; A merry whoreson! ha,

a The ordinary reading is that of (A):

"Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee."

In the subsequent quartos, and the folio, we have,

[ocr errors]

Romeo, Romeo, Romeo!-here's drink-I drink to thee." We think with Mr. Dyce that "here's drink," was the stagedirection of here drink. We do not adopt the first reading, because I come" would seem to imply that Romeo was dead, and Juliet was about to meet him in another world. 61

« PreviousContinue »