Juliet had shrunk with horror from the thought of confronting Tybalt in the vault of the Capulets. But now Romeo is in danger. All fear deserts her. To stand by Romeo's side is her one necessity. With a confused sense that this draught will somehow place her close to the murderous Tybalt, and close to Romeo whom she would save, calling aloud to Tybalt to delay one moment,-"Stay, Tybalt, stay!"-she drains the phial, not "in a fit of fright," but with the words 'Romeo! I come; this do I drink to thee." The brooding nature of Romeo, which cherishes emotion, and lives in it, is made salient by contrast with Mercutio, who is all wit, and intellect, and vivacity, an uncontrollable play of gleaming and glancing life. Upon the morning after the betrothal with Juliet, a meeting happens between Romeo Romeo and Mercutio. Previously, while lover of Rosaline, Romeo had cultivated a lover-like melancholy. But now, partly because his blood runs gladly, partly because the union of soul with Juliet has made the whole world more real and substantial, and things have grown too solid and lasting to be disturbed by a laugh, Romeo can contend in jest with Mercutio himself, and stretch his wit of cheveril "from an inch narrow to an ell broad." Mercutio and the nurse are Shakspere's creations in this play. For the character of the former he had but a slight hint in the poem of Arthur Brooke. There we read of Mercutio as a courtier who was bold among the bashful maidens as a lion among lambs, and we are told that he had an "ice-cold hand." Putting together these two suggestions, discovering a significance in them, and animating them with the breath of his own life, Shakspere created the brilliant figure which lights up the first half of Romeo and Juliet, and disappears when the colours become all too grave and sombre. Mercutio, Romeo has accepted the great bond of love. with his ice-cold hand, the lion among maidens, chooses above all things a defiant liberty, a liberty of speech, gaily at war with the proprieties, an airy freedom of fancy, a careless and masterful courage in dealing with life, as though it were a matter of slight importance. He will not attach himself to either of the houses. He is invited by Capulet to the banquet; but he goes to the banquet in company with Romeo and the Montagues. He can do generous and disinterested things; but he will not submit to the trammels of being recognised as generous. He dies maintaining his freedom, and defying death with a jest. To be made worm's meat of so stupidly, by a villain that fights by the book of arithmetic, and through Romeo's awkwardness, is enough to make a man impatient. "A plague o' both your houses!" The death of Mercutio is like the removal of a shifting breadth of sunlight, which sparkles on the sea; now the clouds close in upon one another, and the stress of the gale begins.* The moment that Romeo receives the false tidings of Juliet's death, is the moment of his assuming full manhood. Now, for the first time, he is completely delivered from the life of dream, completely adult, and able to act *The German Professor sometimes does not quite keep pace with Shakspere, and is heard stumbling heavily behind him. Gervinus thus describes Mercutio: "A man without culture, coarse and rude ugly, a scornful ridiculer of all sensibility and love." with an initiative in his own will, and with manly determination. Accordingly, he now speaks with masculine directness and energy :— Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars! Yes; he is now master of events; the stars cannot alter his course; Thou know'st my lodgings: get me ink and paper, Bal. I do beseech you, sir, have patience. Rom. Your looks are pale and wild, and do import Tush! thou art deceiv'd. Rom. No matter; get thee gone, And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight. "Nothing," as Maginn has observed, "can be more quiet than his final determination, Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. It is plain Juliet. . . . . . . There is nothing about Cupid's arrow,' or 'Dian's wit;' no honeyed word escapes his lips, nor again does any accent of despair. His mind is so made up; the whole course of the short remainder of his life so unalterably fixed that it is perfectly useless to think more about it." These words because they are the simplest are amongst the most memorable that Romeo utters. Is this indeed the same Romeo who sighed, and wept, and spoke sonnet-wise, and penned himself in his chamber, shutting the daylight out for love of Rosaline? Now passion, imagination, and will, are fused together, and Romeo who was weak has at length become strong. * In two noteworthy particulars Shakspere has varied from his original. He has compressed the action from some months into four or five days. Thus precipitancy is added to the course of events and passions. Shakspere has also made the catastrophe more calamitous than it is in Brooke's poem. It was his invention to bring Paris across Romeo in the church-yard. Paris comes to strew his flowers, uttering in a rhymed sextain, (such as might have fallen from Romeo's lips in the first Act) his pretty lamentation. Romeo goes resolutely forward to death. He is no longer "young Romeo," but adult, and Paris is the boy. He speaks with the gentleness, and with the authority of one who knows what life and death are of one who has * The following passage quoted by H. H. Furness (Variorum Romeo and Juliet, pp. 226,27), from Mr Clarke may be serviceable as giving some of the notes of time which occur in this play, "In Scene 1, the Prince desires Capulet to go with him at once, and Montague to come to him, this afternoon.' In Scene 2, Capulet speaks of Montague being 'bound' as well as himself, which indicates that the Prince's charge has just been given to both of them, and shortly after speaks of the festival at his house this night.' At this festival Romeo sees Juliet when she speaks of sending to him 'to-morrow,' and on that 'morrow' the lovers are united by Friar Laurence. Act iii. opens with the scene where Tybalt kills Mercutio, and during which scene Romeo's words, "Tybalt, that an hour hath been my kinsman' show that the then time is the afternoon of the same day. The Friar, at the close of Scene 3. of that Act bids Romeo 'good night;" and in the next scene, Paris, in reply to Capulet's inquiry, 'What day is this?' replies, 'Monday, my lord.' This, by the way, denotes that the 'old accustomed feast' of the Capulets, according to a usual practice in Catholic countries, was celebrated on a Sunday evening. In Scene 5. of Act iii. comes the parting of the lovers at the dawn of Tuesday, and when at the close of the scene, Juliet says she shall repair to Friar Laurence' cell. Act iv. commences with her gained the superior position of those who are about to die over those who still may live : Good, gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man. By urging me to fury. He would save Paris if that might be. But Paris still crosses Romeo, and he must needs be dealt with : Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee, boy! Romeo has now a definite object; he has a deed to do, and he will not brook obstacles.* Friar Laurence remains to furnish the Prince with an explanation of the events. It is impossible to agree with those critics, among others Gervinus, who represent appearance there, thus carrying on the action during the same day, Tuesday. But the effect of long time is introduced by the mention of 'evening mass,' and by the Friar's detailed directions and reference to 'to-morrow's night;' so that when the mind has been prepared by the change of scene, by Capulet's anxious preparations for the wedding, and by Juliet's return to filial submission, there seems no violence done to the imagination by Lady Capulet's remarking, ''Tis now near night.'. . . Juliet retires to her own room with the intention of selecting wedding attire for the next morning, which her father has said shall be that of the marriage, anticipating it by a whole dayWednesday instead of Thursday." The sleeping-potion is expected by the Friar to operate during two and forty hours, Act iv. Scene 1. Juliet drinks it upon Tuesday night, or rather in the night hours of Wednesday morning-delaying as long as she dare. On the night of Thursday she awakens in the tomb and dies. Maginn believed that there must be some mistake in the reading "two and forty hours ;" but there is no need to suppose this. The play, as Maginn observes, is dated by Shakspere throughout with a most exact attention to hours. *In the first quarto Benvolio dies. Montague, Act v. Scene 3, announces the death of his wife, -the quarto adds the line, "And young Benvolio is deceased too.' |