"It is engender'd in the eyes,
By gazing fed, and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies."

It lives only until it is displaced by a healthier, more vigorous love, capable of outgrowing the precarious period of infancy.[8] This is not the only instance of the kind in Shakespeare. Orsino's experience in Twelfth Night is similar to Romeo's. At the beginning of the play he is suffering from unrequited love for Olivia, but later finds his Juliet in Viola.

Romeo is a very young man—if indeed we may call him a man when we first meet him. We may suppose him to be twenty, but hardly older. He has seen very little of society, as we infer from Benvolio's advising him to go to the masquerade at Capulet's, in order to compare "the admired beauties of Verona" with Rosaline. He had thought her "fair, none else being by." He is hardly less "a stranger in the world" than Juliet himself. Love develops him as it does her, but more slowly.

Contrast the strength of Juliet's new-born heroism in her budding womanhood, when she drinks the potion that is to consign her to the horrors of the charnel-house, with the weakness of Romeo who is ready to kill himself when he learns that he is to be banished from Verona,—an insignificant fate compared with that which threatens her—banishment from home, a beggar in the streets,—the only alternative a criminal marriage that would forever separate her from her lawful husband, or death to escape that guilt and wretchedness. No wonder that the Friar cannot control his contempt and indignation when Romeo draws his sword:—

"Hold thy desperate hand!
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art;
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast,
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz'd me; by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady too that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
*          *          *          *          *
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there art thou happy too.
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.
A pack of blessings lights upon thy back,
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable."

He has the form of a man, but talks and acts like a weak girl, while the girl of fourteen whom he loves—a child three days before, we might say—now shows a self-control and fortitude worthy of a man.

Romeo does not attain to true manhood until he receives the tidings of Juliet's supposed death. "Now, for the first time," as Dowden says, "he is completely delivered from the life of dream, completely adult, and able to act 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. '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. His mind is 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. Now passion, imagination, and will are fused together, and Romeo who was weak has at length become strong."

Mercutio.—Dryden quotes a traditional saying concerning Mercutio, that if Shakespeare had not killed him, he would have killed Shakespeare. But Shakespeare was never driven to disposing of a personage in that way, because he was unequal to the effort of maintaining the full vigour or brilliancy of the characterization. He did not have to kill off Falstaff, for instance, until he had carried him through three complete plays, and then only because his "occupation," dramatically speaking, "was gone." There was the same reason for killing Mercutio. The dramatist had no further use for him after the quarrel with Tybalt which leads to his death. In both the novel and the poem, Romeo kills Tybalt in a street brawl between the partisans of the rival houses. The dramatic effect of the scene in the play where Romeo avoids being drawn into a conflict with Tybalt until driven to incontrollable grief and wrath by the death of his friend is far more impressive. The self-control and self-restraint of Romeo, in spite of the insults of Tybalt and the disgust of Mercutio at what seems to him "calm, dishonourable, vile submission," show how reluctant the lover of Juliet is to fight with her kinsman. He does his best to restrain his friend from the duel: "Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up—" but to no purpose; nor is his appeal to Benvolio to "beat down their weapons" more successful. He then attempts to do this himself, but the only result is to bring about the death of Mercutio, who exclaims: "Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm." Poor Romeo can only plead, "I thought all for the best."

But at this point in the play, when the tragic complication really begins, the dramatist must dismiss Mercutio from the stage, as he does with Falstaff after Prince Hal has become King. Mercutio must not come in contact with Juliet, nor will Romeo himself care to meet him. He is the most foul-mouthed of Shakespeare's characters, the clowns and profligates not excepted. The only instance in Shakespeare's works in which the original editions omit a word from the text is in a speech of Mercutio's; and Pope, who could on occasion be as coarse as any author of that licentious age, felt obliged to drop two of Mercutio's lines from his edition of the dramatist. Fortunately, the majority of the knight's gross allusions are so obscure that they would not be understood nowadays, even by readers quite familiar with the language of the time.

And yet Mercutio is a fellow of excellent fancy—poetical fancy—as the familiar description of Queen Mab amply proves. Critics have picked it to pieces and found fault with some of the details; but there was never a finer mingling of exquisite poetry with keen and sparkling wit. Its imperfections and inconsistencies, if such they be, are in keeping with the character and the situation. It was meant to be a brilliant improvisation, not a carefully elaborated composition. Shakespeare may, indeed, have written the speech as rapidly and carelessly as he makes Mercutio speak it.

The Time-analysis of the Play

This is summed up by Mr. P.A. Daniel in his valuable paper "On the Times or Durations of the Actions of Shakspere's Plays" (Trans. of New Shaks. Soc. 1877-79, p. 194) as follows:—

"Time of this Tragedy, six consecutive days, commencing on the morning of the first, and ending early in the morning of the sixth.

Day 1. (Sunday) Act I. and Act II. sc. i. and ii.

  "    2. (Monday) Act II. sc. iii.-vi., Act III. sc. i.-iv.

Day 3. (Tuesday) Act III. sc. v., Act IV. sc. i.-iv.

  "    4. (Wednesday) Act IV. sc. v.

  "    5. (Thursday) Act V.

  "    6. (Friday) End of Act V. sc. iii."

After the above was printed, Dr. Furnivall called Mr. Daniel's attention to my note on page 249 fol. in which I show that the drama may close on Thursday morning instead of Friday. Mr. Daniel was at first disinclined to accept this view, but on second thought was compelled to admit that I was right.

List of Characters in the Play

The numbers in parentheses indicate the lines the characters have in each scene.

Escalus: i. 1(23); iii. 1(16); v. 3(36). Whole no. 75.

Paris: i. 2(4); iii. 4(4); iv. 1(23), 5(6); v. 3(32). Whole no. 69.

Montague: i. 1(28); iii. 1(3); v. 3(10). Whole no. 41.

Capulet: i. 1(3), 2(33), 5(56); iii. 4(31), 5(63); iv. 2(26), 4(19), 5(28); v. 3(10). Whole no. 269.

2d Capulet: i. 5(3). Whole no. 3.

Romeo: i. 1(65), 2(29), 4(34), 5(27); ii. 1(2), 2(86), 3(25), 4(54), 6(12); iii. 1(36), 3(71), 5(24); v. 1(71), 3(82). Whole no. 618.

Mercutio: i. 4(73); ii. 1(34), 4(95); iii. 1(71). Whole no. 273.

Benvolio: i. 1(51), 2(20), 4(13). 5(1); ii. 1(9). 4(14); iii. 1(53). Whole no. 161.

Tybalt: i. 1(5), 5(17); iii. 1(14). Whole no. 36.

Friar Laurence: ii. 3(72), 6(18); iii. 3(87); iv. 1(56), 5(25); v. 2(17), 3(75). Whole no. 350.

Friar John: v. 2(13). Whole no. 13.

Balthasar: v. 1(11), 3(21). Whole no. 32.

Sampson: i. 1(41). Whole no. 41.

Gregory: i. 1(24). Whole no. 24.

Peter: iii. 4(7); iv. 5(30). Whole no. 37

Abram: i. 1(5). Whole no. 5.

Apothecary: v. 1(7). Whole no. 7.

1st Musician: iv. 5(16). Whole no. 16.

2d Musician: iv. 5(6). Whole no. 6.

3d Musician: iv. 5(1). Whole no. 1.

1st Servant: i. 2(21), 3(5), 5(11); iv. 4(1). Whole no. 38.

2d Servant: i. 5(7); iv. 2(5), 4(2). Whole no. 14.

1st Watchman: v. 3(19). Whole no. 19.

2d Watchman: v. 3(1). Whole no. 1.

3d Watchman: v. 3(3). Whole no. 3.

1st Citizen: i. 1(2); iii. 1(4). Whole no. 6.

Page: v. 3(9). Whole no. 9.

Lady Montague: i. 1(3). Whole no. 3.

Lady Capulet: i. 1(1), 3(36), 5(1); iii. 1(11), 4(2), 5(37); iv. 2(3), 3(3), 4(3), 5(13); v. 3(5). Whole no. 115.

Juliet: i. 3(8), 5(19); ii. 2(114), 5(43), 6(7); iii. 2(116), 5(105); iv. 1(48), 2(12), 3(56); v. 3(13). Whole no. 541.

Nurse: i. 3(61), 5(15); ii. 2(114), 6(43), 7(7); iii. 2(116), 5(105); iv. 1(48), 2(12), 3(56); v. 3(13). Whole no. 290.

"Prologue": (14). Whole no. 14.

"Chorus": end of act i. (14). Whole no. 14.

In the above enumeration, parts of lines are counted as whole lines, making the total in the play greater than it is. The actual number in each scene is as follows: Prologue (14); i. 1(244), 2(106), 3(106), 4(114), 5(147); Chorus (14); ii. 1(42), 2(190), 3(94), 4(233), 5(80), 6(37); iii. 1(202), 2(143), 3(175), 4(36), 5(241); iv. 1(126), 2(47), 3(58), 4(28), 5(150); v. 1(86), 2(30), 3(310). Whole number in the play, 3053. The line-numbering is that of the Globe ed.

INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED