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 upon these 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):—

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 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:—

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):—

"She shall be 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 some years 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, in The 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, in Pericles, is only fifteen at the end of the play; and Perdita only sixteen, as we learn from the prologue to act iv. of The 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:—

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 ever written, 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 it is a 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:—

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 may flies do, but I from this must fly.'" 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 on fly, 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—

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 once thrown off its poise, the horror rises to frenzy,—her imagination realizes its own hideous creations,"—that is, after picturing all the possible horrors of the tomb, she sees, or believes she sees, 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 she may, but which she must encounter, if she wake before the calculated moment. This pressure on her brain, crowned by the vivid apprehension of anticipated frenzy, 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 in The Merchant of Venice:—

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:—

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.