That late thou gav'st me; for Mercutio's soul Staying for thine to keep him company; Or thou or I, or both, must go with him! Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here, Shalt with him hence. Rom. This shall determine that. The sequel is best told in the words of Benvolio to the prince : And to't they go like lightning; for, ere I Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain; Morally, as well as in honour, we see that Romeo is thoroughly absolved-so thoroughly as to prevent the supreme magistrate himself from applying to him the law in its rigour: Lady Cap. I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give; Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live. Prince. Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio; Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe? Montague. Not Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio's friend; His fault concludes but, what the law should end, The life of Tybalt. Prince. And for that offence, In like manner, we find even his worthy confessor and confidant, with whom he now takes refuge, expressing simple compassion for his present position, unmingled with the smallest particle of reproach: Fri. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man; Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity! Rom. Father, what news? what is the prince's doom? What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand, That I yet know not? Is Fri. Too familiar my dear son with such sour company: I bring thee tidings of the prince's doom. Rom. What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom? Not body's death, but body's banishment. Rom. Ha! banishment?-be merciful—say, death For exile hath more terror in his look, Much more than death: do not say, banishment! The intolerable anguish of a forced separation at such a moment—the worse than rending asunder of the young heart, by this sudden cheating of its fondest and most eager anticipation-is developed in all its intensity by the ensuing dialogue-stimulated at once, and contrasted, as it is, by the impassive coolness of the Friar's otherwise kind exhortations. This appears most expressively in the concluding portion of the colloquy, which carries the passion to the climax :— Fri. Thou fond mad man, hear me but speak a word. To comfort thee, though thou art banished. Rom. Yet banished ?-Hang up philosophy! It helps not, it prevails not-talk no more! Fri. Oh, then I see, that madmen have no ears. Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes? This last sentence from the Friar, most exquisitely and consummately expresses the utter inaccessibility of the worthy old man's apprehension to the intractable nature of the feeling which agonizes his ill-fated pupil. Romeo's reply is not more intensely impassioned than it is logically conclusive: Thou canst not speak of what thou dost not feel: Then might'st thou speak, then might'st thou tear thy hair, Taking the measure of an unmade grave! We must now return to Juliet. For the effect upon her feelings, of this same violent shock, we are the more excitingly prepared by that soliloquy of hers which breathes out-or rather, indeed, thinks aloudwith such exquisitely poetic truth, all those blissful imaginings which, while her bridegroom becomes so unhappily engaged, she is left to indulge, in the leisure and seclusion of her chamber. We would willingly have deemed that the time was gone by when any class of readers or auditors could require this celebrated passage to be vindicated to them on the score of delicacy; but we feel bound to accept Mrs. Jameson's testimony to the fact, where she tells us:- "I confess I have been shocked at the utter want of taste and refinement in those who, with coarse derision, or in a spirit of prudery, yet more gross and perverse, have dared to comment on this beautiful Hymn to the night,' breathed out by Juliet in the silence and solitude of her chamber."* It is well observed by Hazlitt:-"Such critics do not perceive that the feelings of the heart sanctify, without disguising, the impulses of nature. Without refinement themselves, they confound modesty with hypocrisy." Coleridge, again, justly remarks-"The whole of this speech is imagination strained to the highest ; and observe the blessed effect on the purity of the mind. What would Dryden have made of it?"t To this question we may answer, that we can judge pretty well what he would have made of it, from his doings with Miranda, &c., in 'The Tempest.' Schlegel, in fine, sums up the matter truly and decisively, where he says, in relation to this play-" It was reserved for Shakespeare to unite purity of heart with the glow of imagination,-sweetness and dignity of manners with passionate vehemence, in one ideal picture :" Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, * Characteristics,' &c.-3rd edition, vol. i. p. 193. Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Come, night! come, Romeo! come, thou day in night! Whiter than new snow on a raven's back. Come, gentle Night; come, loving black-brow'd Night, To an impatient child, that hath new robes And may not wear them.—Oh, here comes my nurse, Now, nurse, what news? Let us now observe the art with which the awkward simplicity of the Nurse's broken narrative is managed, so as to stir every agitating emotion in the breast of Juliet-each successive one more violent than the preceding until her agony attains its climax. The old woman's first exclamations, which seem to announce Romeo's death, give the first blow, the merely stunning suddenness of which strikes from Juliet the bewildered question— Can heaven be so envious? The Nurse's equivocal reply,— Romeo can, Though heaven cannot-O Romeo! Romeo!- creates a suspense the most horrible : What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus ? The perverse simplicity with which the Nurse goes on I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes, &c.— seeming to bespeak the certainty of Romeo's end, makes the instant transition in Juliet's bosom to mere desolation: O break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once! Vile earth, to earth resign-end motion here- Next comes the announcement of Tybalt's death, which seems to be added to that of Romeo: Nurse. Oh, Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had- Jul. What storm is this, that blows so contrary? Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom- Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished. Jul. Oh God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood? Here is the most terrible blow that has yet been dealt her, in the sudden intelligence that her adored bridegroom has taken the life of the being nearest to himself in her affections. The bare idea of this fact, at once pierces her soul and fires her imagination, leaving her no leisure to reflect upon its causes. Let us mark the abrupt and violent shock between the two opposing currents of feeling in her bosom, which appears in every line, in every phrase, of her following exclamations: O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! |