Chapter VI: Act III: , Scene 2, brings us to the last stage of the casket complication, (1)

and here Shakespeare, to avoid sameness, directs that a song shall be sung while Bassanio is occupied in deciding his fate; so that his long speech is spoken after the choice has been made, the leaden casket being then in his hands, and his words merely used to justify his decision. That Bassanio must win Portia is realized from the first. Moreover, his success, after Shylock's threats in the last scene, has become a dramatic necessity, and is thus saved from an appearance of unreality, so that his love adventure develops naturally. His good fortune is Gratiano's; then news is brought of Antonio's bankruptcy and Bassanio is sent to his friend's relief. Scene 3 does no more than show in action what was previously narrated by Solanio in the preceding one, for the Elizabethan dramatists, differing in their methods from the Greeks, rarely allowed narration to take the place of action on the stage. Perhaps this was on account of the mixed character of the audience, the "groundlings" being too busy cracking nuts to take in an important situation merely from its narration. To them Antonio's danger would not become a fact till they actually saw the man in irons and the jailor by his side. In the fourth scene we go back to Belmont to hear that Portia and Nerissa are to be present at the trial, though with what object we are not told. We hear, also, of Portia's admiration for Antonio, whose character she compares with that of her husband. Scene 5 being comic, well serves its purpose as a contrast to the tragic intensity displayed in the scene which follows. Here, too, Portia and Bassanio win golden opinions from Jessica:

"It is very meet,
The Lord Bassanio live an upright life;
For having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth; ...
Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,
And on the wager lay two earthly women,
And Portia one, there must be something else
Pawn'd with the other, for the poor rude world
Hath not her fellow."

The trial scene is so well known that I shall not dwell upon it except to mention that I think the dramatist intended the scene to be acted with more vigour and earnestness on the part of all the characters than is represented on the modern stage, and with more vehemence on the part of Shylock. Conscious of his lawful right, he defies the duke and council in language not at all respectful,

"What if my house be troubled with a rat,
And I be pleased to give _ten_ thousand ducats
To have it baned?"

When Shylock is worsted the traditional business is for him to leave the stage with the air of a martyr going to his execution, and thus produce a tragic climax where none is wanted. We seem to get an indication of what should be Shylock's behaviour in his hour of adversity by reading the Italian version of the story, with which Shakespeare was familiar. "Everyone present was greatly pleased and deriding the Jew said: 'He who laid traps for others, is caught himself.' The Jew seeing he could gain nothing, tore in pieces the bond _in a great rage_." Indeed, Shylock's words,

"Why, then the devil give him good of it!
I'll stay no longer question,"

are exactly suited to the action of tearing up the bond. Certain it is that only by Shylock being "in a great rage," as he rushes off the stage, can the audience be greatly pleased, and in a fit humour to be interested in the further doings of Portia. Scene 2 of this act is generally omitted on the stage, though it seems to me necessary in order to show how Nerissa gets possession of Gratiano's ring; it also affords an opportunity for some excellent business on the part of Nerissa, who walks off arm in arm with her husband, unknown to him.

The last act is the shortest fifth act in the Globe edition, and if deficient in action Shakespeare gives it another interest by the wealth and music of its poetry, a device more than once made use of by him to strengthen undramatic material. Shakespeare's knowledge of the value of sound, in dramatic effect, is shown by Launcelot interrupting the whispering of the lovers, and profaning the stillness of the night with his halloas, which have a similar effect to the nurse's calls in the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet; it is also shown by the music, and in the tucket sound; while the picture brought to the imagination, by allusion to the light burning in Portia's hall, gives reality to the scene.

ROMEO AND JULIET.[11]

The argument that Arthur Brooke affixes to his poem, "Romeus and Iuliet," runs as follows:

"Loue hath inflamed twayne by sodayn sight,
And both do graunt the thing that both desyre:
They wed in shrift, by counsell of a frier.
Yong Romeus clymes fayre Iuliets bower by night,
Three monthes he doth enjoy his cheefe delight.
By Tybalts rage, prouoked unto yre,
He payeth death to Tybalt for his hyre.
A banisht man, he scapes by secret flight,
New mariage is offred to his wyfe.
She drinkes a drinke that seemes to reue her breath,
They bury her, that sleping yet hath lyfe.
Her husband heares the tydinges of her death:
He drinkes his bane. And she with Romeus knyfe,
When she awakes, her selfe (alas) she sleath."

And the title of the same story in William Painter's "Palace of Pleasure," is on the same lines:

"The goodly Hystory of the true, and constant Loue betweene Rhomeo
and Iulietta, the one of whom died of Poyson, and the other of
sorrow, and heuinesse: wherein be comprysed many aduentures of Loue,
and other deuises touchinge the same."

Here is Shakespeare's Prologue to his adaptation of the story for the stage:

"Two housholds, both alike in dignitie,
In faire Verona, where we lay our Scene,
From auncient grude breake to new mutinie
Where ciuill bloud makes ciuill hands uncleane.
From forth the fatall loynes of these two foes
A paire of starre-crost louers take their life;
Whose misaduentur'd pittious overthrowes
Doth, with their death, burie their Parents strife.
The fearfull passage of their death-markt loue,
And the continuance of their Parents rage,
Which, but their childrens end, nought could remoue,
Is now the two houres trafficque of our Stage;
The which, if you with patient eares attend,
What here shall misse, our toyle shall striue to mend."

Why the dramatist thought fit to choose a different motive for his tragedy to the one shown in the poem and the novel, we shall never know. He may have found the hatred of the two houses accentuated in an older play on this subject, and his unerring dramatic instinct would prompt him to use the parents' strife as a lurid background on which to portray with greater vividness the "fearfull passage" of the "starre-crost louers"; or the modification may have been due to his reflections upon the political and religious strife of his day; or to his irritation at Brooke's short-sightedness in upholding, as more deserving of censure, the passion of improvident love than the evil of ready-made hatred. Whatever be the reason, the fact remains that Shakespeare, who was not partial to Prologues, has in this instance made use of one to indicate the lines that guide the action of his play, and it is upon these lines that I propose to-night to discuss the stage representation.

I divide the characters into three groups. Those who belong to the House of Capulet, the House of Montague, and those who, as partisans of neither of the houses, we may call the neutrals. These include Escalus, Mercutio, Paris, Friar Laurence, Friar John, an apothecary, and all the citizens of any position and standing, the Italian municipalities being ever anxious to repress the feuds of nobles.

The play opens with a renewal of hostilities between the two houses, which serves not only as a striking opening, but brings on to the stage many of the chief actors without unnecessary delay. In less than thirty lines we are introduced to seven persons, all of whom indicate their character by the attitude they assume towards the quarrel. We are shown the peace-loving Benvolio, the fiery Tybalt, the imperious and vigorous Capulet, calling for his two-handed sword--

"What noyse is this? giue me my long sword, hoe!"--

his characterless wife, feebly echoing her husband's moodiness--

"A crowch, a crowch, why call you for a sword?"

and the calm dignity of Romeo's mother--

"Thou shalt not stir one foote to seeke a foe."

We are also shown the citizens hastily arming themselves to part the two houses, and hear for the first time their ominous shout:

"Downe with the Capulets, downe with the Mountagues."

It is heard on two subsequent occasions during the play, and is the death-knell of the lovers. The quarrel is abruptly terminated by the entrance of the Prince, who speaks with a precision and decision which throws every other character on the stage into insignificance, and stamps him at once in our eyes as a central figure. After the belligerents disperse, admonished by the Prince that death awaits the next offender against the peace, a scene follows to prepare us for Romeo's entrance, Shakespeare having wisely kept him out of the quarrel, that the audience may see him indifferent to every other passion but the one of love. Romeo, until he had been shot with Cupid's arrow, seems to have passed for a pleasant companion, as we learn from Mercutio's words, spoken to him in the third act:

"Why is not this better now, than groning for loue; now art thou
sociable, now art thou Romeo: now art thou what thou art, by art as
well as by nature."

Romeo's romantic temperament naturally leads him into a love affair of a sufficiently compromising character to need being kept from the knowledge of his parents. Brooke narrates Rosaline's reception of Romeo's passion:

"But she that from her youth was fostred euermore,
With vertues foode, and taught in schole of wisdomes skillful lore:
By aunswere did cutte of th' affections of his loue,
That he no more occasion had so vayne a sute to moue."

And Shakespeare gives to Romeo almost similar words:

"And in strong proofe of chastitie well armd,
From loues weak childish bow she liues uncharmd;
Shee will not stay the siege of louing tearmes,
Nor bide th' incounter of assailing eies,
Nor ope her lap to sainct seducing gold."

A note in the Irving stage-version, referring to Mercutio's words, "stabd with a white wenches blacke eye," states that "a pale woman with black eyes" is suggestive of a wanton nature. Is this Rosaline's character? If we are to accept seriously Mercutio's words as being the poet's description of Rosaline's personal appearance, we may also give a literal interpretation to the following lines:

"I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead, and her Scarlet lip."

In Charlotte Bronte's opinion, a high forehead was an indication of conscientiousness; she could get on, she would say, with anyone "who had a lump at the top of the head." The reproaches of the Friar are, in my opinion, levelled against Romeo, and not Rosaline. Romeo says:

"Thou chidst me oft for louing Rosaline."

And the Friar replies:

"For doting, not for louing, pupill mine."

Romeo could not openly woo one who was of the House of Capulet, and Rosaline would not tolerate a clandestine courtship.

In Scene 2 allusion is made for the second time to the quarrel of the two houses. We also hear of Juliet for the first time, and are shown Paris, no less a person than the Prince's kinsman, as a suitor for her hand. The assumed dignity and good breeding of Capulet in this scene are to be noted. The Irving acting-version leaves out the whole of the servant's very amusing speech about the shoemaker and his "yard." Why are virtuous tragedians always anxious to rob the low comedians of their cakes and ale?

In Scene 3 we are introduced to our principal comic character, the Nurse, brought into the play no doubt to supply "those unsavoury morsels of unseemly sentences, which doth so content the hungry humours of the rude multitude." We are shown Juliet, and hear again of Paris, whose high rank and fine clothes have won the simple mother's heart, but Juliet's independence of character is indicated in the line:

"He looke to like, if looking liking moue."

And a touch of subtlety is revealed to us in the words:

"But no more deepe will I endart mine eye,
Than your consent giues strength to make (it) flie."

In Scene 4 Mercutio is brought on to the stage; a character that figures in many Elizabethan plays, and in the theatrical parlance of the poet's time was known as the "braggart" soldier, and yet the part had never received such brilliant treatment till Shakespeare took it in hand. Scene 5 is the hall in Capulet's house, where Romeo and Juliet see each other for the first time, the audience now being fully aware of the conditions under which the two meet. It has seen the hatred of the houses; the purse-proud Capulet contracting a fashionable marriage for his daughter; Romeo's melancholy; his longing for the love and sympathy of woman; and Juliet's loneliness amid conventional and uncongenial surroundings. The sight of a Montague within Capulet's house gives warning for a fresh outbreak of hostilities--

"but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, conuert to bittrest gall"--

and Romeo's cry,

"Is _she_ a Capulet?
O deare account! my life is my foes debt"--

and Juliet's exclamation,

"Prodigious birth of loue it is to mee,
That I must loue a loathed _enemie_!"

foreshadow the doom prophesied by Romeo as about to begin "with this night's reuels."

In the rebuke of Tybalt we get an indication of Capulet's character. A note in the Irving-version states that Capulet is a meddlesome mollycoddle not unlike Polonius. But the fussiness of Polonius proceeds from his vanity, from his mental and physical impotence. Capulet's activity is the outcome of a love for domineering that springs from his pride of birth, and his consciousness of physical superiority. Tybalt, who is no child, sinks into insignificance at the thunder of this man's voice:

"He shall be endured.
What goodman boy, I say he shall, go too.
Am I the master here, or you? go too,
Youle not endure him, god shall mend my soule, ...
You will set cock a hoope, youle be the man ...
You must contrarie _me_."

Capulet, I fear, would have annihilated the bloodless and decorous Polonius with the breath of his nostrils. Women who marry men of this overbearing character often lose their own individuality, and become mere ciphers. So does Lady Capulet. She dare not call her soul her own; she cannot be mistress even in the kitchen. It is Capulet's indignation at his nephew's interference with his affairs that prepares us for his outburst of passion, in the fourth act, when his daughter threatens opposition to his will.

At the close of Scene 5 Shakespeare thinks it necessary to bring the Chorus on to the stage in order to make known to the audience the direction in which the future action of the play will turn, and to account for the suppression of Rosaline, of whom, until the entrance of Juliet, so much has been said. That the words were not printed in the first quarto, a piratical version published from notes taken at a performance of the play, seems to suggest that after the first representation the Chorus did not appear on the stage, for the speech was found to be an unnecessary interruption.

Presuming, therefore, that there is no delay in the progress of the action, Romeo returns from the ball, and, giving his companions the slip, hides himself in Capulet's orchard, where he hears their taunts about his Rosaline. The value, to the poet, of the Rosaline episode is thus further shown by the use he makes of it to conceal from Romeo's inquisitive companions this second love intrigue, so fraught with danger. That David Garrick, in his acting-version, should allow Mercutio to make open fun of Romeo's love for the daughter and heiress of old Capulet proves how rarely the actor is able to replace the author.

It is incomprehensible to me why our stage Juliets, in the "Balcony Scene," go through their billing-and-cooing as deliberately as they do their toilets, never for a moment thinking that the "place is death" to Romeo, and that "loves sweet bait must be stolen from fearful hookes." In Shakespeare's time this scene was acted in broad daylight, and the dramatist is careful to stimulate the imagination of his audience with appropriate imagery. The word "night" occurs ten times, and I suppose the actor would be instructed to give a special emphasis to it. There are, besides, several allusions to the moon and the stars, including that descriptive couplet:

"Lady, by yonder blessed Moone I vow,
That tips with siluer all these frute tree tops."

When Shakespeare could give us in words so vivid a picture of moonlight, Ben Jonson could well afford to have a fling at Inigo Jones's mechanical scenery, and say:

"What poesy e'er was painted on a wall?"

Romeo goes direct from Capulet's orchard to Friar Lawrence's cell to make confession of his "deare hap." He loves now in earnest, and love teaches him to brave all dangers, and even to face matrimony; and his virtuous mood wins for him the good-will of the Friar, who sees in the alliance of the two houses their reconciliation. In the poem and novel both the lovers avow a similar disinterested motive to justify their union, but the mind of reason never enters the heart of love, and Shakespeare, in their case, wisely omits this bit of sophistry. The advance of the love episode must move side by side with the quarrel episode, so in the next scene we hear of Romeo receiving a challenge from Tybalt. The Irving-version omits most of the good-natured banter between Romeo and Mercutio, which is all telling comedy if spoken lightly and quickly. The Nurse enters, and Mercutio and Benvolio set off for Montague's house, where they propose dining. The incident that follows must have been very irritating to the Elizabethan Puritans, who complained of the corruption of morals begot in "the chapel of Satan" by witnessing the carrying and recarrying of letters by laundresses "to beguile fathers of their children." Here more excellent comedy is omitted in the Irving-version, including the Nurse's allusion to Paris as being "the properer man" of the two, and her naive question, "Doth not Rosemarie and Romeo begin both with a letter?" The Nurse had overheard Juliet talk about "Rosemarie and Romeo." Later on we see rosemary strewed over the body of the apparently dead Juliet.

The scene in which Romeo and Juliet meet to be married at the Friar's Cell ends on the stage the second act. But to drop the curtain here interrupts the dramatic movement just as it is about to reach a climax in the death of Tybalt, followed by the banishment of Romeo. These incidents require action that is all hurry and excitement, and are therefore out of place at the beginning of an act, unless it be the opening act of a play. Besides, they are immediately connected with the scene in which allusion is made to Tybalt having challenged Romeo. We are shown Mercutio and Benvolio returning from Montague's house, where they proposed dining. And Mercutio has, apparently, indulged too freely in his host's wine, for the prudent Benvolio is anxious to get his friend out of the public streets as quickly as possible. Benvolio's worst fears are realized by the entrance of the quarrelsome Tybalt, whom Mercutio, as is the way with fuddled people, at once offers to fight. But Tybalt hesitates to cross swords with a relative of the Prince, and is glad of the excuse of Romeo's appearance to transfer the quarrel to him. Romeo will not draw sword upon his wife's cousin, and Mercutio, exasperated, takes up the challenge, is stabbed by Tybalt under Romeo's arm, and dies cursing the two houses. This tragedy rouses Romeo to action; he will now defend his own honour since he was Mercutio's dear friend. Tybalt is challenged and killed. The citizens "are up," and for the second time we hear their ominous shout:

"Downe with the Capulets, downe with the Montagues!"

They enter, followed by the Prince, with the heads of the two houses and their wives. The Capulets call for Romeo's death. The Montagues protest that Romeo in killing a man whose life was already forfeited has but taken the law into his own hands. For that offence he is exiled by the Prince.

"I haue an interest in your hates proceeding:
My bloud for your rude brawles doth lie a bleeding.
But ile amerce you with so strong a fine,
That you shall all repent the losse of mine.
I will be deafe to pleading and excuses,
Nor teares, nor prayers, shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none, let Romeo hence in hast,
Else when he is found, that houre is his last."

The whole of the latter part of this scene is brilliant in the variety and rapidity of its action, and should not, I consider, be omitted in representation as is directed to be done in the Irving-version. To take out the second renewal of hostilities between the two houses; not to show, in action on the stage, the rage of the Capulets at the death of Tybalt, and the grief of the Montagues at the banishment of Romeo, is to weaken the tragic significance of the scenes that follow. Without it the audience cannot vividly realize that the hatred of the two houses has reached its acutest stage, and that all hope of reconciliation is at an end.

Mercutio at the commencement of this scene says to Benvolio: "Thou wilt quarell with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes." Did Shakespeare, who, according to tradition had hazel eyes, act the part of Benvolio? I think he did. It is the only part in the play I can fancy him able to act. A study of both the bust and the Droeshout portrait of the poet-dramatist leads me to believe that he would not have been able to disguise easily his identity on the stage. His flexibility was essentially of a mental and not of a physical nature. The face is entirely wanting in mobility, and the head is so large that no wig could hide its unusual size. Shakespeare, moreover, became bald probably early in life. The Droeshout portrait shows undoubtedly the likeness of a youngish man, about thirty-five years old, while his baldness would still justify the epithet of "grandsire" with which Mercutio dubs Benvolio; and "grandsire" may have been a nickname of Shakespeare's suggested by his baldness. "Come hither, goodman bald-pate"--words spoken by Lucio in "Measure for Measure"--have been quoted as a reason for presuming that Shakespeare played the Duke in that comedy. Sir William Davenant, who liked to be thought a natural son of the poet, in an adaption of this play altered the words to, "She has been advised by a bald dramatic poet of the next cloister." If the audience recognized their "gentle Will" in the part of the peace-loving Benvolio, we may imagine the laughter that would arise at Mercutio's words: "Thy head is as full of quarelles, as an egg is full of meate"--Shakespeare's head being egg-shaped. If my supposition be correct, we may honour the self-abnegation, the entire absence of personal vanity that enabled Shakespeare, like Moliere, to direct laughter against himself. The scattered references to him which we find in the writings of his contemporaries show us, says Professor Dowden, "the poet concealed and sometimes forgotten in the man, and make it clear that he moved among his fellows with no assuming of the bard or prophet, no air of authority as of one divinely commissioned; that, on the contrary, he appeared as a pleasant comrade, genial, gentle, full of civility in the large meaning of the word, upright in dealing, ready and bright in wit, quick and sportive in conversation." How aptly does this description fit the character of Benvolio! One quality was especially common to the two men--tact. It was the possession of tact that made Shakespeare so invaluable to his fellow-actors as a manager. Benvolio's tact is shown in his conversation with Romeo's parents, with Romeo himself, with Mercutio when hot-headed, and with the Prince, Mercutio's relative. It is true that Benvolio attributes Mercutio's death to Tybalt's interference, while in reality it was due to Mercutio's indiscretion; but we have no pity for Tybalt, who, as Brooke says, thirsting after the death of others, lost his life.

Romeo's banishment brings us to the middle and "busy" part of the play, where the Elizabethan actors were expected to thunder their loudest to split the ears of the groundlings; and Shakespeare, not yet sufficiently independent as a dramatist to dispense with the conventions of his stage, follows suit on the same fiddle to the same tune; and after all the ranting eloquence on the part of Romeo and Juliet, we are just where we were before with regard to any advance made with the story. Act III., Scene 2, is often entirely omitted in representation, but the Irving-version retains most of it. It is not till the middle of Act III., Scene 3, that the action advances again. But this, and the previous scenes, if acted with animation and rapidly spoken by all the characters concerned, would not take up much time, and could be declaimed with effect. The stage fashion of making the Friar stolidly indifferent to the unexpected complication that has arisen through Tybalt's death is not only undramatic, but inconsistent with the text. A heavy responsibility lies on him, and his position is full of difficulty and danger. The scene that follows shows us Capulet fixing a day for the marriage of Juliet with Paris, and the father's words--

"I thinke she will be rulde
In all respects by _me_: nay, more, I doubt it not,"

have a significance, and render the parting of the lovers in the next scene highly dramatic. In the poem and novel, Juliet, before parting with Romeo, proposes to accompany him disguised as his servant; about the best thing she could do. After a good deal of arguing on both sides the idea is abandoned as impracticable. Shakespeare prefers his lovers to discourse about the nightingale. Romeo being gone, the mother enters to announce to the wife her betrothal to Paris, and the early day of marriage. The news is sprung upon her with terrible abruptness, though the audience have been in the secret from the first, and Juliet has hardly time to protest against "this sudden day of joy" before the father enters to complete her discomfiture by his torrents of abuse. Capulet's varnish of good manners entirely disappears in this scene, and his coarse nature is exposed in all its ugliness. But in the emergency of this tragic moment, as Professor Dowden points out, does Juliet leap into womanhood, and realize her position and responsibilities as a wife, and in the following lines Shakespeare touches the first note of highest tragedy in the play: that of the mind's suffering as opposed to the mere tragedy of incident--

"O God, o Nurse, how shall this be preuented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heauen;
How shall that faith returne againe to earth,
Unlesse that husband send it me from heauen
By leauing earth? comfort me, counsaile me."

I am curious to learn on what grounds these thrilling words are omitted in the Irving-version. To me they are the climax of the scene and of the play so far as it has progressed. They mark the turning-point in Juliet's moral nature. They enable us to forgive her any indiscretions of which she may previously have been guilty. From this point onwards all is calm in Juliet's breast, because there is no infirmity of purpose,

"If all else faile, my self have power to die."

As the shadows fall across the path of the lovers, so do they over that of the Friar.

"O _Iuliet_, I already know thy greefe,
It straines me past the compasse of my wits,"

is his greeting in the next scene. A "desperate preventive" to shame or death is decided upon, and then follows what is perhaps the most dramatic episode in the whole play. We are shown Capulet's household busy with the preparations for the marriage-feast, and the father, now bent on having a "great ado," hastily summoning "twenty cunning Cookes"--the consequence possibly of Juliet's threatened opposition to his wishes. Juliet enters to feign submission and beg forgiveness, which enables the father to indulge in another despotic freak by hastening the day of marriage, heedless of all the inconvenience it may cause. Juliet retires to her chamber, and Capulet goes to prepare Paris against to-morrow. Then comes Juliet's terrible ordeal, the undertaking "of a thing like death," which is all the more terrible because it must be done alone. This scene is often overacted on the stage. Our Juliets do far too much "stumping and frumping" about. I once saw the "potion-scene" acted with dramatic intelligence by an actress quite unknown to fame. When Juliet lays her dagger on the table, the actress took up the vial, and, standing motionless in the centre of the stage, spoke the lines in a hurried, low whisper, conveying the impression of reflection as well as the need for discretion. At the words,

"O looke, me thinks I see my Cozins Ghost,"

she sank on one knee, and, raising the right arm with a quick movement, pointed into space, the eye following the hand, a very simple but telling gesture. The words, "Stay, _Tybalt_, stay!" were not given with a scream, but in a tone of alarm and entreaty, followed immediately by the drinking of the potion, as if to suggest Juliet's desire to come to Romeo's rescue. The whole scene was acted in less than two minutes. The vision of Tybalt's ghost pursuing Romeo for vengeance, an incident not to be found in the originals, shows the touch of the master dramatist. We feel the need of some immediate incentive to nerve Juliet to raise the vial to her lips; and what more effectual than that of her overwrought imagination picturing to herself the husband in danger.

While the poor child lies prostrate upon her bed in the likeness of death, we are shown the dawn of the morning, the rousing and bustle of the household; we hear the bridal march in the distance, the sound coming nearer every moment; the Nurse knocking at Juliet's chamber-door; her awful discovery; the entrance of the parents; the filling of the stage by the bridal party, led by the Friar; the wailing, and wringing of the hands as the first quarto directs; the changing of the sound of instruments to that of melancholy bells, of solemn hymns to sullen dirges, of bridal flowers to funeral wreaths. All this is thrilling in conception, and yet the episode as conceived by Shakespeare is never represented on the stage. Why are the Capulet scenes omitted, those which are dovetailed to the "potion scene," and make it by contrast so terribly tragic? The accentuation here of Capulet's tyranny, of his sensuality, his brutal frankness, his indifference to every one's convenience but his own, his delight in exacting a cringing obedience from all about him, are designed by the dramatist to move us with deep pity for Juliet's sufferings, and by emphasizing its necessity to save the "potion scene" from the danger of appearing grotesque. But Shakespeare's method of dramatic composition, that of uniting a series of short scenes with each other in one dramatic movement, will not bear the elaboration of heavy stage sets, and with the demand for carpentry comes the inducement for mutilation. At the Shakespeare Reading Society's recital of this play, given recently under my direction at the London Institution, these scenes were spoken without delay or interruption, and with but one scene announced, and the interest and breathless attention they aroused among the audience convinced me that my conception as to the dramatic treatment of them was the right one. Until these scenes are restored to the acting version, Shakespeare's tragedy will not be seen on the stage as he conceived it; and when they are restored, their dramatic power will electrify the house, and twentieth-century dilettantism will lose its influence among playgoers. The comic scene between Peter and the Musicians should also be restored. It comes in as a welcome relief after the intensity of the previous scenes, and is, besides, a connecting link with the comedy in the earlier part of the play.

The last act can be briefly dealt with. We anticipate the final catastrophe, though we do not know by what means it will be brought about. It is carried out, as it should be, effectively but simply. The children have loved and suffered, let them die easily and quickly. Romeo's costume in exile is described in the poem as that of a merchant venturer, which is certainly a more appropriate dress than the conventional black velvet of the stage. After hearing the fatal news, which provokes the boy to mutter, "Is it even so?" in the Lyceum version is inserted the stage-direction, "_He pauses, overcome with grief_." But as there is no similar stage-direction in the originals, the actor may, without violation to the author's intentions, pause _before_ the words are spoken. The blow is too sudden, too cruel, too overwhelming to allow of any immediate response in words. The colour would fly from Romeo's face, his teeth grip his under lip, his eyes gleam with a look of frenzy, _looks_ that "import some misadventure," but there is no action and no sound for a while, and afterwards only a muttering. The stillness of Romeo's desperation is very dramatic. There is nothing, in my opinion, unnatural in Romeo's description of the Apothecary's shop. All sorts of petty details float before our mental vision when the nerves are over-wrought, but the actor should be careful not to accentuate the description in any way; it is but introductory to the dominant words of the speech,

"And if a man did need a poyson now."

As Juliet's openly acknowledged lover, Paris occupies too prominent a place in the play to be lightly dismissed, and so he is involved in the final catastrophe. In Brooke's poem, Romeo, before dying, prays to Heaven for mercy and forgiveness, and the picture of the boy kneeling by his wife's side, with her hand clasped in his, pleading to his Redeemer to--

"Take pity on my sinnefull and my poore afflicted mynde!"

would, on the stage, have been a supremely pathetic situation. But Shakespeare's stern love of dramatic truth rejects it. In Romeo's character he strikes but one note, love--and love as a passion. Love is Romeo's divinity, physical beauty his deity. The assertion that--

"In nature there's no blemish but the mind,
None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind,"

would have sounded in Romeo's ears profanation. When he first sees Juliet he will by touching hers make _blessed_ his rude hand, and when he dies he will seal the doors of breath "with a _righteous_ kiss." To the Friar he cries:

"Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then loue-deuouring death do what he dare.
It is inough I may but call her _mine_."

And "love-devouring death" accepts the challenge, but the agony of death does not "countervail the exchange of joy" that one short minute gives him in her presence. Here Shakespeare's treatment of the love-episode differs from that of Brooke's in his tolerance for the children's love, though it be carried out in defiance of the parents' wishes, and in his recognition that love, so long as it be strong as death, has an ennobling and not a debasing influence on character: we are made to feel that it is better for Romeo to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. For the hatred of the two houses Shakespeare shows no tolerance. Juliet's death is carried out with the greatest simplicity, and within a few moments of her awakening. There is neither time for reflection nor lamentation; the watch has been roused, and is heard approaching. She has hardly kissed the poison from her dead husband's lips before they enter the churchyard, and nothing but the darkness of the night screens from them the sight of the steel that Juliet plunges into her breast. It is the presence of the watch, almost within touch of her, that goads her to lift the knife, just as it is the vision of Tybalt's ghost pursuing Romeo that nerves her to drink the potion. The dramatist's intention is clearly indicated in the stage-directions of the two quartos and the folio, but the Irving-version retains in this last scene the modern stage-directions.

Professor Dowden is of opinion "that it were presumptuous to say that had Shakespeare been acquainted with the earlier form of the story (in which Juliet wakes before Romeo dies), he would not have altered his ending." But an ending of this kind is inartistic. It is bringing the axe down twice instead of once. It is introducing a new complication and a new movement at a moment when none is wanted. The catastrophe should be and always is, by Shakespeare, carried out with simplicity and directness. After Juliet's death other watchmen enter with the Friar in custody, while from afar we hear for the third and last time the cries of the citizens:

"Downe with the Capulets, downe with the Mountagues!"

the only child of each of the two rival houses lying dead before the spectators. Nature had done her best to effect a reconciliation, but man thwarted her in her purpose. Then the Prince and the heads of the two houses enter and learn for the first time that

"_Romeo_ there dead, was husband to that _Iuliet_,
And she there dead, that's _Romeo's_ faithfull wife."

Well may the Prince say--

"_Capulet, Montague_,
See what a scourge is laide upon your hate
That heauen finds means to kill your joyes with loue."

All this last scene is full of animation, and presents a fine opportunity for the _regisseur_. I am obliged to use the French word, for we have no similar functionary in this country. Our public is sufficiently indifferent to the welfare of dramatic art to allow its leading actors to be their own stage-managers and often their own authors. As a consequence the public gets no English plays worthy of being called plays, and no guarantee that a dead author's intentions shall be respected. Human nature has its prejudices, and the actor is seldom to be found who can look at a play from any other point of view than in relation to the prominence of his own part in it. It is owing to the despotism of the actor on the English stage, and consequently to the star system, that I attribute the mutilation of Shakespeare's plays in their representation. The closing scene of this play might be made very effective in action. The crowd hurrying with "bated breath" to the spot; its horror at the sight of the dead children, who for all it knows are murdered; its amazement at finding they are man and wife; the Prince's stern rebuke; the bowed grief and shame of Montague and Capulet; the reconciliation of the bereaved parents, and joining of hands across the dead bodies. The Irving-version omits all but the entrance of the citizens with Montague, Capulet, and the Prince, who at once ends the play with the couplet--

"For neuer was a Storie of more wo
Than this of _Iuliet_ and her _Romeo_."

But if the Prince hears no story, he and those who enter with him cannot be aware that Romeo and Juliet are man and wife, or that they died by their own hands, and are not victims to an act of treachery. Then why open your play with the quarrel of the two houses if you do not intend to show them reconciled? Why not follow the Cumberland acting-version, and take out the crowd scenes altogether? It is a more intelligible proceeding than this compromise of the Irving-version.

Criticized as classical tragedy, the play of "Romeo and Juliet" is a veritable hotch-potch. It seems to defy the laws of criticism. The characters at one moment talk in the highest poetical language, and at another in the most commonplace colloquy. Nothing can well seem more inconsistent than to put into the mouth of Capulet these words--

"Death lies on her like an untimely frost,
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field."

Bombast goes side by side with poetry; passion with pantomime. Yet, as Lessing says, "Plays which do not observe the classical rules, must yet observe rules of some kind if they are to please;" and Shakespeare sought to establish rules in accordance with the national taste, his first aim being the combination of the serious and the ludicrous. Vigorous characterization, a vital and varied movement, and the skilful handling of scenes well calculated to stir the emotions of an audience, make "Romeo and Juliet" an acting play of enduring interest.

In conclusion, I hold that no stage-version of "Romeo and Juliet" is consistent with Shakespeare's intentions which does not give prominence to the hatred of the two houses and retain intact the three "crowd scenes"--the one at the opening of the play, the second in the middle, and the third at the end. To represent only the love episode is to make that episode far less tragic, and therefore less dramatic.

"HAMLET."[12]

In comparing the acting-edition of "Hamlet" with the authorized text of the Globe edition, I find that it is shorter by 1,191 lines, and omits the characters of Voltemand, Cornelius, Reynaldo, a gentleman, and Fortinbras. Such a modification should, perhaps, exclude the acting-editions from being classed as the same play with either the folio or second quarto. It is a question whether 1,200 lines can be taken out of any Shakespearian play without defeating the poet's dramatic intentions; but if it is necessary to shorten a play to this extent in order to make it suitable for the stage, so important an alteration should not, surely, be left entirely to the discretion of the actor, but should be the work of Shakespearian scholars, assisted by the advice of the dramatic profession. One would think that Shakespeare's world-famed greatness as a dramatist should make all his plays so valued by his countrymen that any alteration in their stage representation which had not been sanctioned by the highest authorities would be repudiated. But, unfortunately, it is not so. That the omission of some of the characters in the acting-edition of "Hamlet" has not impaired Shakespeare's dramatic conception of the play is at least a matter of doubt. In the second quarto we have a play constructed for the purpose of showing us types of character contrasted one with the other. Strong men, weak men, old men, fond women, all living and moving under the influence of a destiny that is not of their own seeking. We have also a Danish court in which a terrible crime has been committed, and over which an avenging angel is hovering with drawn sword waiting to descend on the head of the guilty one; and, because the influence of good in this court is too weak to conquer the evil, the sword falls on the good as well as on the evil, on the weak as well as on the strong. Something is rotten in the State of Denmark; no one there is worthy to rule; the kingdom must be taken away and given to a stranger. It is the play as an epitome of life which is interesting the mind of Shakespeare, and not the career of one individual, even though the whole play be influenced by the actions of that individual. Look at the first quarto and we find a proof of this. Mutilated as that version is, care has been taken to avoid confusing the story of the play. Everything relating to Fortinbras is kept in the quarto, because Fortinbras has to appear like Richmond in "Richard III.," as the hero who will restore peace and order to the distracted kingdom. This much-abused quarto has 557 lines less than the modern acting edition, of which 254 are not in that edition, although they are in the second quarto (or rather have a meaning equivalent to lines in the second quarto), showing clearly that it is possible to shorten the text in more ways than one. The first quarto comes nearer to Shakespeare's dramatic conception of the play than the modern stage version, because the latter, by omitting some of the persons represented, and also many of the lines which reveal the weaker side of Hamlet's character, have altered the story of the play, and placed the part of Hamlet in a different aspect to the one conceived by the author.

I will now compare French's acting-edition of "Hamlet," scene by scene, with the Globe edition. The Globe edition contains all the lines of the second quarto and the folio. It adheres to the text, but not to the stage-directions. For reading purposes, perhaps, the alterations which have been made in the latter may be justified to some extent as a necessity, yet for the acting-edition it would have been better to copy the originals. There are alterations made to the stage-directions in the first scene. Horatio, Marcellus, and the Ghost are shown to enter a line later in the Globe edition than is marked in the quarto or folio. But the attention of an audience is better sustained if the entrances of characters, especially of the Ghost, is not anticipated, and also if the dialogue is not interrupted by pauses for entrances and exits.

In comparing the text, I find that lines 69 to 125 of the Globe edition are omitted in the acting-edition. But these lines explain to the audience why Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio are engaged in this same "strict and most observant watch." Marcellus and Bernardo are not common sentries. They are gentlemen and scholars, who are on duty as soldiers for this particular occasion. Lines 140 to 142 I should also like to see inserted, because they are needed to explain the words which follow--

"We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it this show of violence."

On the stage these words are spoken, but no violence is shown towards the Ghost. Besides, the business of striking at the Ghost is a fine invention of the author to assist the imagination to realize it is a spirit. I am sorry lines 157 to 165 are omitted, because not only are they beautiful in themselves, but also appropriate, for they help to give solemnity to the scene. The omission of the last four lines of the scene leaves it unfinished. Altogether seventy-one lines have been cut out of the first scene, but the first quarto retains most of them.

The stage-directions at the head of the second scene, both in the Globe edition and folio, place Hamlet's name after the Queen's, to indicate the order to be observed by the actors when they come on to the stage. In the second quarto, however, Hamlet's name comes last. As he has an antipathy to the King, and is displeased with his mother, it is not likely he would be much in the company of either, not even on State occasions, for Hamlet regards the King as a usurper. I would venture to suggest, then, that Hamlet should enter last of all, from another doorway to that used by the King and his train, having his hat and cloak in his hand, as if he had come to take leave of the Court before starting for Wittenberg.

Passing on now to the fourth scene, I notice that in the acting-edition the last five lines of the scene have been cut out, including that expressive one--

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

I do not myself sympathize with this cutting out the end of scenes, as is done so persistently in every acted play of Shakespeare's. It is inartistic, because it is done to allow the principal actor to leave the stage with applause. Besides, it creates a habit, with actors, of trying to make points at the end of scenes, whether it is necessary or not, and this distorts the play and delays its progress.

In the fifth scene the line--

"O horrible, horrible, most horrible"--

spoken by the Ghost, is marked in the acting-edition to be spoken by Hamlet. Such an alteration is unwarranted by the text. The first quarto, by making Hamlet exclaim "O God" after the Ghost has said "O horrible," gives indication that the words "O horrible" were spoken on the Elizabethan stage by the Ghost.

An alteration has also been made in the Ghost's last line, which to some may appear a trivial matter. The folio attaches the word "Hamlet" to the "Adieu," and puts a colon between it and the words "Remember me," showing thereby that a slight pause should be made before these two last words are spoken, in order to make them more impressive; and the first quarto gives the same reading. French's acting-version, however, tacks the name on to the "Remember me." Cumberland's version gives the reading of the second quarto, which I think the best--

"Adieu, adieu, adieu, Remember me."

The omission in all the stage-versions of Hamlet's lines addressed to the Ghost, beginning "Ha, ha, boy!" "Hic et ubique?" "Well said, old Mole!" is, I think, not judicious, because it causes some actors to misconceive Shakespeare's intention in this scene. One can hardly read the authorized text without feeling that Hamlet is here shown as a young man, or, perhaps, a "boy," as his mother calls him, in the first quarto, thrown into the intensest excitement. His delicate, nervous temperament has undergone a terrible shock from the interview with the Ghost, yet, owing to the absence of these lines, our Hamlets on the stage finish this scene with the most dignified composure. From the first act 217 lines have been omitted in French's acting-edition.

In the beginning of the second act the scene between Polonius and Reynaldo is left out in all the acting-versions. It is a very amusing scene, and in my opinion gives a better insight into the character of Polonius than any of the others. If it were inserted I believe it would become popular with the audience, and we find it retained in the first quarto. The second scene is called "_A Room in the Castle_" both in the Globe and acting editions. Might it not be an exterior scene? It is true that Polonius remarks "Here in the lobby," but the line next to this in the first quarto suggests that he is pointing to some place off the scene, for he adds "There let Ophelia walk," and Ophelia is on the stage. An exterior scene would, in my opinion, give more meaning to the words "Will you walk out of the air, my lord?" and to Hamlet's speech, "This most excellent canopy the air," etc. The scene of a palace garden or cloister could be well introduced in a play so full of interiors. It would add to the interest of the scene if Hamlet took advantage of the early entrance in the quarto and in the folio. For Hamlet to catch sight of Polonius hurrying the King and Queen off the scene would account for his suspicions and explain his rudeness to Polonius. Lines 374 to 378, Globe edition, are omitted in the acting-edition, but should surely be inserted, because they are needed to explain why Hamlet's reception of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern when they first enter, differs from that of the Players. I have always thought that the Hamlets of our stage, not being familiar with the context, mistake Shakespeare's intention. I gather from the omitted lines that Hamlet should warmly welcome the players, and take them by the hand.