_On Two Passages in Shakspeare._--Taking up a day or two since a Number of
"N. & Q.," my attention was drawn to a new attempt to give a solution of
the difficulty which has been the torment of commentators in the following
passage from the Third Act of _Romeo and Juliet_:
"Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a waggoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the West,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.--
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night,
That _runaways'_ eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."
"Runaways'" being a manifest absurdity, the recent editors have substituted
"unawares," an uncouth alteration, which, though it has a glimmering of
sense, appears to me almost as absurd as the word it supplies. In this
dilemma your correspondent MR. SINGER ingeniously suggests the true reading
to be,--
"That _rumourers'_ eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."
No doubt this is a felicitous emendation, though I think it may be fairly
objected that a rumourer, being one who deals in what he hears, as opposed
to an observer, who reports what he sees, there is a certain
inappropriateness in speaking of a rumourer's eyes. Be this as it may, I
beg to suggest another reading, which has the merit of having spontaneously
occurred to me on seeing the word "runaways'" in your correspondent's
paper, as if obviously suggested by the combination of letters in that
word. I propose that the passage should be read thus:
"Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night,
That _rude day's_ eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."
A subsequent reference to Juliet's speech has left no doubt in my mind that
this is the true reading, and so obviously so, as to make it a wonder that
it should have been overlooked. She first asks the "fiery-footed steeds" to
bring in "cloudy night," then night to close her curtain (that day's eyes
may wink), that darkness may come, under cover of which Romeo may hasten to
her. In the next two lines she shows why this darkness is propitious, and
then, using an unwonted epithet, invokes night to give her the opportunity
of darkness:
"Come, _civil_ night,
Thou sober suited matron all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning game," &c.
The peculiar and unusual epithet "civil," here applied to night, at once
assured me of the accuracy of the proposed reading, it having evidently
suggested itself as the antithesis of "rude" just before applied to day;
the civil, accommodating, concealing night being thus contrasted with the
unaccommodating, revealing day. It is to be remarked, moreover, that as
this epithet _civil_ is, through its ordinary signification, brought into
connexion with what precedes it, so is it, through its unusual meaning of
_grave_, brought into connexion with what follows, it thus furnishing that
equivocation of sense of which our great dramatist is so fond, rarely
missing an opportunity of "paltering with us in a double sense."
I think, therefore, I may venture to offer you the proposed emendation as
rigorously fulfilling all the requirements of the text, while at the same
time it necessitates a very trifling literal disturbance of the old
reading, since by the simple change of the letters _naw_ into _ded_, we
convert "runaways'" into "rude day's," of which it was a very easy
misprint.
Having offered you an emendation of my own, I cannot miss the opportunity
of sending you {217} another, for which I am indebted to a critical student
of Shakspeare, my friend Mr. W. R. Grove, the Queen's Counsel. In _All's
Well that ends Well_, the third scene of the Second Act opens with the
following speech from Lafeu:
"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to
make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is
it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves in a seeming
knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear."
On reading this passage as thus printed, it will be seen that the two
sentences of which it is composed are in direct contradiction to each
other; the first asserting that we have philosophers who give a causeless
and supernatural character to things ordinary and familiar: the second
stating as the result of this, "that we make trifles of terrors," whereas
the tendency would necessarily be to make "terrors of trifles." The
confusion arises from the careless pointing of the first sentence. By
simply shifting the comma at present after "things," and placing it after
"familiar," the discrepancy between the two sentences disappears, as also
between the two members of the first sentence, which are now at variance.
It should be pointed thus:
"They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to
make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless."
It is singular that none of the editors should have noticed this defect,
which I have no doubt will hereafter be removed by the adoption of a simple
change, that very happily illustrates the importance of correct
punctuation.