Few passages in Shakspeare have so often and so ineffectually been
"winnowed" as the opening of the beautiful and passionate soliloquy of
Juliet, when ardently and impatiently invoking night's return, which was to
bring her newly betrothed lover to her arms. It stands thus in the first
folio, from which the best quarto differs only in a few unimportant points
of orthography:
"Gallop apace, you fiery footed steedes,
Towards Phoebus' lodging, such a wagoner
As Phaeton should whip you to the wish,
And bring in cloudie night immediately.
Spred thy close curtaine, Loue-performing night,
That run-awayes eyes may wincke, and Romeo
Leape to these armes, untalkt of and unseene", &c.
The older commentators do not attempt to change the word _run-awayes_, but
seek to explain it. Warburton says Phoebus is the runaway. Steevens has a
long argument to prove that Night is the runaway. Douce thought Juliet
herself was the runaway; and at a later period the Rev. Mr. Halpin, in a
very elegant and ingenious essay, attempts to prove that by the runaway we
must understand Cupid.
MR. KNIGHT and MR. COLLIER have both of them adopted Jackson's conjecture
of _unawares_, and have admitted it to the honour of a place in the text,
but MR. DYCE has pronounced it to be "villainous;" and it must be confessed
that it has nothing but a slight similarity to the old word to recommend
it. MR. DYCE himself has favoured us with three suggestions; the first two
in his _Remarks on Collier and Knight's Shakspeare_, in 1844, where he
says--
"That _ways_ (the last syllable of _run-aways_) ought to be _days_, I
feel next to certain; but what word originally preceded it I do not
pretend to determine:
'Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night!
That rude/soon (?) Day's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen,' &c."