Act III., Scene 2, brings us to the last stage of the casket complication,

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.,