Marc. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome, 70 By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl erst our ancestor, 75 80 106 And sent her enemies unto the grave. 115 My scars can witness, dumb although they are, Marc. Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child: [Pointing to the Child in the arms of an Attendant.] Of this was Tamora delivered, The issue of an irreligious Moor, 120 Marc. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house, [To Attendants.] And hither hale that misbelieving Moor, To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death, As punishment for his most wicked life. [Exeunt Attendants.] 145 But, gentle people, give me aim a while, Young Luc. O grandsire, grandsire! even with all my heart Would I were dead, so you did live again! [Re-enter Attendants with AARON.] A Roman. You sad Andronici, have done with woes. Give sentence on this execrable wretch There let him stand and rave and cry for food. If any one relieves or pities him, For the offence he dies. This our doom. I 180 Aar. Ah, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb? am no baby, I, that with base prayers I should repent the evils I have done. 185 Luc. Some loving friends convey the Emperor hence, 195 And give him burial in his father's grave. Her life was beastly, and devoid of pity; ning. Then, afterwards, to order well the state, That like events may ne'er it ruinate. [Exeunt. THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET THE First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet appeared in 1597, printed, it is inferred from internal evidence, from copy made up on the basis of a shorthand writer's imperfect report taken at the theatre. The title-page of this edition states that "it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely, by the right Honourable the L. of Hunsdon his servants." This proves it to have been on the stage between July, 1596, and April, 1597, the months during which the "Lord Hunsdon's servants 99 were so named. Further evidence of date is purely internal, the most definite being the Nurse's reference to the earthquake of eleven years before (1. iii. 23, 35). If, as is often assumed, this refers to the earthquake of 1580, it places the play in its first form as early as 1591; but the ground of the inference is very weak. The frequency of rime, especially alternate, the lyrical quality of the poetry, and the abundance of verbal quibbling, also point to an early date; but in the absence of any external evidence, or of an authentic copy of the play in its first form, no certain statement can be made as to exact date. The Second Quarto, published in 1599, claims to be "newly corrected, augmented, and amended," and a comparison of this text with that of the First Quarto confirms this, indicating that the play was subjected to revision and enlargement by Shakespeare about 1597-98, though not all the additional passages in the Second Quarto are due to the revision. The Third Quarto (1609) was printed from the Second, the Fourth (undated) from the Third, and the Fifth (1637) from the Fourth. The First Folio text follows the Third Quarto, so that the Second Quarto is the chief authority, and forms the basis of the present edition. The device of escaping from an unwelcome marriage by means of a sleeping potion is found as early as the medieval Greek romance of Abrocomas and Anthia by Xenophon of Ephesus. Massuccio (1476) tells a tale having many points of similarity to the present tragedy; but the earliest known version which is an undoubted direct ancestor of Shakespeare's plot is the history of Romeo and Giulietta narrated by Luigi da Porto, and published in Venice about 1530. The progress of the story towards the Shakespearean form continues through a version in Bandello's Novelle (1554), Boisteau's translation of the same (1559), the English poem of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke (1562), and Painter's translation of Boisteau in his Palace of Pleasure (1567). In Brooke's address "To the Reader" he states that he "saw the same argument lately set forth on stage; " but no copy of the play alluded to is known to have survived in English. About 1630, however, Jacob Struijs wrote a Romeo and Juliette in Dutch hexameters; and an attempt has been made to prove that this drama is an adaptation of a lost play used by Shakespeare as a basis, and perhaps that to which Brooke refers. The main lines of the dramatic action and of the chief characters were thus already laid down before Shakespeare worked on the story; and he borrowed also a large amount of detail, especially from the version by Brooke. The episode of the Apothecary and the order of events in the catastrophe go back to Boisteau, but to this last Shakespeare himself added the death of Paris at Juliet's tomb. The Nurse as a great comic figure is first developed by Brooke. The death of Mercutio is due to the old dramatist, but the elaboration of his character and his wit are Shakespeare's, as are also the reducing of Juliet's age from sixteen to fourteen and the opening of the action with the conflict of the factions. The genius of Shakespeare is more pervasive in the extraordinarily intense quality of the great lyric speeches, and in the representation of the growth and enriching of the lovers in passion and character. The story was dramatized, before Shakespeare, in Italy, Spain, and France, as well as in England; and many collateral versions in narrative form exist. Shakespeare's tragedy was produced in a corrupt German version in the seventeenth century; and it has been adapted and translated by many hands and in many countries. In Shakespeare's own time the story passed from legend into "history," and the events were stated to have actually occurred in Verona in the first years of the fourteenth century. 90 Enter PRINCE, with his train. And hear the sentence of your moved prince. 100 Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets, If ever you disturb our streets again 108 You, Capulet, shall go along with me; And, Montague, come you this afternoon, To know our farther pleasure in this case, To old Free-town, our common judgementplace. Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. 110 [Exeunt [all but Montague, Lady Montague, and Benvolio]. Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach? Speak, nephew, were you by when it began? Ben. Here were the servants of your adver |