July 2. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



our fifth lord had any surviving daughter to pro- 

 vide for ; but if he had, his situation would be a 

 still more aggravated position. W. S. Hasleden. 



CELEBRATED 



JULIET,' 



PASSAGE 

 ' ACT ni. 



IN " EOMEO 

 SC. 2, 



I 



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 would 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 Knighfs 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 ori- 

 ginally preceded it I do not pretend to determine : 



' Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night ! 



That (?) Day's eyes may wink, and Romeo 



Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen,' &c." 



The correctors of Mr. Collier's folio having 

 substituted — 



" That enemies eyes may wink," 

 Mb. Dyce, in his recent Few Notes, properly re- 

 jects that reading, and submits another conjecture 

 of his own, founded on the supposition that the 

 word roving having been written illegibly, roavinge 

 was mistaken for run-awayes, and proposes to 

 read — ^ 



" That roving eyes may wink." 



Every suggestion of Mr. Dyce, certainly the 

 most competent of living commentators on Shak- 

 speare, merits attention ; but I cannot say tha:^ I 

 think he has succeeded in either of his proposed 

 readings. 



Monck Mason seems to have had the clearest 

 notion of the requirements of the passage. He 

 saw that " the word, whatever the meaning of it 

 might be, was intended as a proper name ;" but he 

 was not happy in suggesting renomy, a French 

 word with an English termination. 



In the course of his note he mentions tha| 

 Heath, " the author of the Revisal, reads '•Rumour's 

 eyes may wink ; ' which agrees in sense with the 

 rest of the passage, but differs widely from run- 

 aways in the trace of the letters." 



I was not conscious of having seen this sugges- 

 tion of Heath's, when, in consequence of a question 

 put to me by a gentleman of distinguished taste 

 and learning, I turned my thoughts to the passage, 

 and at length came to the conclusion that the 

 word must have been rumourers, and that from its 

 unfrequent occurrence (the only other example of 

 it at present known to me being one afforded by 

 the poet) the printer mistook it for runawayes; 

 which, when written indistinctly, it may have 

 strongly resembled. I therefore think that we 

 may read with some confidence : 



" Spread thy close curtains, love-performing Night, 

 That rumourers' eyes may wink, and Romeo 

 Leap to these arms, untalk^d qfand unseen." 



It fulfils the requirements of both metre an^ 

 sense, and the words untalk'd of and unseen m^e 

 it nearly indisputable. I had at first thought 'itr 

 might be '•'■ rumorous eyes;" but the personificaP 

 tioii would then be wanting. Shakspeare has per-^ 

 sonified Rumour in the Introduction to the Second 

 Part of King Henry IV. ; and in Coriolanmi 

 Act IV. Sc. 6., we have — 



" Go see this rumourer whipp'd." ,'" 



I am gratified by seeing that I have anticipated 

 your able correspondent, the Rev. Mr. Arrow- 

 smith, in his elucidation of "c/amowr your tongues," 

 by citing the same passage from Udall's ApopJi- 

 thegmes, in my Vindication of the Text of Shak- 

 speare, p. 79. It is a pleasure which must console 

 me for having subjected myself to his just animad- 

 version on another occasion. If those who so 

 egregiously blunder are to be spared the castigation 

 justly merited, we see by late occurrences to what 

 it may lead ; and your correspondent, in my judg- 

 ment, is conferring a favour on all true lovers of 

 our great poet by exposing pretension and error, 

 from whatever quarter it may come, — a duty which 

 has been sadly neglected in some late partial re- 

 views of Mr. Collier's " clever" corrector. Mr. 

 Arrowsmith's communications have been so truly 

 ad rem, that I think I shall be expressing the sen- 

 timents of all your readers interested in such 



