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Please see the bottom of this page for detailed explanatory notes and related resources.
Next: Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 3
From Romeo and Juliet. Ed. K. Deighton. London: Macmillan.
[Note: Many people are curious about Romeo and Juliet and its connection to the Kennedy family. In his tribute to John F. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, Robert Kennedy quoted Shakespeare's beautiful words:23. fine, bright, resplendent.When there were periods of crisis, you stood beside him. When there were periods of happiness, you laughed with him. And when there were periods of sorrow, you comforted him. I realize that as individuals we can't just look back, that we must look forward. When I think of President Kennedy, I think of what Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet: 24. garish, glaring; literally 'staring'; cp. Il Penseroso, 141, "Hide me from day's garish eye." 27. But not possess'd it, but not yet entered upon possession: though I am sold, though Romeo has purchased me at the price of his love. 29. As is the night ... them. Cp. M. N. D. i. 1. 3-6. 33. But Romeo's name, merely his name, that single word. 38. well-a-day. A corruption of walawa, an interjection made up of two interjections wa and la, which was gradually modified into the feebler form 'well-away,' and then into 'well-a-day.' In Per. iv. 4. 49, the word is used as a substantive. Decker writes wellada, as well as hoida or hoyda for the later 'hey-day.' 41. envious, malicious, cruel; as more usually in Shakespeare. 42, 3. Romeo ... cannot, the mischief is not heaven's doing, but Romeo's. 45. What devil ... thus? surely you must be a devil to cause me the tortures of the damned by exclaiming 'Romeo,' 'Romeo,' and keeping me in this suspense. 46. should be roar'd ... hell, hell with its outcries of the tortured would be the fitting place for exclamations that torture me so. 48. 'I,' formerly the adverb 'ay' = yes, was frequently written 'I.' 49. cockatrice, a fabulous creature, said to be from the egg of a cock, and having the form of a serpent with a cock's head, which was supposed to kill with its mere look. Sometimes identified with the basilisk. 50. I am not ... an I, I am a dead woman if it is possible that you should answer in the affirmative as to Romeo having slain himself. 51. Or those eyes ... 'I,' or if those eyes are closed in death, and thus oblige you to answer in the affirmative; with a further pun on eyes and I. 53. Brief sounds ... woe, let brief sounds (i.e. a single word) show whether I am happy or miserable, whether Romeo is alive or dead. 55. God save the mark! This expression, which occurs again in i. H. IV. i. 3. 56, Oth. i. 1. 33, and with the variation "God bless the mark!" in M. V. ii. 2. 25, T. G. iv. 4. 21, has never been fully explained. Schmidt, it is true, has seen that the reference is to personal blemishes, tokens, as they were called, which were considered ominous, and that the phrases "God bless the mark," "God save the mark," were used to avert the evil omen; but in giving the words "saving your reverence, under your pardon," as its equivalent, he somewhat misses its force. To a friend, learned in Irish ways and Irish folk-lore, I owe the following fuller account of the superstition. "The superstition of the evil eye," he says, "which was originally a purely eastern one, is still prevalent among the Keltic population of Ireland. If a child is born with any peculiar mark on the skin of the leg, face, arm, etc., it is customary for the midwife to touch it, saying 'God bless the mark!' Also, later on in life, if any one laughs at such a mark, and the person who has the mark falls ill, it is firmly believed that the illness is the result of the evil eye. In the year 1867 I knew a peasant's child who had a red mark on his arm. He was playing about when a woman observed this mark and laughed at it. A few days later the child fell sick, and the father went to the woman and accused her of 'making a bad eye' (I translate the Irish idiom) on the child. He then told her that unless she came, spat on the mark, and said 'God bless the mark!' he would bring her before the bench of magistrates. On her refusal, they came before my father who, to satisfy both parties, bade the woman do as the man had asked her. Accordingly the woman went, spat on the place, crossed herself, and said 'God bless the mark!' The child recovered, as he would have done, of course, without this ceremony, and the woman, having got the name of the 'evil eye,' left the neighbourhood. This treatment for being 'over-looked,' as they call it, has been in the country from time immemorial, and I have no doubt gave rise to the expression 'God bless, or save, the mark!' "Allusion to some such ceremony seems to be made in a line in Beaumont and Fletcher's (?) play of The Noble Gentleman, iv. 4. 93, 'God bless the mark, and every good man's child!" 58. gore-blood. "That is, clotted, congealed blood. ... As the nurse says of Tybalt, 'all in gore-blood,' exactly so would an East Anglian nurse say on a like occasion. Or, perhaps, 'all of a gore,' or 'all of a gore of blood'" (Forby). Halliwell quotes Vicars's Virgil, 1632, "Whose hollow wound vented much black gore-bloud." swounded, swooned; swound is a form frequently found in the old copies of Shakespeare, and swounded is perhaps an intentional vulgarism here. 61. Vile earth, sc. her own body: resign, sc. yourself. 62. press ... bier, make heavy by your weight a single bier; bier, is the frame on which a coffin is borne; from the same root as bear. 66. What storm ... contrary? What storm is this that blows at the same time from two such opposite directions? what calamity is this of such a double and different nature? 69. trumpet, sc. of the Archangel, to be blown on the Day of Judgement. 71. he is banished, for the redundant pronoun after a proper name, see Abb. 243. 75. serpent ... face. Cp. Macb. i. 5. 66, 7, "look like the innocent flower. But be the serpent under it"; iii. H. VI. i. 4. 137, "O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!" 76. keep, inhabit, occupy; very frequent in Shakespeare, and still in use in the universities, where a man is said to 'keep' in such and such rooms. 79. Despised, hateful; cp. above, i. 4. 110, and below, iv. 5. 59: show, appearance. 82. what hadst ... hell, what were you busy about in hell, and how came you to be there, as you must have been? 83. bower, enclose; the substantive originally means a place to dwell, a chamber, then more commonly a shady recess formed by trees and shrubs, a sense here implied in allusion to paradise, i.e. a pleasure-ground, garden, particularly the garden of Eden. 84, 5. Was ever ... bound. For this metaphor, see above, i. 8. 67. 85, 6. O, that deceit ... palace! Cp. Temp. i. 2. 457, "There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple"; said by Miranda of Ferdinand. 89, 90. All perjured ... forsworn. With Daniel, I have substituted Fleay's conjecture for the reading of the old copies, "All perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers." 91. man, servant: aqua vitae, brandy, or 'strong waters' of some kind. 97. may be crown'd, may fitly be crowned, need not blush to be crowned. 102. smooth thy name, restore to its former state after being mangled by my cruel words; cp. above, i. 5. 98. 105. That villain ... husband, I sufficiently answer my own accusing question when I say that that villain cousin sought my husband's death. 106. foolish tears. Steevens compares Miranda's words, Temp. iii. 1. 73, "I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of." 107. Your tributary ... woe, your drops are properly due to woe; in tributary and belong together there is something of redundancy. 111. All this is comfort, there is nothing in this but what should give me comfort. 112. worser, in form a double comparative. 114. presses, forces itself upon, thrusts itself into. 118. Hath slain ... Tybalts, outweighs to me the death of ten thousand Tybalts; is sufficient to make me acquiesce in the death of ten thousand such relatives as Tybalt. 121. And needly ... griefs, and demands to have some companion calamity; needly, not elsewhere used by Shakespeare. 122, 3. Why follow'd ... both, why did she not follow up her news by saying that my father, or my mother, or both, were dead. 124. Which modern ... moved, news which might have called forth ordinary lamentation; modern, always used by Shakespeare in the sense of commonplace, common, trite; cp. e.g. A. W. ii. 3. 2, "we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless"; Macb. iv. 3. 170, "where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd for who." 125. a rearward, as a rear-guard, as something supplementary; cp. M. A. iv. 1. 128, "For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die ... Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, Strike at thy life," i.e. follow up my reproaches by killing you. For rearward Collier conjectured 'rear-word,' which Lettsom approves and Hudson adopts. 130. In that word's death, in the death that is comprised in that single word: sound, i.e. adequately, to the full extent. 133. bring, conduct. 134. Wash they, let them wash. 136. beguiled, cheated of your purpose, rendered useless. 138. made you for, intended you for. 140. my wedding-bed, sc. the grave; cp. above, i. 5. 133. 146. my true knight, it being customary in the days of chivalry for ladies to adorn their lovers with some mark of their favour. ___________ How to cite the explanatory notes: ___________ Related Articles
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