Romeo and Juliet

 delay seems long.

  _Jul._ Make haste, make haste, this lingering doth us wrong.

For convenient comparison I quote the later text here:--

  _Juliet._ Good even to my ghostly confessor.

  _Friar Laurence._ Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

  _Juliet._ As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

  _Romeo._ Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
  Be heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more
  To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
  This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue
  Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both
  Receive in either by this dear encounter.

  _Juliet._ Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
  Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
  They are but beggars that can count their worth;
  But my true love is grown to such excess
  I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.

  _Friar Laurence._ Come, come with me, and we will make short work;
  For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
  Till holy church incorporate two in one.

The "omission, mutilation, or botching" by which some German editors
would explain all differences between the earlier and later texts will
not suffice to account for such divergence as this. "The two dialogues
do not differ merely in expressiveness and effect; they embody different
conceptions of the characters;" and yet we cannot doubt that both were
written by Shakespeare.

But while the second quarto is "unquestionably our best authority" for
the text of the play, it is certain that it "was not printed from the
author's manuscript, but from a transcript, the writer of which was not
only careless, but thought fit to take unwarrantable liberties with the
text." The first quarto, with all its faults and imperfections, is often
useful in the detection and correction of these errors and corruptions,
and all the modern editors have made more or less use of its readings.

The third quarto (1609) was a reprint of the second, from which it
"differs by a few corrections, and more frequently by additional
errors." It is from this edition that the text of the first folio is
taken, with some changes, accidental or intentional, "all generally for
the worse," except in the punctuation, which is more correct, and the
stage directions, which are more complete, than in the quarto.

The date of the first draft of the play has been much discussed, but
cannot be said to have been settled. The majority of the editors believe
that it was begun as early as 1561, but I think that most of them lay
too much stress on the Nurse's reference (i. 3. 22, 35) to the
"earthquake," which occurred "eleven years" earlier, and which these
critics suppose to have been the one felt in England in 1580.

Aside from this and other attempts to fix the date by external evidence
of a doubtful character, the internal evidence confirms the opinion that
the tragedy was an early work of the poet, and that it was subsequently
"corrected, augmented, and amended." There is a good deal of rhyme, and
much of it in the form of alternate rhyme. The alliteration, the
frequent playing upon words, and the lyrical character of many passages
also lead to the same conclusion.

The latest editors agree substantially with this view. Herford says:
"The evidence points to 1594-1595 as the time at which the play was
substantially composed, though it is tolerably certain that some parts
of our present text were written as late as 1596-1598, and possibly that
others are as early as 1591." Dowden sums up the matter thus: "On the
whole, we might place _Romeo and Juliet_, on grounds of internal
evidence, near _The Rape of Lucrece_; portions may be earlier in date;
certain passages of the revised version are certainly later; but I think
that 1595 may serve as an approximation to a central date, and cannot be
far astray."

For myself, while agreeing substantially with these authorities, I think
that a careful comparison of what are evidently the earliest portions
of the text with similar work in _Love's Labour's Lost_ (a play revised
like this, but retaining traces of the original form), _The Two
Gentlemen of Verona_, and other plays which the critics generally assign
to 1591 or 1592, proves conclusively that parts of _Romeo and Juliet_
must be of quite as early a date.

The earliest reference to the play in the literature of the time is in a
sonnet to Shakespeare by John Weever, written probably in 1595 or 1596,
though not published until 1599. After referring to _Venus and Adonis_
and _Lucrece_, Weever adds:--

  "_Romeo_, _Richard_, more whose names I know not,
  Their sugred tongues and power attractive beuty
  Say they are saints," etc.

No other allusion of earlier date than the publication of the first
quarto has been discovered.


THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT

Girolamo della Corte, in his _Storia di Verona_, 1594, relates the story
of the play as a true event occurring in 1303; but the earlier annalists
of the city are silent on the subject.