"Had she affections, and warm youthful blood, She'd be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would bandy her to my sweet love, And his to me: But old folks, many feign as they were dead; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead." In Juliet's celebrated soliloquy (iii. 2), where, with that mixture of innocence and passion which forms the groundwork of her character, she awaits Romeo's first evening visit, only the four opening lines, with their mythological imagery, are found in the earlier text:-- "_Jul_. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phœbus' lodging: such a waggoner As Phæthon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately." Not till he put his final touches to the work did Shakespeare find for the young girl's love-longing that marvellous utterance which we all know:-- "Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night! That runaways' eyes may wink, and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk'd-of, and unseen! . . . . . . . . . Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night! come, Romeo! come, thou day in night!" Almost the whole of the following scene between the Nurse and Juliet, in which she learns of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment, is likewise new. Here occur some of the most daring and passionate expressions which Shakespeare has placed in Juliet's mouth:-- "Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death, That murder'd me. I would forget it fain. . . . . . . . . . That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,' Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death Was woe enough, if it had ended there: Or,--if sour woe delights in fellowship, And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,--Why follow'd not, when she said--Tybalt's dead, Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, Which modern lamentation might have mov'd? But, with a rearward following Tybalt's death, 'Romeo is banished!'--to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead." To the original version, on the other hand, belong not only the highly indecorous witticisms and allusions with which Mercutio garnishes the first scene of the second act, but also the majority of the speeches in which the conceit-virus rages. The uncertainty of Shakespeare's taste, even at the date of the revision, is apparent in the fact that he has not only let all these speeches stand, but has interpolated not a few of equal extravagance. So little did it jar upon him that Romeo, in the original text, should thus apostrophise love (i. I)--