V - JULIET (Concluded)

Summary

“Trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true

Than those that have more cunning to be strange.”

LET me try now, my dear friend, to speak to you of the real Juliet as she filled my imagination when the time came for me to venture on impersonating her in London. In my first trials at Richmond I had ardour and selfforgetfulness enough; but I was too young, too near the age of Shakespeare's Juliet, considering the tardier development of an English girl, to understand so strong and deep a nature; neither had my imagination the power to grasp the whole scope and purpose of the play; and without this power no one can ever be qualified to embody one of Shakespeare's heroines. Hitherto I had only known the outward form of the poet's exquisite creation, and could not reach the deeper meaning that lies beneath it; indeed I never should have reached it, had I not subseqently been allowed to see the real Shakespeare instead of the imperfect copy, adapted for the stage, in which I originally knew the play. Now a new light broke in upon me. It was no longer only a lovestory, the most beautiful of all I had ever read, but a tale where, as in the Greek dramas of which I had seen some glimpses, the young and innocent were doomed to punishment in retribution for the guilt of kindred whose “bloody feuds” were to be expiated and ended by the death of their posterity.