Time as
the Tragic Condition
in Shakespeare
(Teenage Time in R&J
Part 2)
1
OBSERVATION 2
UNTIMELINESS
Shakespeare tends to depict tragic protagonists
exquisitely athwart the time schemes
in which they find themselves
H. BURN, “Hamlet's scull,” 19th c.
The image shows the
superimposition of scenes 1.5.
and 5.1. (“Why may not that be
the skull of a lawyer?”)
HAMLET
The time is out
Courtesy of LUNA.
of joint. O cursed spite
That ever I was born to put it right (1.2.210-11)
2
RICHARD
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.
Robert Mantell
Richard since
III, I cannot prove a lover
Andas
therefore,
courtesy
of LUNA.these fair well-spoken days,
To entertain
I am determinèd to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days. (RICHARD III, 1.1.2431)
3
MACBETH: If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly. If th' assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
Byam Shaw, Illustration for
With his surcease, success:
that but this blow
Macbeth (4.1), ca. 1900.
Might be the be-all and the end-all—here,
Courtesy of LUNA.
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. (1.7.1-7)
4
PERICLES:
…
These untimely claspings with
James Tingle,
“The Remains
of the Palace at
Antioch,” 1841.
Courtesy of
LUNA.
(The untimely
end child
of untimely
your
claspings).
(on Antiochus, 1.1.134)
5
Compare to…
VIOLA
O Time, thou must untangle this, not
I.
It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie.
(TWELFTH NIGHT, 2.2.40-1)
Ada Rehan as Viola, 19TH C, courtesy of
LUNA
6
OBSERVATION 3
Along with Richard III, Romeo and Juliet
is the most “untimely” of Shakespeare’s
plays (4 instances of the term).
BENVOLIO Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
FRIAR LAWRENCE: I married them, and their stol’n marriage day
CAPULET
Ha,Romeo,
let Ime
her!
Out,
she’smisgives
cold.
ROMEO O
fearsee
too
early,
foralas,
my
mind
BENVOLIO
Romeo,
brave
Mercutio
is dead.
Was
Tybalt’s
doomsday,
whose
untimely death
Her
blood
is settled,
and
her
joints the
are
stiff.
Some
consequence
yet
hanging
in the
stars
That
gallant
spirit hath
aspired
clouds,
Banished
the
new-made
bridegroom
from this
Life
and
these
lips
have
long
been
separated.
Shall too
bitterly
begin his
fearful
date the earth. (3.1.121Which
untimely
here
did scorn
city,
Death
her whom,
like
an untimely
frost
Withlies
thison
night’s
revels,
andnot
expire
the term
For
and
for
Tybalt,
Juliet pined.
3)
Upon
the
sweetest
flower
of
all
the
field.
(4.5.30-34)
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast (5.3.252-45)
By some vile forfeit of untimely death. (1.4.112-18)
7
OBSERVATION 4
Moreover, R & J features more temporal
language than any other play.
“The single most distinctive feature of
Romeo and Juliet is its treatment of time.
Its calendar is the most tightly controlled
of any of the plays.”
René Weiss, Arden Shakespeare 3rd
edition, 2012.
8
So how does Shakespeare
express time in Romeo and
Juliet?
What is the register of this
tragedy’s untimeliness?
9
Hour, Minute
{Most instances [16] / most instances [4]}
PROLOGUE
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage; (Prol. 10-12)
ROMEO
Ay me, sad hours seem long. (1.1.166)
ROMEO
But come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight. (2.6.3-5)
JULIET
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days. (3.5.44-45)
10
Measuring the Hours and
Minutes (or not measuring
them, as is often the case)
Hour glasses stilled in still lives.
11
Clock
{[3] average # of instances}
JULIET
What o’clock tomorrow
Shall I send to thee? (2.2.181-1)
JULIET
The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse.
In half an hour she promised to return. (2.5.1-2)
CAPULET
Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crowed.
The curfew bell hath rung. ’Tis three o’clock.—
Look to the baked meats, good Angelica.
Spare not for cost. (2.5.3-6)
Notice the
number of
time-keeping
practices
mentioned
here
12
Dial [1]
MERCUTIO ’Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of
the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
(2.4.114-5)
Holbein, detail from The
Saint Mary’s Church,
Ambassadors,
Putney
13
Bell [2]
(note the difference between striking
the hour or tolling the knell)
CAPULET
All things that we ordainèd festival
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast, (4.5.90-3)
LADY CAPULET O me, this sight of death is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulcher. (5.3.2145)
FOOL
Primo, secundo, tertio is a good play, and the old
saying is, the third pays for all. The triplex, sir, is a
good tripping measure, or the bells of Saint Bennet,
sir, may put you in mind—one, two, three.
(TWELFTH NIGHT 5.1.33-36)
14
Day, Night
{2nd most instances [33] /most instances by a mile [47]}
Monday: [4] most instances
Wednesday : [3] most instances
Thursday: [12] most instances (by 10!)
CAPULET
Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,
For you and I are past our dancing days. (1.5.35-6)
ROMEO
O blessèd, blessèd night! I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial. (2.2.146-8)
CAPULET
PARIS
CAPULET
But soft, what day is this?
Monday, my lord.
Monday, ha ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon. (3.5.20-22)
CAPULET
PARIS
But what say you to Thursday?
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow. (3.5.31-32)
15
OBSERVATION 5
Time is a relentless presence in Romeo and Juliet, and
the play’s lead characters struggle futilely against it, but
unlike the untimely protagonists of the ‘Mature
Tragedies,’ the register of time is relentlessly ordinary
(i.e. mundane, unexalted).
“The play is unusually full, perhaps more so than any
other Shakespearean play, of words like time, day, night,
today, tomorrow, years, hours, minutes and specific
days of the week, giving us a sense of events moving
steadily and inexorably in a taut temporal framework.”
G. Blakemore Evans, editor,
Cambridge Romeo and Juliet, 1984
16
Hypothesis:
Romeo and Juliet is an
expression of
Teenage Untimeliness
and thus aptly named
‘Junior Tragedy’
17
Thus, instead of grappling unsuccessfully with a
metaphysical, temporal dilemma (e.g. how to “jump
the time to come”), Romeo and Juliet suffer the
“misadventured piteous overthrows” of bad timing.
From this vantage, the unlucky coincidence of
Romeo and Tybalt’s post-nuptial encounter, the
precipitous marriage brokered with Paris, the delay of
the Friar’s letter, and the hastiness of Romeo’s
suicide (or the lag of Juliet’s re-awakening) are all
signs of a star-crossed temporality.
Hours, Minutes, Days, Clocks, Dials and Bells mark
the beat of a pace through life that these characters
just can’t follow.
18
Evidence of this temporal arrhythmia paints a familiar
picture of the American teenager.
• Romeo hides in his room all day and “makes himself an artificial
night” (1.1.143)
• Juliet is slow to heed her Nurse’s call (“What, lamb! What, ladybird! /
God forbid. Where’s this girl?” [1.3.3-4])
• Juliet’s mother is too brief with her, apparently reluctant to engage in
‘the sex talk’ (“Thus then in brief / The Valiant Paris seeks you for his
love [1.3.79-80] ; “Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’s love?” [102])
• Tybalt does not want to “endure” the Montague boys; Capulet chides
him, calling him a “saucy boy” (1.5.85, 94)
• The love between Romeo and Juliet is “too unadvised, too sudden /
Too like the lightening, which doth cease to be before it lightens.”
(2.2.125-7)
• The lovers moan about every minute they spend apart (“so tedious is
this day” [3.2.30])
• And of course, they proceed with too much haste (“Jesu, what haste!
Can you not stay awhile? / Do you not see that I am out of breath?”
[2.5.31-2])
19
Shakespeare frequent expressions of
time’s impressional register—that is,
how time is felt to proceed—make the
play emphatic on the prematurity /
impetuosity of its protagonists:
soon [11], haste [11], impatient
[1], fast [3], quick [2], swift [3],
early [15], sudden [7]
20
Moreover, in the play’s ping-pong between aubade and
serenade, Shakespeare makes Romeo and Juliet the
temporal analogues of Viola when she shows up at Olivia’s
door: in “standing water,” in the sense that they are neither in
the night or in the day, but always off the dial (the one ‘clock’
that keeps good time). Temporally, they occupy a liminal
space.
MONTAGUE Many a morning hath he there been seen,
almost
morning
(2.2.190) steeds,
JULIET Tis
Gallop
apace,
you fiery-footed
With
tears
augmenting
freshwoeful
morning’s
NURSE O woe, O woeful, the
woeful,
day! dew,
ROMEO
Towards
Look, love,
Phoebus’
whatmore
envious
lodging.
streaks
Such
a wagoner
Adding
to
clouds
clouds
with
hisitdeep
sighs.
PRINCE
A
glooming
peace
this
morning
with
brings.
Most
lamentable
day,
most
woeful
daynight,
FRIAR LAWRENCE The
gray-eyed
morn
smiles
on
the
frowning
As
Do
Phaëton
lace
the
would
severing
whip
clouds
you tointhe
yonder
west
But
all
sosorrow
soon
as
the
all-cheering
sun east.
The
sun
for
will
not
show
his
head.
That
ever,
ever
I
did
yet
behold!
Check’ring
the
eastern
clouds
with
streaks
of
light,
And
Night’s
bring
candles
in
cloudy
are
night
burnt
immediately.
out,
and
jocund
day
Should
in
the
farthest
east
begin
to
draw
GoAnd
hence
have
ofaO
these
sadday!
things.
Otoday,
O more
day, Otalk
day,
hateful
fleckled
darkness
like
drunkard
reels
Spread
Stands
thy
tiptoe
close
on
curtain,
the
misty
love-performing
mountain-tops.
night,
Theshall
shady
curtains
from
Aurora’s
bed,as this!
Some
be
pardoned,
and
some
punishèd.
(5.3.316-9)
Never
was
seen
so
black
a
day
From
forth
path
and wink,
Titan’s
fiery
wheels.
(2.3.1-4)
That
I must
runaways’
beday’s
gone
eyes
andmay
live,
or stay
and
and
Romeo
die.
(3.5.7-11)
Away
from
light
steals
home
my
heavy
son
O woeful day, O woeful day! (4.5.55-60)
Leap
to
theseinarms,
untalkedpens
of and
unseen.
(3.2.1-7)
And private
his chamber
himself
(1.1.134-141)
(note: this is Q1; Q2 & Folio give these lines to Romeo at the end of 2.2)
ROMEO
21
They are, we might say, twilight
figures, out of sync with the
realities of everyday life
22
But while I think this reading is readily available
to us (except perhaps that Twilight® part), I want
to propose there is a second Teenage Time that
runs athwart this one, and that gives the play an
exceptional purchase on the experience of
adolescence.
I will bring out this temporal phenomenology of
teenagerhood in 6 instances from the play text.
(we’re almost done!)
23
1. Ripe/Unripe
CAPULET: Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
PARIS
Younger than she are happy mothers made.
CAPULET And too soon marred are those so early made. (1.2.1316)
48 hours later…
CAPULET
Mistress minion you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next
To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
You tallow face! (3.5.156-62)
24
2. Anon [7]
Second only to Henry IV Part 1
PRINCE
But,my
Ned,
drive away the time till
JULIET My only love sprung from
onlytohate!
Falstaff
come,
I prithee,
Too early
seen
unknown,
anddo
known too late!
thou
stand
in some
while I question my
Prodigious
birth
of love
it is toby-room
me
puny
drawer
to what
end he gave me the sugar,
That I must
love
a loathèd
enemy.
and
NURSE What’s this? What’s this?
thou never
JULIET A rhyme Ido
learned
even leave
now calling “Francis,” that his tale
to me may
be nothing but “Anon.” Step aside, and
Of one I danced
withal.
show“Juliet.”]
thee a precedent. [Poins exits.]
[One callsI’llwithin
POINS
Francis!
NURSE[within]
Anon, anon.
Come, let’s away.
PRINCE The strangersThou
artgone.
perfect.
all are
(1.5.152-60)
POINS [within]
Francis!
FRANCIS
Anon, anon, sir.—Look down into the Pomgarnet,
Ralph.
JULIET:
Dear love, adieu.—
PRINCE Anon, good nurse.—Sweet
Come hither, Francis.
Montague, be true.
FRANCISStay but aMy
lord?
little;
I will come again. (2.2.143-5)
PRINCE
How long hast thou to serve, Francis?
FRANCIS
NURSE Peter. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to—
POINS
PETER [within]
Anon. Francis!
FRANCIS
Anon,(2.4.107)
anon, sir. (HIV Part 1, 2.4.28-45)
NURSE My fan, Peter.
25
3. Sententia
FRIAR
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. (2.6.15)
No it doesn’t. If you arrive too swiftly you do not arrive too
slowly, you idiot. Moreover, this is wisdom the Friar does not
take, if we recur its first, less garbled articulation:
FRIAR
Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.
(2.3.101)
26
4. Thursday / Wednesday
JULIET
Nurse, will you go with me into my closet
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?
LADY CAPULET
No, not till Thursday. There is time
enough.
CAPULET
Go, nurse. Go with her. We’ll to church
tomorrow.
[Juliet and the Nurse exit.]
LADY CAPULET
We shall be short in our provision.
’Tis now near night.
CAPULET
Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee,
wife.
(4.2.34-42)
27
5. Forty-two hours, or something like
that
FRIAR Each part, deprived of supple government,
Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death,
And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. (4.1.104-8)
Later the next day, about 28 hours after the
potion’s consumption…
JULIET O comfortable friar, where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo? (5.3.1513)
28
6. Two Hours’ Traffic?
CHORUS: The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
(Prologue, 9-14)
And yet our reading lasted about 2 hours and 25 minutes,
without any time set aside for the fights, dance, etc.
Conclusion: this calculation is at least 25% off the mark.
29
The Upshot:
R& J conveys the experience of being held captive to
inconsistent and irrational temporalities, precisely as
are
Example
Origin teenagers
Implication
1. Ripe/unripe
2. Anon
3. Sententia
4. Thurs/Weds
5. 42 hours
6. 2 hours’ traffic
Capulet
Readiness for marriage is an arbitrary
judgment or misdiagnosis
Note that the audience has
Nurse
Juliet is always
no way of understanding
the being dragged away from
she wants
to be, or made to be in
dilation and where
contraction
of
twothe
places
at once; the upshot is that her
time either (with
possible
feels like that of an abused servant.
exception oftime
ripe/unripe).
Friar
The
Effectively, we
aremoral
all in guide
the to time’s proper
management
makes no sense/can’t uphold
position of Romeo
and Juliet:
his own
beholden
to philosophy
decisions/expressions
of
Capulet
Haste and impetuosity
are flaws that work
temporal control
disjoin
uponthat
Romeo
and Juliet from the top down
the time.
Friar
All bets are off when even science cannot
measure time accurately
Shakespeare Time is a construct that serves some and
30
snags others.
Perhaps from this vantage, the stilled life of Juliet
—a hiatus from adult time—
is not just an object lesson in teenage haste and impetuosity,
but also a refuge from misshapen chaos
Samuel Begg,
Three Scenes
from Romeo
and Juliet
(detail), ca.
1886-1916.
Courtesy of
LUNA.
31