JULIETS RUNAWAY, ONCE MORE
the Sun to banish fell night and its damnations. Having chanced, then, to observe the close reflection in Shakespeare's mind of the Faustus prototype—quite as close, the instinct feels, as that which connects the Garden Tower in New York with the Giralda Tower of Seville, and equally no more a plagiarism—observing this, it is borne in upon me that he made Juliet call upon night to spread her close curtain,
That Nature's eye may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen;
that, in other words, the Sun whose steeds she bids gallop apace, the sun which Faustus calls "Fair Nature's eye," may "wincke" for the nonce, and let the lovers "doe their amorous rights."
But if any one insists upon retaining the plural "eyes," doubting that successive misprints should occur, then I would read
That Nature's eyes may wink, and Romeo—
the eyes of Nature at night being indubitably the stars, whose "winckeing" or twinkling[1] serves only to make darkness romantically visible, and bewrays lovers no more than would a mist of tropical fireflies.
Some experience of printing and script-reading fortifies me against the most obvious exception to
- ↑ The latter word, etymologically, is simply the "frequentative" of the former.
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