Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/25

Rh tentatively, that in Juliet's case it is the same. It is her own eyes that are supposed to wink; but as darkness is just falling it allows of this winking, or blinding, being accomplished in a different way.

But if it is her own sight she is referring to, we now have to find a fit meaning for runaway's, because the text reads, "that runaway's eyes may wink." If we are going to assume that it is her eyes that are referred to, then she is the runaway; and now the question arises: In what sense may she be considered a runaway? That she has simply run away from home, being out in her father's orchard, is hardly satisfactory; it does not fit the elaborate figure of speech. To regard her as a runaway merely because she went secretly to Friar Laurence to be married proves equally futile when put to the test. For we are still left with the problem of finding out how or why, in that sense of running away, she should wish her eyes to close or wink? She is contemplating actual darkness in the oncoming of night, from which it will be seen that her having merely run away from home for a while that day does not apply with any sense to her present vein of thought. Even the poorest of critics, with few exceptions, have seen that the solution here is not to come from a very literal point of view. Whatever Shakespeare's meaning may be, the word has some figurative application which is more illuminating.