Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/29

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Hood my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks

With thy black mantle.

In the days when falconry was a pastime, the falcon or hunting hawk, which was very shy and difficult to tame, was carried about with a black hood slipped over its head so that it could not see. This alone ought to be sufficient to settle the question as to whose eyes it is that are supposed to wink. Juliet, speaking from her own point of view, makes it plain what her attitude toward the oncoming darkness is. It is not simply that her blushes may not be seen but that she may not see. In fact, Shakespeare speaks of the blushes to make all the more vivid the image of the hood going down over her own head. And once it is proved who it was that was to wink, it is inevitable, by the sentence itself, who runaway is supposed to be. That point I believe we have now taken up and proved in all possible ways: we have seen like usage and a like point of view in two other cases in the plays; we have seen that our interpretation is in keeping with Shakespeare's conception of his ideal women; we have found also that it is harmonious with Shakespeare's way of making his characters speak in moments of deep feeling; and we have found that the line so interpreted and read in connection with its own immediate context illumines the whole passage, the words of which in turn converge all their light upon it as upon a central idea. As all hope of solving any of the remaining Shakes-