Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/21

Juliet's age is reduced by Shakespeare from the sixteen years of his original (the Romeus and Juliet of Brooke) to fourteen. "Death lies on her," exclaims Capulet (IV. v.),

like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

At the close of Act I. of The Jew of Malta Don Mathias describes the Jew's daughter, now entered into a convent:

A fair young maid, scarce fourteen years of age,
The sweetest flower in Cytherea's field,
Cropt from the pleasures of the fruitful earth.^[1]

Still more striking is the resemblance between the opening lines of Juliet's soliloquy (III. ii.), "Gallop apace, you fiery footed steeds," etc., and lines in Marlowe's Edward II. IV. iii.:

Gallop apace, bright Phœbus, through the sky,
And dusky night, in rusty iron car,
Between you both shorten the time, etc.

Shakespeare was much influenced by Marlowe in some early plays; but Romeo and Juliet is not written in discipleship to Marlowe, and it must be remembered that in plays as late as As You Like It and Troilus and Cressida reminiscences of Marlowe are found.^[2]

These echoes from Marlowe have a certain bearing on the supposed imitation of lines of Romeo and Juliet,

1. This interesting parallel has been pointed out to me by Mr. W. J. Craig.
2. The points in common between Juliet's Nurse and the Nurse in Dido Queen of Carthage by Marlowe and Nash seem to me of little importance. Shakespeare found his Nurse in Brooke's poem.