APPENDIX III
Runaway's Eyes
(Footnote to Page 100)
An editor has to consider whether the word runaway is to be retained; and if it is, whether runaway's or runaways' should be printed. The proposed substitutes are not happy; among them are Rumour's, Renomy's, Luna's, unawares, rumourors', Cynthia's, enemies, rude day's (Dyce, ed. 2), sunny day's, sun-weary, and others of equal infelicity. The word runaway is strongly supported by the parallel (with variations) in ideas and language of Merchant of Venice, II. vi. 34–47. Jessica is on the balcony; love, she says, is blind, and lovers cannot see their pretty follies. Lorenzo bids her "come at once, For the close night doth play the runaway." When Lorenzo speaks it is night; when Juliet speaks it is day, and she is gazing at the sun.
I believe the genitive singular runaway's to be right, and I agree with Warburton that the sun or Phœbus is meant. It is objected that Juliet has complained of the slow pace of the sun; but now she imagines night as having arrived, and the tardy sun has proved himself to be the runaway he actually was.
I do not wish to innovate in the text, and I have left the commonly received punctuation. But a different punctuation might solve the difficulty. The word That (before runaway's) may be the demonstrative pronoun, as in "That 'banished,'" line 113. "That runaway" may mean "yonder runaway," or "that runaway (of whom I have
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