I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,
(Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to think)
And breath'd such life with kisses on my lips,
That I reviv'd and was an emperor.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possessed,
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!
Romeo's passion for Juliet is not a first love: it succeeds and
drives out his passion for another mistress, Rosaline, as the sun
hides the stars. This is perhaps an artifice (not absolutely
necessary) to give us a higher opinion of the lady, while the first
absolute surrender of her heart to him enhances the richness of the
prize. The commencement, progress, and ending of his second passion
are however complete in themselves, not injured, if they are not
bettered by the first. The outline of the play is taken from an
Italian novel; but the dramatic arrangement of the different scenes
between the lovers, the more than dramatic interest in the progress
of the story, the development of the characters with time and
circumstances, just according to the degree and kind of interest
excited, are not inferior to the expression of passion and nature.
It has been ingeniously remarked among other proofs of skill in the
contrivance of the fable, that the improbability of the main
incident in the piece, the administering of the sleeping-potion, is
softened and obviated from the beginning by the introduction of the
Friar on his first appearance culling simples and descanting on
their virtues.
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