"I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire; The day is hot, the Capulets abroad, And if we meet we shall not scape a brawl, For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."
When the Nurse goes on the errand to Romeo (ii. 4), Peter carries her fan, and she finds occasion to use it. "The nights are only softer days, not made for sleep, but for lingering in moonlit gardens, where the fruit-tree tops are tipped with silver and the nightingale sings on the pomegranate bough." It is only in the coolness of the dawn that Friar Laurence goes forth to gather herbs; and it is
"An hour before the worshipp'd sun Peer'd forth the golden window of the east,"
that we find Romeo wandering in the grove of sycamore, "with tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew," because Rosaline will not return his love.
In one instance, overlooked by the commentators generally, Shakespeare seems to forget the time of year. In the masquerade scene (i. 5) Old Capulet bids the servants "quench the fire" because "the room is grown too hot." In Brooke's poem, where the action covers four or five months, this scene is in the winter. Shakespeare, in condensing the time to less than a single week in summer, neglected to omit this reference to a colder season.
Aside from this little slip, the time is the Italian summer from first to last. And, as a French critic remarks, "the very form of the language comes from the South." The tale originated in Italy; "it breathes the very spirit of her national records, her old family feuds, the amorous and bloody intrigues which fill her annals. No one can fail to recognize Italy in its lyric rhythm, its blindness of passion, its blossoming and abundant vitality, in its brilliant imagery, its bold composition." All the characters are distinctively Italian. "In total effect," as another has said, "the play is so Italian that one may read it with increasing surprise and delight in Verona itself."
Although, as I have said, it is doubtful whether the story has any historical basis, the Montagues and the Capulets were famous old families in Verona. Dante alludes to them in the _Purgatorio_ (vi. 107), though not as enemies:--
"Vieni a veder Montecchi e Cappelletti, Monaldi e Filippeschi, uom senza cura, Color già tristi, e costor con sospetti."[2]