How Many Children had Lady Capulet?

Abstract

ISCUSSION of of Lady Capulet may appropriately be prefaced with observation that character never is so called in original editions. There is no list of dramatis Yta9 fii~l # personae in chief edition of Romeo and Juliet, second quarto of I599.1 In stage-directions of Q2 character is referred to four times as Wife, thrice as Mother, once as Capulet's Wife, once as Lady, and once as Lady of house. In speech-headings she is referred to sixteen times as Mother, thirteen times as Lady, seven times as Wife, six times as Old Lady, and twice as Capulet's Wife. The variation in designation2 is part of evidence for generally held theory that Q2 was printed mainly from Shakespeare's foul papers.3 In dialogue Wife is once referred to by Nurse as the Lady of house (I. V. II5) and once addressed by Juliet as your Ladyship (III. V. I07). She is also addressed several times by Capulet as wife and by Juliet, Paris, and Nurse as madam. The designation Lady Capulet is not, of course, inappropriate, for Paris twice addresses Capulet as my lord (I. ii. 6, III. iV. 29). But familiar modern designation is not Elizabethan. It originates in stage-directions and speech-headings of Rowe's edition of I709, first to provide a dramatis personae. problem is posed by of Capulet's Wife: is she or young? On one hand there are two pieces of evidence explicitly stating that she is old. At V. iii 206-207 she exclaims that this sight of death is as a bell that warns her old age to a sepulcher. And she is referred to by designation Old Lady in Q2 speech-headings of I. iii. 49, 63, 69, 77, 79, and 96. It seems desirable to emphasize latter evidence since it is not generally known to readers who approach Romeo and Juliet through medium of edited texts, in most or perhaps all of which these particular speech-headings are normalized to Wife or Lady Capulet. The usage occurs in several Shakespearian dramatic texts. In stage-directions of Q2 Romeo and Juliet Montague is twice designated as Old Montague (I. i, III. i), Capulet twice as Old Capulet (III. iv, IV. iv). In Folio text of All's Well That Ends Well Countess of Rousillon is designated as Old Lady twice in stage-directions (IV. v, V. iii) and four times in speech-headings (III. ii, V. iii).4 In speech-headings of same text Lafeu is designated eighteen times as Old Lafeu, once as Old Lord (II. iii). In F Henry VIII Anne Bullen's confidante is referred to as Old Lady 1I have used Shakespeare Association facsimile edition of Q2 (I949), from which quotations in present article are taken. Variants in secondary substantive edition, first quarto of I597, are without significance in present context. 2 See R. B. McKerrow, A Suggestion Regarding Shakespeare's Manuscripts, RES, XI (I935), 459-465. 8 See The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet, ed. George Walton Williams (i964), pp. xii-xiii. 4 For First Folio I have used Yale facsimile edition (I954) .