The Arkansaw traveler., 1883-05-05
RoMEo's APorHEcARY.
CiacinnAli Saturday Night. ]

CincinuAn Saturday Night.
 ' The apethecary in Romeo and Juliet plays brief but Important part. One of the most thrilling scenes in the play hinges upon Romeo's taking poison, and it is highly essential that some one pro- vide it for him. Poison cannot be found on erery corner: al feast Il couldn't then. for every corner wasn't saloon in Man -tua in Romeo's day, though ii may be now. for anything that we know. Shakes peare fails to inform us what ..dram of poison Romeo bought for his forty du- cats, but as the apothecay says,
 : And drink il osf. and if you had the strength oft~enty men. i,wou!d dispatch you straight, we conclude that it must have been drug store whisky. Not the poorest article, of course, for had he but tasted It he would not have lived to get out of the store, bu, the kind that the druggist sells tor about dollar half pint. and says he can't make any profit at that. ..I do re- member an apothecary.' says Romeo, and how many men have had cause 10 remember him since. after partaklng of his choice liquors pu, up specially for medicinal purposes.
 very striking picture Shakespeare draws ot the apothecary and his needy shop. Sharp misery had worn him to the bones" Not much like the apo,he- cary sharps of our day. for they grow rich and fat if they don't put up half a dozen prescriptions in day. In tat t,red weeds and overwhelming brows. cdlling of simples." They cull simpl, $ yet, cully, but they are the simples who invest Tn every humbug specific or newly invented pill, making the paten, medicine business boom boomingly.
 Romeo's apotheeary must have been something of fisherman Tn more pros- porous days, for the inventory of his shop mentions skins of ill-shap'd fishes, while the alligator stuff d :" (which was more than he had been for many a dav) would appear 10 denote ,ha, at some time he had pushed his piscatorial spor, as far as Florida. There are remn .nts of a small holiday trade with which he had endeavored to eke out his miserable in- come, briefly catalogued as "tore-toys hung. We are aware that tortoise is the usual reading, but writers are striving after some new and hidden meaning in Shakespeare. particularly since the dra- matie festival was launched upon the pubic. and we mean to be up with the IiDeS, also the CoU7Wsyfi4i- G1-rsle.l
 Romeo finds the apotheoary's shop closed when he frs, goes there. "being holiday This throws light upon the custom of apothecaries in those early days. When holiday arrived they in- varlably shut up shop so as ,o engage in those risky sports for which druggists have ever been noted. The reason this particular one was in that day. instead of being ou, enjoying himself with the boys, was beoause of his "tattered weeds" un- less tat,ered weeds refers to the cigars he kept on sale. Let us hear from some other Shakespcarian critic on this subject. Be that as 1t may. l, was holiday, and the shop was closed. What particular holi- day was Is not even hinted al, and it can only be conyectured. That Is one of the peculiar beauties of Shakspeare's plays, 90 much is left 10 conjecture. And able writers have been eonIecturing over them for about three centuries. h is gen. erally conceded that the immortal Will liam had some deep meaning in every line he wrote. although Romeo Reed, of the CommeyfIal- Cd-f5tf, Is bold enough to doubt II.
 Bu, the holiday. wha, was it Was it Christmas! Scarcely: for had 1t been. the ' tore boys" would have been hang ing in the window to tempt children. It couldn't have been Washington's birth day. for nobody every pays any attention 10 that, and if it had been the fourth of July, Il would have been necessary to keep every drug store open in order to attend to the boys who shoot of their fingers with toy pistols. We conclude that it mus, have been Arbor Day. so many people going out of town to plant trees that it was useless to keep apothe- cary shops open. or anything else.
 We cannot close this brief study of one of Shakespeare's noted characters m a more fitting way than by quoting the great drama,ists own words in dismissing him " Exit ApothecaD."
 
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