Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet Commentary A. J. Drake, Ph.D.<\/title><meta name= \"description\" content= \"Romeo and Juliet commentary addresses major themes, major characters such as Benvolio, Tybalt, Friar Laurence, Mercutio, literary analysis, drama theory.\"><\/head><\/p>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Commentaries on Shakespeare’s Tragedies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-btn__default-btn uagb-btn-tablet__default-btn uagb-btn-mobile__default-btn uagb-block-4f6cdd05 uag-hide-mob\"><div class=\"uagb-buttons__wrap uagb-buttons-layout-wrap \">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-dcba7b2a wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">HOME<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div 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target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">GUIDES<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-d5da63d7 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/shakespeare-links\/\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">LINKS<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-btn__default-btn uagb-btn-tablet__default-btn uagb-btn-mobile__default-btn uagb-block-19d28286\"><div class=\"uagb-buttons__wrap uagb-buttons-layout-wrap \">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-69502be5 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act1\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 1<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-0ec42142 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act2\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 2<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-6ac70dcb wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act3\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 3<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-bfd6ecc9 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act4\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 4<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-55716ff6 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#act5\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ACT 5<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-0246bad9 wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"#endnotes\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">ENDNOTES<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\nShakespeare, William. The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.<\/em> Second Quarto. (The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 209-77.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nOf Interest: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rsc.org.uk\/romeo-and-juliet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">RSC Resources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca\/Library\/Texts\/Rom\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ISE Resources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shakespeare-online.com\/sources\/romeosources.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">S-O Sources<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.folger.edu\/explore\/shakespeare-in-print\/first-folio\/bookreader-68\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1623 Folio 670-95 (Folger)<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.hathitrust.org\/Record\/011405214\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet, <\/em>trans. Arthur Brooke, 1562<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/34840\/34840-h\/34840-h.htm#page80\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Painter\u2019s Palace of Pleasure <\/em>II.xxv \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitale-sammlungen.de\/en\/details\/bsb10757532\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bandello\u2019s Giulietta e Romeo<\/em> and Luigi Da Porto\u2019s version Due Nobili Amanti<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act1\">ACT 1<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 1.0, Prologue (210, the Prologue emphasizes the \u201cstar-crossed\u201d nature of Romeo and Juliet\u2019s love match and the dreadful cost of the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe English sonnet spoken by the Prologue refers Romeo and Juliet\u2019s tragic end both to the influence of the stars and to the \u201ccivil hands\u201d of their own feuding families, \u201cboth alike in dignity\u201d (210, 1.0.1), which have worked at length to undo the foundations of civil society. With regard to the influence of the planets\u2014a common belief in Shakespeare\u2019s time\u2014we may remember the pronouncement by Cassius in Julius Caesar <\/em>that \u201cthe fault \u2026 is not in our stars, \/ But in ourselves.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn1\" id=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a> It\u2019s fair to apply that claim to the parents of the two families, who have evidently failed to patch up their differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStill, while the faults and feelings of the elder characters figure significantly in Romeo and Juliet,<\/em> it is not mainly <\/em>about the elders\u2019 suffering or perspectives. As Jonathan Bate points out, it is the young who litter the tomb of the Capulets at the play\u2019s conclusion. <a href=\"#_edn2\" id=\"_ednref2\">[2]<\/a> Since Romeo and Juliet are at the play\u2019s center as tragic figures, it is often considered a tragedy of fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\nUnless one takes the side of fictive Verona\u2019s rigid medieval expectations that marriage should be controlled by parental choice, Juliet is in no way to blame for the misfortune that she and Romeo suffer. And even though Romeo\u2019s banishment comes from his own participation in the town\u2019s cycle of violence, he is right to complain that he is no villain but rather \u201cfortune\u2019s fool.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn3\" id=\"_ednref3\">[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThat Shakespeare should write a tragedy of \u201cfate\u201d should not surprise us. He does not follow a unitary model of tragedy. He is not an Aristotelian playwright, or any kind of doctrinaire theorist. Shakespeare generates his tragic intensities and situations circumstantially, from one set of materials to the next. A notion of tragedy as broad as \u201cthe fall of an illustrious person from good fortune to bad\u201d <a href=\"#_edn4\" id=\"_ednref4\">[4]<\/a> serves him as a point of departure. <a>In Romeo and Juliet, <\/em>we are dealing with a primal tragedy of youthful expectations checked by forces they cannot control, from mindless, chaotic violence to middle-aged fears of impermanence, to the weight of the past upon the present.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 1 (210-15, Verona\u2019s feuding families, the Montagues and Capulets, get into a street fight; Prince Escalus arrives to stop the fighting and threaten the culpable members of both families with dire penalties; Benvolio questions Romeo about the cause of his sadness, and Romeo confesses that the woman he loves doesn\u2019t return his affection.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe servants\u2019 quibbling at the beginning of the first scene shows how trivial the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets has become. Samson\u2019s obscene innuendos about Montague maidens suggest that the family feud is easily made to serve selfish purposes, base appetites. Says Samson, \u201cI will push Mon- \/ tague\u2019s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall\u201d (210, 1.1.15-16). There is no nobility in such factional strife. Tybalt and Benvolio, with their melodramatic pronouncements\u2014\u201cTurn thee, Benvolio; look upon thy death\u201d (211, 1.1.62)\u2014are as absurd in prosecuting the quarrel as the low-born servants.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe see with what fearful speed the hostilities ramp up, with the upper-class youth going at one another, and then the elders, the scions of their respective houses, threatening to join in the fray. The Prince breaks up this unseemly fighting, but from his mention of \u201cThree civil brawls bred of an airy word\u201d (212, 1.1.81), we may gather that he has dealt too leniently with such disorders in the past. As in Measure for Measure,<\/em> the ruler has allowed his subjects\u2019 petty desires to wreak havoc in his realm. <a href=\"#_edn5\" id=\"_ednref5\">[5]<\/a> This kind of behavior on the part of Shakespeare\u2019s dukes, princes, and kings can lead to their own downfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut we may draw from the phrase \u201cbred of an airy word\u201d something darker still than the possible imperiling of the ruler: the power that will confront Romeo and Juliet is nothing less than chaos, the flaring-up of mindless violence from the depths of human irrationality, which, to judge from Samson\u2019s charged language, would include the sexual instinct as well as a generalized desire for dominance.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe first hear of Romeo when Lady Montague asks Benvolio where the young man has been hiding. He shuns company, and as Benvolio explains to Lady Montague, he came upon Romeo \u201can hour before the worshipped sun \/ Peered forth the golden window of the East\u201d (213, 1.1.113-14). That is a delightfully Euphuistic temporal description! <a href=\"#_edn6\" id=\"_ednref6\">[6]<\/a> At that ornately described time, Benvolio says, he saw Romeo standing under a grove of melancholy sycamore trees, and the root of his troubles wasn\u2019t yet clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut Benvolio\u2019s view aside, what\u2019s more remarkable is that Montague seems to have no clue what is troubling his son. Has this aging father forgotten what it\u2019s like to be young and infatuated with a girl for the first time? At least he is worried, though: as he says to Benvolio, \u201cBlack and portentous must this humor prove, \/ Unless good counsel may the cause remove\u201d (213, 1.1.136-37).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWith the Montague patriarch\u2019s approval, Benvolio takes advantage of a chance encounter with Romeo to learn directly from the source that love<\/em> is the cause: Romeo says that he is not in or out of love, but \u201cOut of her favor where I am in love\u201d (214, 1.1.163).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe \u201cher\u201d in question is Rosaline, though she isn\u2019t named until the following scene. Romeo speaks wittily, but his words are full of Petrarchan extremes: \u201cO heavy lightness, serious vanity, \/ Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms \u2026\u201d (214, 1.1.171-72), and so forth. His poetical cant notwithstanding, Romeo touches upon what is beginning to happen to him now that he\u2019s open to the power of erotic attraction and idealistic infatuation: \u201cI have lost myself; I am not here. \/ This is not Romeo: he\u2019s some other where\u201d (214, 1.1.192-93).<\/p>\n\n\n\nBenvolio, a more experienced young man, advises Romeo to stop talking Petrarchanism and start looking around him. He is to compare as many beautiful women as possible with the one who seems to be troubling him. The solution to lovesickness and a felt loss of identity or self-certainty, he advises, is \u201cgiving liberty unto thine eyes\u201d (215, 1.1.222). It sounds as if Romeo has never actually met the saintly Rosaline, and is spinning romantic nonsense about his mostly imagined \u201cbeloved\u201d as passionately as can be. That\u2019s what one does at his time of life. So Benvolio is wise to set the experience of the eyes against pure imagination.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 2 (215-18, when Count Paris expresses his desire to marry young Juliet, the patriarch of the Capulet clan invites him to an evening feast at which Juliet will be present; an illiterate servant responsible for the feast\u2019s guest list asks Romeo and Benvolio to read it for him; they see that Romeo\u2019s Rosaline is among those invited, so they resolve to be there, too.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAs he enters the scene in conversation with Juliet\u2019s new suitor Count Paris, Capulet is very pleased with the prospect of Prince Escalus\u2019s kinsman marrying his daughter, though he is wistful because the girl \u201chath not seen the change of fourteen years\u201d (215, 1.2.9). In other words, she\u2019s still thirteen, and he would prefer to let a few more summers pass before parting with her in favor of a husband. Capulet also requires that Paris win Juliet\u2019s love: as he says, \u201cMy will to her consent is but a part \u2026\u201d (216, 1.2.17). Plenty of young women were not so lucky as to have such a father in medieval England or Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCapulet invites Paris to a public feast so that he may see Juliet shine brighter than all the rest, and be reconfirmed in his choice. He gives his serving man a slip of paper with the names of the intended guests, which turns out to be fortunate because the illiterate fellow promptly asks Benvolio and Romeo to read him the guest list. As it turns out, one of the names on the list is the heavenly Rosaline.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBenvolio is as happy as the serving man: now he can put his plans for Romeo into action. He tells him, \u201cTake thou some new infection to thy eye \u2026\u201d (216, 1.2.50) to drive out the old one. Romeo is dubious, and would as well maintain his distant Rosaline\u2019s matchless quality\u2014after all, to him, she is more of a Petrarchan ideal <a href=\"#_edn7\" id=\"_ednref7\">[7]<\/a> than a flesh-and-blood human being. But it\u2019s hard to resist Benvolio\u2019s pleas, and Romeo finally consents, saying: \u201cI\u2019ll go along no such sight to be shown, \/ But to rejoice in splendor of mine own\u201d (218, 1.2.103-04).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 3 (218-220, Lady Capulet tells Juliet that Count Paris wants to marry her, and praises his fine qualities; Juliet seems startled, but ever obedient, she agrees to consider the offer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nLady Capulet breaks the news to Juliet that she has a serious and respectable suitor. The Nurse, called upon to second what her mistress says, prattles comically, but there\u2019s a deep truth to be drawn from what she says. Apparently, the Nurse has been with Juliet from infancy <a href=\"#_edn8\" id=\"_ednref8\">[8]<\/a> to this very minute, with her fourteenth birthday coming up on Lammas Eve, <a href=\"#_edn9\" id=\"_ednref9\">[9]<\/a> a festival day for the wheat harvest (198, 1.3.19). She sees the girl\u2019s life as a whole, and she\u2019s aware that the \u201charvest-time\u201d for Juliet is near.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Nurse keeps airing a bawdy joke made years ago by her now departed husband, which implies that she has long been preparing Juliet for this time. When baby Juliet took a tumble, the Nurse\u2019s husband said, \u201cThou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit \u2026\u201d (219, 1.3.44). The words remind us poignantly how short is the time between carefree childhood and the consequential realities of adulthood. To adapt a line from William Wordsworth\u2019s poem, \u201cMy Heart Leaps Up,\u201d the child is mother of the woman, and young though she still is, Juliet is moving towards institutional adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\nJuliet sounds intrigued about her aristocratic suitor when Lady Capulet informs her that she is to \u201cRead o\u2019er the volume of young Paris\u2019 face, \/ And find delight writ there with beauty\u2019s pen\u201d (219, 1.3.83-84). But she is no more than intrigued, she admits, since Paris is as yet only a name to her: \u201cI\u2019ll look to like, if looking liking move \u2026\u201d (220, 1.3.99) says Juliet, and as for marriage, she tells her mother in formal tone, \u201cIt is an hour that I dream not of\u201d (219, 1.3.68), and follows up these words with more that import obedience to her parents\u2019 will.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 1, Scene 4 (220-27, A masked Romeo and Benvolio make their way to the Capulets\u2019 feast along with Mercutio; Romeo has had a bad dream, but Mercutio spins out the story of Queen Mab, the fairy who fills humans with dreams that drive them to pursue their desires; Capulet welcomes Romeo and the others; Romeo catches sight of Juliet; Tybalt storms when he recognizes Romeo\u2019s voice, but Capulet scolds him; Romeo and Juliet meet and instantly fall in love, even co-speaking a sonnet; as the entertainment ends, the pair realize the difficultly of their belonging to rival houses .)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nOn the way to their uninvited attendance at Capulet\u2019s feast, the worldly Mercutio parries wits with Romeo the idealist, who has been troubled by a bad dream. Mercutio ends up getting a bit carried away and turns to recounting the legend of Queen Mab <a href=\"#_edn10\" id=\"_ednref10\">[10]<\/a> to Romeo and others present: this \u201cfairies\u2019 midwife\u201d (221, 1.4.52), says Mercutio, is insanely busy stirring up mortals\u2019 emotions. Most pointedly, \u201cshe gallops night by night \/ Through lovers\u2019 brains, and then they dream of love \u2026\u201d (222, 1.4.55, 68-69). But she also stuffs with fantasies the brains of courtiers, lawyers, parsons, and soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe substance of Mercutio\u2019s fanciful speech is that this midwife to fairies inspires all sorts of people to follow their own desires. By implication, we don\u2019t have a great deal of control over our emotions and desires, so Mab is another name for the imperious force of desire itself. <a href=\"#_edn11\" id=\"_ednref11\">[11]<\/a> Shakespeare didn\u2019t need Freud (or Nietzsche or Kierkegaard, for that matter) <a href=\"#_edn12\" id=\"_ednref12\">[12]<\/a> to give him the idea that our unconscious dimension <a href=\"#_edn13\" id=\"_ednref13\">[13]<\/a> has more to do with who we are, what we want, and how we behave than most of us are comfortable with.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAll of this wild talk abut Queen Mab is probably meant to deflate Romeo\u2019s dream, but the deeper significance of Mercutio\u2019s speech is to put everyone in the same condition as Romeo: a follower of idle dreams. At the end of the conversation, Romeo is in a mood. He fears that \u201cSome consequence yet hanging in the stars \/ Shall bitterly begin his fearful date \/ With this night\u2019s revels \u2026\u201d (223, 1.4.105-07). Perhaps the young man senses the immemorial connection between two extremes: love and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBenvolio\u2019s plan doesn\u2019t go quite as he had intended since Romeo, upon seeing Juliet, becomes just as smitten with her as he was with his former love: \u201cO,\u201d he exclaims, \u201cshe doth teach the torches to burn bright!\u201d (224, 1.4.155) The phrase is apt\u2014who hasn\u2019t felt that strange \u201csingling out\u201d effect that Romeo\u2019s words evoke, when we first meet someone to whom we are deeply attracted?<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut Romeo\u2019s newfound attraction can\u2019t undo sordid reality: while Montague and Capulet are willing to keep the peace, the younger generation is always spoiling for trouble. Romeo\u2019s forebodings are fulfilled when Tybalt conceives a hatred for him at the very moment he falls in love with Juliet. Tybalt\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ll not endure him\u201d (225, 1.4.187) earns only Uncle Capulet\u2019s annoyance, but it\u2019s no less intense for that, and it will prove disastrous.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe first meeting between Romeo and Juliet is a fine moment in Shakespeare\u2019s canon. Together the two speak an English sonnet (rhyming abab cdcd efef gg), with the ending \u201cgg\u201d couplet running, \u201c[Juliet:] Saints do not move, though grant for prayer\u2019s sake. \/ [Romeo:] Then move not while my prayer\u2019s effect I take\u201d (225-26, 1.4.216-17). Deftly encouraged by Juliet, our \u201cpilgrim\u201d Romeo takes the lead and kisses the heavenly lady. Juliet is as surely his destination as the pilgrim\u2019s sought-for shrine, while she herself, though passionate too, remains as poised as a votary statue throughout. <a href=\"#_edn14\" id=\"_ednref14\">[14]<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\nAt the end of the scene, Romeo and Juliet are dispossessed of any notion that there is a clear path forward for them or their love: Romeo realizes that Juliet is a Capulet, and she realizes that he belongs to the Montagues. He laments, \u201cOh, dear account! My life is in my foe\u2019s debt\u201d (226, 1.4.229), and she cries out, \u201cMy only love sprung from my only hate!\u201d (226, 1.4.249) What\u2019s to do, in such a predicament?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act2\">ACT 2<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 2.0, Chorus (227, the Chorus\u2019s English sonnet marks Romeo\u2019s transference of his love from Rosaline to Juliet.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Chorus to Act 2 marks the transference of Romeo\u2019s idealistic, unrequited passion for the fair Rosaline to a more reality-grounded love for Juliet, daughter of the Capulets, harborers of a violent grudge against his house. The obstacles (both in terms of the language of love and the space necessary for love to unfold) that this poses to romantic \u201caccess\u201d are easily, if not safely, overcome. Where Romeo and Juliet are concerned, \u201cpassion lends them power, time means, to meet, \/ Temp\u2019ring extremities with extreme sweet\u201d (227, 2.0.13-14).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 1 (227-32, Benvolio and Mercutio look for Romeo after he walks away from a conversation, but they don\u2019t find him; Mercutio jokes with Benvolio about Romeo\u2019s idealism; Romeo is desperately in love with Juliet, so he scales the Capulets\u2019 wall and enters the garden, where he idealizes Juliet as \u201cthe sun\u201d; Juliet, meanwhile, appears above outside her chamber, and muses about the power of words; Romeo overhears Juliet, and the two confess their love and plan a secret marriage.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRomeo, alone, makes a fateful decision to get closer to his beloved, and as soon as he runs off to scale the Capulets\u2019 wall, in come Mercutio and Benvolio. Mercutio jokes with Benvolio about the supposed otherworldliness of Romeo\u2019s affection, though he still believes his friend is in love with Rosaline. This experienced character stands for the view that any \u201cidealizing of eroticism\u201d <a href=\"#_edn15\" id=\"_ednref15\">[15]<\/a> is silly and probably disingenuous, since raw sexuality is always at the bottom of any romantic pose a lover may strike up.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMercutio calls to the absent Romeo, conjuring him like a crazed spirit, with a Rosaline-based invocation: \u201cBy her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh, \/ And the demesnes that there adjacent lie, \/ That in thy likeness thou appear to us!\u201d (228, 2.1.19-21) More explicit still is Mercutio\u2019s \u201cOh, that she were\u2014 \/ An open-arse, thou a popp\u2019rin\u2019 pear!\u201d (228, 2.1.37-38)<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhile Mercutio is energetic and open-hearted, he is not inclined to lie around in a chilly \u201cfield-bed\u201d (228, 2.1.40) to keep watch over Romeo\u2019s passions, so off he and Benvolio go. <\/p>\n\n\n\nMercutio\u2019s exit causes him to miss one of Romeo\u2019s most remarkable utterances. Romeo says, \u201cBut soft, what light through yonder window breaks? \/ It is the East, and Juliet is the sun\u201d (228, 2.1.44-45). Juliet, believing she\u2019s alone, poses her immortal question about Romeo\u2019s name: \u201cO Romeo, Romeo, wherefore <a href=\"#_edn16\" id=\"_ednref16\">[16]<\/a> art thou Romeo?\u201d followed not long after by \u201cThat which we call a rose \/ By any other word would smell as sweet\u201d (229, 2.1.75, 85-86).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat Juliet says is a graceful sentiment, but most readers will see the difficulty with it: names, and words generally, are saturated with history and significance that are beyond the control even of those (the speakers, for example) who claim an intimate relationship with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRomeo is a Montague, and he doesn\u2019t have much say about what that proper name means in Verona. A real-life Juliet would be right to say that what we call a rose ought <\/em>to smell as sweet as it would if it were called a \u201creeking Montague.\u201d Still, it might not get the same olfactory attention\u2014such is the power of words. They may be as determinative for our experience of the intellectual and passional world as aromas are for our senses. To put things bluntly, people seldom, if ever, judge by \u201cthe thing itself\u201d\u2014their perceptions are strongly shaped by language.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStill, while Romeo\u2019s romantic idealism is nearly absolute up to this point, Juliet\u2019s idealism, though strong, shows more regard for the narrow dynastic concerns that hem in the two lovers. In the lines quoted above concerning names and roses, Juliet captures the dilemma of lovers up to Shakespeare\u2019s time and beyond: love is a universal passion, and as such, it ought to generate community, but this same passion is hindered by a host of social demands and expectations, so it often creates rifts between individuals and the society within which they must live.<\/p>\n\n\n\nJuliet reveals her passion fully since at first she doesn\u2019t know Romeo is listening, which spares both of them the awkward task of dissembling, the need for which is clear from her self-reproach when she finally becomes aware that Romeo is near: \u201cI am too fond \u2026\u201d (230, 2.1.140).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen she and Romeo actually speak to each other, Juliet\u2019s language is tinged with realistic (if unfounded) concerns. She at once gets down to brass tacks, asking him, \u201cDost thou love me? I know thou wilt say \u2018Ay,\u2019 \/ And I will take thy word; yet, if thou swear\u2019st, \/ Thou mayst prove false\u201d (230, 2.1.132-34). In particular, she fears that his propensity to swear by the moon may indicate rashness rather than constancy (230, 2.1. 151), and she insists, \u201cI have no joy of this contract tonight. \/ It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden \u2026\u201d (231, 2.1.159-60).<\/p>\n\n\n\nStill, Juliet is steadfast in her eagerness to marry Romeo, whatever the obstacles. The language of falconry underscores her desire: \u201cOh, for a falconer\u2019s voice,\u201d she says, \u201cTo lure this tercel-gentle back again!\u201d (232, 2.1.203-04) <a href=\"#_edn17\" id=\"_ednref17\">[17]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThere is recognition in such language that desire is a wild thing, not something safe. We can find the same insight, though in a darker vein, in the poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt and other Tudor authors preceding Shakespeare. In \u201cWhoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind,\u201d Wyatt makes King Henry VIII\u2019s mistress Anne Boleyn describe herself as \u201cwild for to hold, though I seem tame.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn18\" id=\"_ednref18\">[18]<\/a> Romeo\u2019s plan seems civilized enough, though, since he plans a trip to see Friar Laurence: \u201cHence will I to my ghostly friar\u2019s close cell \/ His help to crave and my dear hap to tell\u201d (232, 2.1.230-31).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 2 (232-34, Friar Laurence gathers herbs and muses to himself about the properties of nature; sleepless Romeo comes to him and says that he has switched his love from Rosaline to Juliet of the House of Capulet; the Friar is surprised, but agrees to perform the secret wedding Romeo requests since he thinks it may help end the feuding in Verona.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nFriar Laurence\u2019s pronouncement near the beginning of this scene is instructive: on his way out early in the morning to pick some medicinable herbs, he says, \u201cVirtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, \/ And vice sometime by action dignified\u201d (233, 2.2.21-22). The Friar is collecting a basket with \u201cbaleful weeds and precious-juic\u00e8d flowers\u201d (233, 2.2.8), which may help or harm depending on the amount and the application.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLike the combined saving-and-killing flower that the Friar uses as a prime example (233, 2.2.23-26), the world presents both dangers and beneficial things, sometimes setting them so close together that great care is required in distinguishing and using them. Sometimes, too, as the play\u2019s action demonstrates, even the most well-intentioned effort still results in catastrophe. Laurence uses a pair of theological terms that should enlighten us. He mentions \u201cgrace\u201d and \u201crude will\u201d (233, 2.2.28), which we might take as references to the divine favor and good will that drives Providence, and selfishness or cupidity, <\/em><a href=\"#_edn19\" id=\"_ednref19\">[19]<\/a> respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFriar Laurence can\u2019t know it yet, but his soon-to-be-formulated plan\u2014one that is both perilously ambitious and obviously well-meaning\u2014to help two young lovers while healing Verona\u2019s city-wide familial rift will invite speculation about whether he \u201cgot it right.\u201d Will Laurence, in fact, be following the correct path, in spite of the terrible outcome? Or should we think of his actions as a major factor in the tragedy that Romeo and Juliet will suffer? <a href=\"#_edn20\" id=\"_ednref20\">[20]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nSurprised by Romeo\u2019s sudden transference of his attentions from Rosaline to Juliet, Friar Laurence nonetheless agrees to perform the secret marriage rite Romeo wants, in hopes of ending Verona\u2019s unrest. The Friar seems to think that the Montagues and Capulets will be charitable and reasonable once they understand that two of their own have chosen to marry. As he tells Romeo, \u201cthis alliance may so happy prove \/ To turn your households\u2019 rancor to pure love\u201d (234, 2.2.91-92). The Friar is a good man, but perhaps too na\u00efve to deserve as much faith in his practical acumen as Romeo and Juliet place in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 3 (234-39, Mercutio and Benvolio encounter a happy Romeo, and he bests Mercutio in an exchange of jests; the Nurse finds Romeo, but must first put up with Mercutio\u2019s bawdy teasing; Romeo entrusts to her a message addressed to Juliet; Juliet is to meet Romeo at Friar Laurence\u2019s quarters in the afternoon, where the two will be secretly married; Romeo also explains to the Nurse his plans to visit Juliet on their wedding night.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nMercutio and Benvolio discuss the news that Tybalt has issued a challenge to Romeo. The young member of the Capulet clan has sent \u201ca letter to his father\u2019s house\u201d (235, 2.3.7). Mercutio shows strong awareness of how silly the feuding amongst the two houses is. He takes on the persona of a grandsire to denounce dandified \u201cfashionmongers\u201d like Tybalt (235, 2.3.30). Mercutio is in on the hostilities, but he isn\u2019t entirely circumscribed or defined by them\u2014he seems more in tune with his own wit and imagination, and mocks the absurdly Euphuistic, honor-drenched language of dueling that he supposes Tybalt goes in for.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMercutio soon engages with Romeo in a battle of wits, and then takes bawdy aim at Juliet\u2019s nurse, who has come as the girl\u2019s emissary. When she says good morning, Mercutio says, \u201cthe bawdy hand of the \/ dial is now upon the prick of noon\u201d (237, 2.3.101-02).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Nurse is not amused, and belts out, \u201cNow, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about \/ me quivers. Scurvy knave!\u201d (238, 2.3.147-48) But she soon recovers and addresses Romeo, who promises her that he will arrive in time to spend the night with Juliet after they are married\u2014his servant will bring a rope ladder as a \u201cconvoy in the secret night\u201d (239, 2.3.174). The scene closes with some wordplay regarding the first letter of Romeo\u2019s name and the herb rosemary. The Nurse tells Romeo that Juliet has \u201cthe \/ prettiest sententious of it\u2014of youand rosemary\u2014\u201d (239, 2.3.192-93).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 4 (239-41, Juliet is on edge as she waits for the Nurse to return, and then becomes still more anxious when the Nurse can\u2019t seem to get to the point; finally, she passes along the substance of Romeo\u2019s marriage plan: Juliet must show up at Friar Laurence\u2019s cell later the same day.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn his lectures on Shakespeare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge implies that while the Nurse is eccentric, she is at the same time a universal type of the caring, elderly nurse. <a href=\"#_edn21\" id=\"_ednref21\">[21]<\/a> It\u2019s easy to see that quality in her: beset by the impatient Juliet, the Nurse holds her ground for a while, but finally gives the girl the information she wants: she is to go to Friar Laurence\u2019s cell to marry Romeo, says the Nurse, where \u201cThere stays a husband to make you a wife\u201d (241, 2.4.68).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Nurse\u2019s circumstances and pace are not the same as young Juliet\u2019s. As she says to Juliet, \u201cI am the drudge, and toil in your delight, \/ But you shall bear the burthen soon at night\u201d (241, 2.4.74-75). She is fond of Juliet almost to a fault, and certainly favorable to her pledge to Romeo, but always aware that the young girl is surrounded by a potentially hostile world of causes and effects, limitations and consequences. Pleasure and idealism are not free. <a href=\"#_edn22\" id=\"_ednref22\">[22]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 2, Scene 5 (241-42, Friar Laurence prepares Romeo and Juliet in his cell for their marriage ceremony, and they go with the Friar to take their marriage vows.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nFriar Laurence leads Romeo and Juliet off for the performance of the marriage ceremony. Romeo is in the mood for absolutes: the marriage once completed, he says, let \u201clove-devouring death do what he dare \u2026\u201d (241, 2.5.7). The Friar\u2019s advice to Romeo to \u201clove moderately\u201d (241, 2.5.14) is almost comically ineffectual, given his willingness to facilitate such a hasty, secret wedding. Even so, Laurence insists on maintaining the propriety of the affair: he tells the two, \u201cyou shall not stay alone \/ Till holy church incorporate two in one\u201d (242, 2.5.36-37).<\/p>\n\n\n\nClumsy as his management style can be, Friar Laurence is granted the occasional flash of deep insight, as in the lines, \u201cA lover may bestride the gossamers \/ That idles in the wanton summer air \/ And yet not fall, so light is vanity\u201d (241, 2.5.18-20). Laurence\u2019s utterances in this brief scene deliver some strain of what Wordsworth calls in his \u201cTintern Abbey\u201d ode \u201cthe still sad music of humanity\u201d\u2014in this case, we can hear Laurence\u2019s haunting sense of life\u2019s fragility, his fear that these youngsters in his care are playing out a cautionary tale as old as civilization itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act3\">ACT 3<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 1 (242-46, Mercutio and Benvolio jest about each other\u2019s taste for violence; Tybalt shows up on the same street and goads Romeo, who doesn\u2019t want any trouble; Mercutio takes up the quarrel and is fatally wounded when Romeo interrupts; Romeo challenges and kills Tybalt in revenge, then runs away; the Prince arrives and Lady Capulet insists that Romeo be sentenced to death, but the sentence announced is banishment from Verona.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe scene begins with Mercutio ribbing Benvolio about his readiness to involve himself in trouble: \u201cThy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat \u2026\u201d (242, 3.1.21). But soon events take a more serious turn, as if to mock the mockers who treat violence as matter for comedy. Tybalt is determined to fight some Montagues, and Romeo\u2019s attempt to play the role of proxy enforcer for the Prince leads him to get between Tybalt and Mercutio, which results in a mortal injury to the latter. Mercutio greets his fate with the bitter condemnation, \u201cA plague o\u2019 both houses! I am sped\u201d (244, 3.1.89). <a href=\"#_edn23\" id=\"_ednref23\">[23]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nRomeo is honor-bound to avenge his kinsman, and having duly slain Tybalt, he laments that he is now \u201cfortune\u2019s fool\u201d (245, 3.1.134). <a href=\"#_edn24\" id=\"_ednref24\">[24]<\/a> The Prince steps in and dispenses his characteristically tempered style of justice, banishing Romeo on pain of death and levying a fine on the House of Montague (246, 3.1.192-93). This decree is mild since, after all, Tybalt is the Prince\u2019s own kinsman, and Capulet\u2019s wife has demanded Romeo\u2019s execution (246, 3.1.174-75).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 2 (246-49, Juliet waits for Romeo to arrive, and envisions him patterned in the stars; the Nurse tells her that Tybalt has been slain and Romeo, his killer, banished; Juliet grieves for Tybalt and expresses anger at the absent Romeo, but then turns to grieving for the banishment of her newlywed husband; the Nurse confides to Juliet that Romeo is hiding with Friar Laurence, and says she will convey him to her tonight.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nJuliet is indulging herself in wonderful romantic idealism around the time of the deadly quarrel: her words share something with the traditional lover\u2019s complaint against the sun, but there\u2019s more to them than that. Juliet\u2019s words at this point are extraordinary: she welcomes the night, and imagines her own death, following it with the prayer for the absent Romeo, \u201cTake him and cut him out in little stars, \/ And he will make the face of heaven so fine \/ That all the world will be in love with night \/ And pay no worship to the garish sun\u201d (247, 3.2.22-25).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis passage seems to mark Juliet\u2019s rapid movement toward a fully sexual union with Romeo\u2014she embraces the night as a time of creativity, magic, and a time full of the magic of sex that all but blots out the memory of the brazen sun that stands in for the ordinary, everyday world she has known so far in her very short life. One thinks of, say, John Donne\u2019s fine poem, \u201cThe Sun Rising,\u201d with its bold declaration, \u201cShe\u2019s all states, and all princes, I, \/ Nothing else is.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn25\" id=\"_ednref25\">[25]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nBut Juliet\u2019s triumphant mood doesn\u2019t last long, as the Nurse soon brings her the bad news about Tybalt\u2019s death (over which Juliet is genuinely aggrieved since he was her kinsman) and Romeo\u2019s guilty flight, along with the bitter asseveration that men are \u201call perjured, \/ All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers\u201d (248, 3.2.86-87). Juliet\u2019s own understanding flows from a medieval sense for the grotesque: \u201cI\u2019ll to my wedding bed, \/ And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead\u201d (249, 3.2.136-37). <a href=\"#_edn26\" id=\"_ednref26\">[26]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the end, the Nurse provides hope, based on her knowledge that for the time being, Romeo is safe, hiding with Friar Laurence. She tells Juliet, \u201cHark ye, your Romeo will be here at night. \/ I\u2019ll to him; he is hid at Laurence\u2019 cell\u201d (249, 3.2.140-41).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 3 (249-53, Friar Laurence tells Romeo that the Prince has sentenced him to banishment; Romeo despairs at the Nurse\u2019s report of Juliet\u2019s distress, and offers to stab himself; Friar Laurence reproaches Romeo\u2019s wild grief and advises him to stay with Juliet for one night only, and then go into exile in Mantua; the Friar says time will be needed to make everything right in Verona, and then Romeo will be able to return happier than ever; meanwhile, Balthasar will keep Romeo informed of the goings-on in Verona.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nBanished Romeo has taken refuge with Friar Laurence, and is unable to imagine a \u201cworld without Verona walls\u201d (250, 3.3.17). When the Friar tries to show him the bright side of the whole affair, Romeo complains with some justice, \u201cThou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel\u201d (251, 3.3.65). Romeo\u2019s willingness to kill himself if it will assuage Juliet\u2019s grief over Tybalt shows the depth of affection that the Friar, as a holy man, supposedly lacks: \u201ctell me, \/ In what vile part of this anatomy \/ Doth my name lodge?\u201d (252, 3.3.105-07) asks Romeo, offering to excise that part with his own knife.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFriar Laurence rebukes the young man\u2019s \u201cwild acts\u201d (252, 3.3.109) and tells him he must soon make his way to Mantua.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 4 (253-54, Paris visits the Capulet patriarch again about his proposal to Juliet; Capulet promises that Juliet will obey his will, and that the wedding will take place sooner than first proposed, now in three days.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCapulet tells his wife that Juliet should be married to the impatient Paris on Thursday rather than on the Monday date he has requested (254, 3.4.19-21). While father Capulet labors to sound humane and reasonable in tendering his \u201cdesperate\u201d promise to Paris, his reassuring words to the young man\u2014\u201cI think she will be ruled \/ In all respects by me \u2026\u201d (253, 3.4.13-14)\u2014sound very much like an offer that Juliet <\/em>can\u2019t refuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 3, Scene 5 (254-59, Romeo and Juliet spend their wedding night together in her bedroom at the Capulet mansion; Lady Capulet brings her the news that she is soon to be married to Count Paris, courtesy of her father; Juliet firmly rejects this arranged union, and Capulet is furious with her for such disobedience, even threatening to disown her; the Nurse tries to counsel Juliet, but upsets her by urging her to forget Romeo and marry Paris; Juliet determines to go back to Friar Laurence and seek help.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the fifth scene, Romeo and Juliet spend their first night together in the Capulet stronghold, and engage in a variation of the traditional \u201cdawn song\u201d <a href=\"#_edn27\" id=\"_ednref27\">[27]<\/a> of European troubadour lineage: Juliet begins the dialogue, \u201cWilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day\u201d (254, 3.5.1), but she is also the partner who finally admits that the day is upon them: \u201cO, now be gone! More light and light it grows\u201d (255, 3.5.35). Juliet is filled with dread, and tells Romeo, \u201cMethinks I see thee, now thou art so low, \/ As one dead in the bottom of a tomb \u2026\u201d (255, 3.5.55-56).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen Lady Capulet professes her desire to poison Romeo in Mantua (256, 3.5.87-92), Juliet pretends to share the wish, but she can\u2019t bring herself to feign joy in the prospect of marrying Count Paris, to whom her father has decided she should be wed \u201cearly next Thursday\u201d (256, 3.5.112). Capulet\u2019s rebuke of Juliet for her refusal is immediate and harsh: either she will marry Paris or he will disown her. He has gone from an apparently loving and humane parent to the traditional senex iratus <\/em>(angry elder) of Classical comedy. <a href=\"#_edn28\" id=\"_ednref28\">[28]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nMore than that, however, Capulet is plain baffled by his ordinarily obedient daughter\u2019s obstinacy, and laments, \u201cstill my care hath been \/ To have her matched \u2026\u201d (258, 3.5.178-79). In his view\u2014and he isn\u2019t entirely off the mark, at least in a formal sense\u2014he is only doing what any caring, diligent father would do for a beloved daughter (and for his own dynastic wellbeing) in the Medieval Era on down to Shakespeare\u2019s time.<\/p>\n\n\n\nJuliet is the Capulets\u2019 only child, and in her stubbornness, the father of the household sees his hopes of vicarious immortality frustrated. When the Nurse gets hold of Juliet and professes that it would be best to give in to father Capulet\u2019s wishes and marry Paris, Juliet swears as soon as the old woman is gone that she will have nothing more to do with her: \u201cThou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain\u201d (259, 3.5.241). Off Juliet goes to be advised by Friar Laurence, having instructed the Nurse to say she has gone to make her confession with Friar Laurence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act4\">ACT 4<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 1 (259-62, Paris is conferring with Friar Laurence about his upcoming wedding to Juliet when she arrives; Juliet tells Friar Laurence she will kill herself if he can\u2019t put a stop to this wedding; Laurence outlines a desperate plan that calls for Juliet to drink a potion whose symptoms mimic death, and be carried to the Capulet vault, where Romeo will be waiting to take her away to Mantua.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nCount Paris is as eager to seal his match with Juliet as Capulet is, so he goes to Friar Laurence to make arrangements, and there he courts Juliet with amorous words, but he gets nothing from her but a false acceptance of the seemingly inevitable wedding this Thursday. As soon as Paris takes his leave, Juliet threatens to stab herself in Laurence\u2019s presence\u2014unless, that is, he can come up with some better plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\nFriar Laurence sees that Juliet\u2019s situation is desperate, and her extreme language and gesture of suicide gives him the idea for an equally desperate remedy: Juliet will go home, pretend to agree to the match with Paris, and take an almost magical drug that will induce death-like symptoms lasting for exactly forty-two hours. Then Romeo, having been informed about the Friar\u2019s plan, will travel from Mantua to the tomb of the Capulets and take his freshly awakened Juliet with him back to Mantua (261-62, 4.1.89-118).<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat Juliet threatens is a common thing in literature: cheating the Grim Reaper, or at least attempting to negotiate a better deal with him. Film buffs may recall Ingmar Bergman\u2019s The Seventh Seal, <\/em>in which a medieval man plays a game of chess with Death in hopes of gaining more earthly time. <a href=\"#_edn29\" id=\"_ednref29\">[29]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Friar, for a holy man, has a flair for quick-thinking deception, and is able to put his earlier sententia <\/em><a href=\"#_edn30\" id=\"_ednref30\">[30]<\/a> about virtue and vice to good use: he had said, \u201cVirtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, \/ And vice sometime by action dignified\u201d (233, 2.2.21-22). Strangely, Juliet\u2019s promises of how far she would be willing to go to escape her marriage with Paris anticipate <\/em>the Friar\u2019s very plan, right down to the Gothic trappings: \u201chide me nightly in a charnel house, \/ O\u2019ercovered quite with dead men\u2019s rattling bones \u2026\u201d (261, 4.1.81-82), she tells Laurence, and she will go along with all of it, no matter how terrifying the prospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn strict terms, Friar Laurence is helping two young people to marry without their parents\u2019 permission, and much that he is doing amounts to a species of dishonesty. In spite of that, it\u2019s impossible not <\/em>to side with him and the youngsters whose interests he means to advance. His real opponent, to be fair, is simply a harsh and unfair set of people and circumstances. He does not act with any expectation of gain or for any corrupt purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 2 (262-63, Juliet makes a false show of submission to Capulet\u2019s will; excited, Capulet moves up the wedding yet another day, to tomorrow, and busily gives orders for the joyous event.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nJuliet executes her pretended agreement to marry Paris, even though, as she had said in Act 4, Scene 1, she would rather do almost anything else but that. Now, she smoothly tells her father, \u201cI have learnt me to repent the sin \/ Of disobedient opposition \/ To you and your behests \u2026\u201d (262, 4.2.17-19). Her father is overjoyed to hear of this supposed reformation, and all is set.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 3 (263-64, Juliet bids goodnight to Lady Capulet and the Nurse, and\u2014frightened but courageous\u2014drinks the contents of the vial that the Friar gave her.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nJuliet rehearses her anxieties about the plan\u2019s call for her to feign death. The main question she poses is a good one: \u201cHow, if when I am laid into the tomb, \/ I wake before the time that Romeo \/ Come to redeem me?\u201d (264, 4.3.30-32) Such fears are the stuff of Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s Gothic fiction, for which many of Shakespeare\u2019s macabre passages no doubt provided inspiration. <a href=\"#_edn31\" id=\"_ednref31\">[31]<\/a> Indeed, what if, as she conjectures fearfully, she goes mad while fully awake in the Capulet vault, and does herself in?<\/p>\n\n\n\nHer fears notwithstanding, Juliet shows remarkable courage and does not shrink from swallowing her potion, even when she conjures the angry ghost of Tybalt \u201cSeeking out Romeo that did spit his body \/ Upon a rapier\u2019s point\u201d (264, 4.3.56-57).<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 4 (264-68, Capulet and Lady Capulet, along with the Nurse, spend the night preparing for the wedding day; Capulet hears Paris approaching with his hired musicians, and tells the Nurse to wake Juliet; the Nurse discovers Juliet seemingly dead, and brings the terrible news to the Capulet parents; they and Paris grieve for Juliet\u2019s apparent death; Friar Laurence arrives and starts making Juliet\u2019s funeral arrangements; the musicians and Capulet\u2019s servant Peter, to whom a wedding is just another gig, are alone free from the moment\u2019s tragic mood, and spend their time bantering.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 4, Scene 4 leaps from joy to despair in a heartbeat, a characteristic pattern in this play and a common way of treating death in medieval texts especially. The Capulet parents suffer (or rather think they suffer) an irretrievable loss of the sort all parents fear. There is a strong medieval quality to the grotesque imagery here: old Capulet says to Paris, \u201c\u2014O son, the night before thy wedding-day \/ Hath Death lain with thy wife\u201d (266, 4.4.62-63).<a href=\"#_edn32\" id=\"_ednref32\">[32]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nEverything is transformed now that Juliet is supposedly dead: gone is any prospect of the harsh, impatient words spoken by Capulet and Lady Capulet. Juliet shines forth as the great joy of their existence. She is, or was, the \u201cone thing to rejoice and solace in \u2026\u201d (266, 4.4.74), says Lady Capulet, and now death has taken her suddenly. <a href=\"#_edn33\" id=\"_ednref33\">[33]<\/a> Capulet captures the mood when he says, \u201cAll things that we ordain\u00e8d festival \/ Turn from their office to black funeral\u201d (267, 4.4.111-12). <a href=\"#_edn34\" id=\"_ednref34\">[34]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe scene ends with a comic exchange between some musicians sent along by Paris (265, 4.4.20-22). Together, they introduce a devil-may-care, self-interested attitude into the midst of unspeakable woe. These musicians have little to do with the goings-on of great houses. They are working-class stiffs, and they seek their own security and comfort. The Second Musician speaks for them all when he says, \u201cCome, we\u2019ll in here, tarry \/ for the mourners, and stay dinner\u201d (268, 4.4.164-65). The scene doesn\u2019t reach the synthesized profundity and silliness of the gravedigger scene in Hamlet, <\/em>but it offers a limiting perspective on the unfolding tragedy in the Capulet household. <a href=\"#_edn35\" id=\"_ednref35\">[35]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"act5\">ACT 5<\/h3>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 1 (268-70, Romeo\u2019s servant Balthasar comes to Mantua and tells Romeo that Juliet is dead, and he sends Balthasar to get some horses for their trip to Verona; Romeo, thinking Juliet really is dead, determines to lie in death by her side; wishing only to join Juliet in the Capulets\u2019 vault, Romeo buys poison from a poor apothecary, who protests but must comply with the request.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nRomeo hears from Balthasar that Juliet\u2019s body lies in the tomb of the Capulets (268-69, 5.1.17-23), and, to borrow a phrase from Hamlet, he determines \u201cwith wings \/ As swift as meditation or the thoughts of love\u201d <a href=\"#_edn36\" id=\"_ednref36\">[36]<\/a> to purchase a dram of deadly stuff from a poor apothecary, and die next to Juliet. The Apothecary becomes a low-born casualty of this noble tragedy, protesting, \u201cMy poverty, but not my will, consents\u201d (270, 5.1.75). The transaction completed, Romeo is ready to set out for the Capulet tomb in which Juliet sleeps.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 2 (270-71, Friar John enters Friar Laurence\u2019s cell in Verona to return the letter that he was tasked with delivering to Romeo in Mantua; he says he was prevented from making the trip due to others\u2019 suspicions that he might have the plague; Friar Laurence heads for the tomb so he can be there to tend to Juliet when she wakes up from her drug-induced sleep.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nFriar Laurence learns to his discomfiture that Friar John was detained by townsmen concerned about the plague, so he wasn\u2019t able to deliver his friend\u2019s letter to Romeo in Mantua (270, 5.2.5-12, 14-16). The irony of this circumstance is palpable: Verona\u2019s larger tragedy\u2014the plague that killed droves of people during the Middle Ages\u2014is also driving the smaller domestic one that is the subject of this play. In part at least, Romeo and Juliet\u2019s tragedy comes down to this undelivered letter. Even so, Laurence still has a plan\u2014he will go to the Capulet vault and remove Juliet to his own cell until Romeo makes it back to Verona.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAct 5, Scene 3 (271-77, Paris arrives at the Capulets\u2019 tomb and, seeing Romeo about to open the vault, challenges him; Romeo kills Paris, enters the tomb, verbally confronts Death, and drinks poison, his last act being to kiss the seemingly dead Juliet; Friar Laurence arrives, and Juliet wakes up to find Romeo dead; a noise scares Laurence from the tomb; alone, Juliet stabs herself with Romeo\u2019s dagger; the watchmen discover Paris, Romeo, and Juliet dead; the Prince arrives with the Capulets and Montagues, and Laurence and Balthasar tell what they know; the Prince declares that both houses are justly punished; Capulet and Montague finally end their feud.)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nAs misfortune would have it, a grieving Paris has come to the Capulets\u2019 tomb to do his obsequies to his intended bride. The Count stations his page nearby to listen for any sound that might indicate approaching danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDanger is, in fact, nearby\u2014Romeo gives final instructions, a letter for his father, and some money to Balthasar, threatening him with death should he return to spy on his master. All the same, Balthasar mistrusts Romeo\u2019s state of mind, and hides at a distance in case his help should be needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRomeo intends to enter the vault, but before he can do so, he encounters the hapless Paris, who is convinced that this young man is responsible not only for the death of his kinsman Tybalt but also for the untimely end of Juliet, who, he imagines, died from the shock and grief of that loss. The two draw their weapons, and Romeo kills Paris, only learning the young Count\u2019s identity afterward, to his sorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut there is no time to grieve for Paris. Romeo now boldly confronts death and all its accoutrements. Addressing the tomb itself as \u201cThou detestable maw, thou womb of death, \/ Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,\u201d he defies its power: \u201cThus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, \/ And, in despite, I\u2019ll cram thee with more food\u201d (272, 5.3.45-48). <a href=\"#_edn37\" id=\"_ednref37\">[37]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nRomeo then enters the tomb to have one last look at Juliet\u2019s body. The \u201censign\u201d of her beauty, the color, is still visible in her face (273, 5.3.94), but the aggrieved Romeo is able to process this fact only in a romantic or idealistic way, so surrounded are he and Juliet by the architecture and trappings of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis mode of perceiving dooms him along with his bride: \u201cHere, here will I remain \/ With worms that are thy chambermaids\u201d (273, 5.3.108-09; see 85-120), he addresses the seemingly dead Juliet, and promptly swallows the Apothecary\u2019s poison. He has chosen death over a lifetime of lamenting Juliet\u2019s loss. His last words are, \u201cThus, with a kiss, I die\u201d (273, 5.3.120).<\/p>\n\n\n\nHalf an hour later, Friar Laurence manages to come near the tomb, having stumbled over the stones along the way through the cemetery. Balthasar soon presents himself to the Friar and explains that he has accompanied his master Romeo here to the cemetery. Laurence moves close to the vault and discovers Paris slain and the bloody swords next to him. He has just barely entered the tomb, it seems, when Juliet awakes. All she needs to know is, \u201cWhere is my Romeo?\u201d (274, 5.3.150)<\/p>\n\n\n\nLaurence is almost at once set into a fright over the noise of the approaching watchmen, and tries to call Juliet out of the tomb. His reluctance to stay within the inner recesses of the tomb marks him, we might say, as something other than the savior-figure he would like to be for Juliet. As the verse from Matthew<\/em> 26:41 goes, \u201cthe spirit indeed is ready, but the flesh is weak.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn38\" id=\"_ednref38\">[38]<\/a> At the last moment, it seems, Laurence shies away from the prospect of danger and death, crying out, \u201cI dare no longer stay\u201d (274, 5.3.159).<\/p>\n\n\n\nJuliet is now alone. The conventional fate that Friar Laurence had imagined for her\u2014delivery to \u201ca sisterhood of holy nuns\u201d (274, 5.3.157)\u2014is in any case not for her. She kisses Romeo\u2019s poison-tinged lips, then embraces his dagger and dies bravely: \u201cThis is thy sheath; there rust and let me die\u201d (274, 5.3.170). In stage productions, Juliet often falls directly onto Romeo\u2019s body.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAt the tragedy\u2019s end, Friar Laurence (along with Balthasar) is called to give an account of what has happened, and is forgiven his less than wise or heroic interventions (276-77, 5.3.229-69). As the Prologue promised, the \u201cstrife\u201d of the Montagues and Capulets is \u201cburied\u201d by the death of their beloved son and daughter. These families that have dealt in hatred, says the Prince, are justly punished: \u201cheaven finds means to kill your joys with love\u201d (277, 5.3.292). Lady Montague, her husband informs us, has departed this life, overcome with the grief of Romeo\u2019s exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Prince does not exempt himself from guilt in this sad state of affairs, declaring, \u201cI, for winking at your discords, too \/ Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished\u201d (277, 5.3.294-95). Ignoring chaos leads to disastrous results, in Verona or anywhere else. Love has brought the warring houses together, but the price is the death of what they held most dear. As for Romeo and Juliet, we can console ourselves by opining with Lord Byron\u2019s narrator in Don Juan, <\/em>\u201c\u2018Whom the gods love die young\u2019 was said of yore. \/ And many deaths do they escape by this.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn39\" id=\"_ednref39\">[39]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nBoth family patriarchs vow to build golden statues\u2014Montague will offer his old rivals a precious image of Juliet, and Capulet will commission an equally fine statue of Romeo. That gesture, small comfort for the newly reconciled houses (and the audience) though it must remain, ends the \u201ctwo hours\u2019 traffic\u201d of Shakespeare\u2019s stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\nEdition.<\/strong>\u00a0Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors.\u00a0The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies + Digital Edition.<\/em>\u00a03rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93860-9.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2012, revised 2025 Alfred J. Drake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nDocument Timestamp: 8\/8\/2025 6:45 PM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"endnotes\">ENDNOTES<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref1\" id=\"_edn1\">[1]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 288-343. See 293, 1.2.140-41.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref2\" id=\"_edn2\">[2]<\/a> See Jonathan Bate, Soul of the Age<\/em>, pg. 7. <\/em>New York: Random House, 2009. ISBN-13: 978-0812971817.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref3\" id=\"_edn3\">[3]<\/a> The phrase \u201cfortune\u2019s fool\u201d invokes the traditional understanding of how \u201cLady Fortune\u201d deals with humankind. Fortuneis the medieval equivalent of the Greek goddess Tyche, <\/em>chance. An excellent early medieval treatment is that of Boethius in The Consolation of Philosophy. <\/em>See Book II, Ch. 2, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/14328\/14328-h\/14328-h.htm#Page_47\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fortune\u2019s Malice<\/a>.\u201d Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 9\/1\/2024. See also <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rota_Fortunae#\/media\/File:Fortune_wheel_(15c.,_French).jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this image of Fortune\u2019s Wheel<\/a> from a French translation of Boccaccio\u2019s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium. <\/em>Wikipedia. Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref4\" id=\"_edn4\">[4]<\/a> The Latin phrase de casibus <\/em>comes from a collection of stories by Giovanni Boccaccio, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitale-sammlungen.de\/en\/view\/bsb11302945?page=,1\">De Casibus Virorum Illustrium<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>\u201cConcerning the falls\/accidents of illustrious men.\u201d A Latin manuscript copy is available to view from the German-based repository <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitale-sammlungen.de\/en\/view\/bsb11302945?page=,1\">MDZ<\/a>. An early English translation is John Lydgate\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.hathitrust.org\/Record\/001639320\">The Fall of Princes<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>HathiTrust. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref5\" id=\"_edn5\">[5]<\/a> Duke Vincentio is guilty of a certain laxness in Measure for Measure. <\/em>See Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 901-59.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref6\" id=\"_edn6\">[6]<\/a> With regard to Euphues and Euphuism, see Lyly, John. <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/catalog.hathitrust.org\/Record\/001375974\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Euphues<\/em><\/a>. The Anatomy of Wit<\/u><\/em> (HathiTrust) and <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/quod.lib.umich.edu\/e\/eebo\/A06607.0001.001?view=toc\">Euphues and His England<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/strong>EEBO\/U-Mich. Accessed 12\/29\/2024. Euphuism was a very elaborate and witty style of prose that flourished for a time in the 1580s. See Britannica\u2019s entry, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/art\/euphuism\">Euphuism<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref7\" id=\"_edn7\">[7]<\/a> On Petrarch and the Petrarchan sonnet, see <a href=\"https:\/\/poemanalysis.com\/poetic-form\/petrarchan-sonnet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/poemanalysis.com\/poetic-form\/petrarchan-sonnet\/<\/a>. Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref8\" id=\"_edn8\">[8]<\/a> It was common for upper-class households to have a nurse for their children\u2014the nurse, not the mother, would breastfeed the child. See Dr. Julia Martins, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/juliamartins.co.uk\/motherhood-and-wet-nurses-breastfeeding-in-early-modern-times\">Motherhood and Wet Nurses: Breastfeeding in Early Modern Times<\/a>.\u201d Living History. (Note: contains semi-nude paintings in academic context.) Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref9\" id=\"_edn9\">[9]<\/a> See \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/sebreilly.com\/folklore\/lammas-eve\/\">Lammas Eve<\/a>.\u201d Lammas eve (August 1) is called \u201cLoaf Mass\u201d in Anglo-Saxon, and it was one of the holidays associated with harvest-time. Seb Reilly. Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref10\" id=\"_edn10\">[10]<\/a> On Queen Mab, see \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shakespeare-online.com\/plays\/romeoandjuliet\/romeoqueenmab.html\">Romeo and Juliet: <\/em>Queen Mab<\/a>.\u201d Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref11\" id=\"_edn11\">[11]<\/a> A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream <\/em>is another play in which the actions of \u201cfaeries\u201d drives the actions of desperate lovers, though in that comic play, as Robin Goodfellow puts it rather generically, \u201cJack shall have Jill, \/ Naught shall go ill, \/ the man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well\u201d (438, 3.3.461-63). See Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream.<\/em> Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 406-53.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref12\" id=\"_edn12\">[12]<\/a> On Nietzsche, see Gary Borjesson\u2019s Jan. 2024 article, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/garyborjesson.substack.com\/p\/the-ways-of-the-unconscious-nietzsches\">The Ways of the Unconscious: Nietzsche\u2019s Influence on Freud<\/a>.\u201d How We Help blog. On Kierkegaard, see \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/academyofideas.com\/2020\/10\/soren-kierkegaard-value-of-despair\/\">Kierkegaard and the Value of Despair<\/a>.\u201d Academy of Ideas. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref13\" id=\"_edn13\">[13]<\/a> The Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold\u2019s phrase \u201cthe buried life\u201d seems apt. See his poem \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/43585\/the-buried-life\">The Buried Life<\/a>.\u201d Poetry Foundation. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref14\" id=\"_edn14\">[14]<\/a> In his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/25585\/pg25585-images.html#toc53\">Notes and Lectures<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> Coleridgewrites with regard to the present play, \u201cShakespeare meant the Romeo and Juliet<\/em> to approach to a poem, which, and indeed its early date, may be also inferred from the multitude of rhyming couplets throughout.\u201d Gutenberg e-text, pg. 147. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref15\" id=\"_edn15\">[15]<\/a> The phrase \u201cidealizing eroticism\u201d refers to the common tendency to spiritualize what might otherwise be a frankly sexual desire, relationship, or act. It underlies, for example, the romantic dimension of medieval chivalry and Troubadour poetry, including the Petrarchan love poetry tradition (Petrarch\u2019s beloved, Laura), Dante\u2019s Beatrice, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref16\" id=\"_edn16\">[16]<\/a> \u201cWherefore,\u201d as the Norton editors indicate, means \u201cwhy\u201d in this context: \u201cWhy does Romeo have to be called Romeo?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref17\" id=\"_edn17\">[17]<\/a> On falconry, a good starting point is \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/internetshakespeare.uvic.ca\/Library\/SLT\/society\/husbandry\/hawking.html\">Falconry and Hawking<\/a>\u201d in Internet Shakespeare Editions. U. of Victoria, Canada. Accessed 9\/1\/2024. See also George Turberville’s 1611 <a href=\"https:\/\/quod.lib.umich.edu\/e\/eebo\/A14017.0001.001?view=toc\">Book of Falconry<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref18\" id=\"_edn18\">[18]<\/a> See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/45593\/whoso-list-to-hunt-i-know-where-is-an-hind\">\u201dWhoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind<\/a>.\u201d Sir Thomas Wyatt. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref19\" id=\"_edn19\">[19]<\/a> The theological binary terms would be caritas<\/em> (generosity of spirit, mainly\u2014in Augustine, love for God through his creatures; charity) and cupiditas <\/em>(Augustine defines this as selfishness or selfish desire; we can also define it as covetousness or stinginess in both a spiritual and material sense). <\/em>See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/fathers\/130109.htm#:~:text=Chapter%208.&text=%5BConceived%5D%20therefore%2C%20either%20by,them%2C%20in%20an%20incorporeal%20embrace.\">On the Trinity, <\/em>Book 9, Ch. 8<\/a>. New Advent. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref20\" id=\"_edn20\">[20]<\/a> In Shakespeare\u2019s main source text, the Friar is not punished, but he voluntarily banishes himself. Arthur Brooke\u2019s text runs, \u201c[O]f himself he went into an hermitage, \/ Two miles from Verone town, where he in prayers passed forth \/ Till that from earth to heaven his heavenly sprite did fly, \/ Five years he lived an hermit and an hermit did he die.\u201d Brooke, Arthur. <a href=\"https:\/\/babel.hathitrust.org\/cgi\/pt?id=mdp.39015021558047&seq=197\">Romeus and Juliet, <\/em>lines 3000-04<\/a>. HathiTrust. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref21\" id=\"_edn21\">[21]<\/a> Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/cache\/epub\/25585\/pg25585-images.html#toc53\">Romeo and Juliet<\/a>\u201d in Notes and Lectures. <\/em>Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref22\" id=\"_edn22\">[22]<\/a> The sentiment seems common in Shakespeare that, as Feste the Clown warns the Duke in Twelfth Night, <\/em>\u201cpleasure will be paid one time or \/ another\u201d (764, 2.4.68-69). Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, or What You Will.<\/em> In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. 743-97.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref23\" id=\"_edn23\">[23]<\/a> Plague is on the march in Verona, so it\u2019s no airy matter when Mercutio refers to it. See Jonathan Bate, Soul of the Age<\/em>, pg. 7. <\/em>New York: Random House, 2009. ISBN-13: 978-0812971817.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref24\" id=\"_edn24\">[24]<\/a> The expression \u201cfortune\u2019s fool\u201d mentioned in an earlier note captures the ultimate relationship between Dame Fortune and even the most exalted of mortals. In the end, the idea goes, everyone is betrayed by Donna Fortuna,<\/em> and Romeo, despite his youth, is no exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref25\" id=\"_edn25\">[25]<\/a> See John Donne\u2019s poem \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/44129\/the-sun-rising\">The Sun Rising<\/a>.\u201d Poetry Foundation. Accessed 12\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref26\" id=\"_edn26\">[26]<\/a> The memento mori<\/em> tradition was very powerful during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. See the DailyStoic.com\u2019s article on this tradition, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/history-of-memento-mori\/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMemento%20Mori%2C%E2%80%9D%20or%20translated,architecture%2C%20and%20more%20throughout%20history.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">History of Memento Mori.<\/a>\u201d Accessed 6\/10\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref27\" id=\"_edn27\">[27]<\/a> These dawn songs were called aubades <\/em>in French, and a variant on the ideas were the albas <\/em>of Occitan poetic tradition. See \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/education\/glossary\/aubade\">Aubade<\/a>\u201d at Poetry Foundation and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/poets.org\/glossary\/aubade#:~:text=The%20aubade%20is%20a%20dawn,concerning%20the%20parting%20of%20lovers.&text=The%20earliest%20European%20examples%20of,the%20Spanish%20alba%2C%20meaning%20sunrise.\">Aubade<\/a>\u201d at poets.org, Academy of American Poets. Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref28\" id=\"_edn28\">[28]<\/a> The senex iratus<\/em> is one of several stock characters in Greek and Roman comedy; his role is generally to impose obstacles and make a fool of himself. The miles gloriosus <\/em>or braggart soldier is another such foolish character\u2014his vanity and ego get him into trouble every time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref29\" id=\"_edn29\">[29]<\/a> On Ingmar Bergman\u2019s 1957 film, see \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0050976\/\">The Seventh Seal<\/a>.\u201d IMDB. Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref30\" id=\"_edn30\">[30]<\/a> Sententia,<\/em> pl. sententiae,<\/em> are pithy sayings and summations, often taken from an ancient or otherwise respected source. Polonius\u2019s advice to Laertes in Hamlet, <\/em>\u201cNeither a borrower nor a lender be \u2026\u201d is one example. See Wikipedia\u2019s article <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sententia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sententia<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>Accessed 7\/29\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref31\" id=\"_edn31\">[31]<\/a> Shakespeare\u2019s work bristles with proto-Gothic language and sensibility: Macbeth\u2019s <\/em>\u201cWeird Sisters\u201d and their strange prophecies, for example; Hamlet\u2019s <\/em>\u201cgraveyard scene\u201d with the Prince of Denmark meditating on the skull of a man, Yorick the Jester, whom he knew and loved; the grotesque scenes and descriptions of Richard III, <\/em>and the gruesome, macabre ways of invoking Death in Romeo and Juliet.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref32\" id=\"_edn32\">[32]<\/a> Such language captures the medieval sense of life\u2019s brevity. Moreover, as mentioned in a note above, the term \u201cproto-Gothic\u201d seems appropriate as a description of such language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref33\" id=\"_edn33\">[33]<\/a> See Pearl, <\/em>by the Gawain Poet. The Gawain Poet: Complete Works: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Cleanness, Pearl, Saint Erkenwald. <\/em>Trans. Marjorie Borroff. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011. ISBN-13: 978-0393912357. The speaker in Pearl <\/em>has lost his infant daughter, and in middle English original, he laments her as \u201cmy precious perle wythouten spot\u201d (line 48). <a href=\"https:\/\/metseditions.org\/read\/K5G1AdlHlp5Bf5VluGwXLFPbwdR87bY\">Pearl<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>Ed. Sarah Stanbury. Mets: Middle English Texts Series. Accessed 12\/30\/2024. This poem, along with Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy, <\/em>is among the best Medieval texts for illustrating the era\u2019s emphasis on the gap between human understanding and divine or spiritual understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref34\" id=\"_edn34\">[34]<\/a> The term \u201coffice\u201d bears more gravity than our usage of the word today. It refers to more a fundamental way of determining a person\u2019s identity and value during the Middle Ages. In, say, Chaucer, to ask what a person\u2019s \u201coffice\u201d is would be to ask who that person really is. People were largely defined by the set of duties to which they were bound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref35\" id=\"_edn35\">[35]<\/a> The attitude of artists and craftspeople towards their often profound subject matter may surprise some of us: Andrew Stewart reminds us that J. S. Bach \u201cfamously complained to his friend Erdmann of the good health of Leipzig\u2019s citizens in relation to his so-called Accidentien or funeral fees \u2026.\u201d In other words, if part of your income comes from writing funeral music, the rate of deaths per capita may take on a different meaning. See \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bachnetwork.org\/ub1\/stewart.pdf\">Big Boys Don\u2019t Cry? Attitudes towards Death in Bach<\/a>.\u201d Bach Network. Accessed 9\/1\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref36\" id=\"_edn36\">[36]<\/a> Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. <\/em>Second Quarto with additions from the Folio. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies,<\/em> 3rd ed. Combined text 358-447. See 375, 1.5.29-30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref37\" id=\"_edn37\">[37]<\/a> The memento mori<\/em> tradition was very powerful during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. See the Dailystoic.com\u2019s article on this tradition, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/history-of-memento-mori\/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMemento%20Mori%2C%E2%80%9D%20or%20translated,architecture%2C%20and%20more%20throughout%20history.\">History of Memento Mori.<\/a>\u201d Accessed 9\/01\/2024. Throughout this play, death-imagery has underlain the graceful words and actions of the young hero and heroine like the grotesque underside of a medieval decorative panel or casket. The play itself, we might argue, functions in its entirety as an extended memento mori.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref38\" id=\"_edn38\">[38]<\/a> See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew%2026%3A41&version=GNV\">Matthew 26:41<\/a>, 1599 Geneva Bible. Biblegateway.com. Accessed 12\/30\/2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<a href=\"#_ednref39\" id=\"_edn39\">[39]<\/a> Lord Byron. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/files\/21700\/21700-h\/21700-h.htm\">Don Juan<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Canto 4.12. Gutenberg e-text. Accessed 9\/1\/2024. The stanza begins, \u201c\u2018Whom the gods love die young,\u2019 was said of yore, \/ And many deaths do they escape by this: \/ The death of friends, and that which slays even more\u2014 \/ The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is, \/ Except mere breath \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet Commentary A. J. Drake, Ph.D. Shakespeare, William. The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Second Quarto. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"iawp_total_views":20,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[264,258,36,263,257,265,183,217,260,253,261,259,256,262],"wf_page_folders":[11],"class_list":["post-227","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-tragic-plays","tag-all-the-world-will-be-in-love-with-night","tag-dynastic-rivalry-in-shakespeare","tag-elizabethan-drama","tag-juliet-is-the-sun","tag-mercutio","tag-queen-mab","tag-romantic-love","tag-romantic-love-in-shakespeare","tag-romeo-and-juliet","tag-shakespeares-tragedies","tag-thus-with-a-kiss-i-die","tag-tragedy-of-fate","tag-verona","tag-wherefore-art-thou-romeo"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"ajd_shxpr","author_link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/author\/ajd_shxpr\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet Commentary A. J. Drake, Ph.D. Shakespeare, William. The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Second Quarto. 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{"id":227,"date":"2024-04-13T21:51:06","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T04:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/?page_id=227"},"modified":"2025-08-08T21:54:46","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T04:54:46","slug":"romeo-and-juliet-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ajdrake.com\/shakespeare\/romeo-and-juliet-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Romeo and Juliet"},"content":{"rendered":"