Language of Romeo and Juliet #
Shakespeare is renowned for the poetic imagery of his language and for the word pictures he creates. His reputation is well founded because while he was writing English was not the dominant language – it was Latin. Shakespeare culminated what Chaucer had begun; to make English a respectable language for expressing complex, personal and imaginative ideas.
There is only one reason why Shakespeare’s plays are still alive and read 400 years after they were written; his mastery of clear, powerful visual language. As we have seen most of his plots are not original, but it is his ability to revitalise old stories and histories, shape them into compelling dramas with syncopated plots and revitalise them with resonant forceful language that still appeals to us today.
It is interesting to note that in most transformations or adaptations to contemporary productions, directors may update everything except Shakespeare’s Language. Al Pacino admits that it is the appeal of Shakespeare’s language that convinced him to attempt to attract more people to his plays.
Some outstanding features of Shakespeare’s Language are:
- His powerful imagery which allows us to visualise his scenes without props or concrete backdrops.
- The use of nuances, the power of suggestion, implied meanings.
- His varied vocabulary, including the fact that he coined many new words and hundreds of new sayings that have become part of our argot.
- The lyricism of his verse and sometimes even his prose has a lightness and resonance or lingering effect on us.
- The wide range of his allusions to classical, religious and historical icons, stories and people.
- The play on words; he likes to use puns, oxymorons, s-xual innuendo, assonance, alliteration, ambiguity and any other tactics to engage and entertain his audiences.
Shakespeare was fascinated by language. He couldn’t resist playing with words, rhythms and styles. He loved to invent words, and to give existing words new meanings by fresh uses and unexpected twists.
Shakespeare’s language is still very much in use, but we just don’t notice it because it’s so familiar it appears clichéd. Here are just some expressions coined by Shakespeare in Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet.
Many people quote these to send them up or as a spoof.
star-crossed lovers
if love be blind
on a wild goose chase
we were born to die
on pain of death
as gentle as a lamb
the weakest go to the wall
go like lightning
a plague on both your houses
what must be, shall be
where the devil?
what’s in a name?
as true as steel
cock-a-hoop past help
parting is such sweet sorrow
above compare
light of heart
in a fool’s paradise
I will not budge
where have you been gadding?
let me alone
fortune’s fool
a rose by any other word would smell as sweet
stiff and stark
Shakespeare gives expression to moments of strong emotion in the play.
ACT I
PROLOGUE #
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
This is a spoiler alert. Shakespeare’s tale does not depend on suspense, as he tells us what is going to happen, rather on how he dramatises and expresses the conflicts he is about to demonstrate. We can sit back and enjoy the present, rather than anticipate the future.
Feuds #
The establishment of a strong centralized political authority generally results in the suppression of blood feuds.
Act 1, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet is deceptively important. On the surface, it looks like a conversation about marriage arrangements and a guest list, but Shakespeare uses it to advance themes of love, fate, and coincidence.
Act 1, Scene 2
CAPULET
But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.
Capulet reminds Paris that both he and Montague are under the Prince’s decree: they will face the same penalty if they disturb the peace again.
He appeals to age — as older men, they should have the maturity to avoid fighting.
Irony: Though Capulet calls for peace here, his temper later contributes to tragedy.
PARIS
Of honourable reckoning are you both; And pity ’tis you lived at odds so long.
Paris flatters Capulet, calling both families “honourable.”
He gently laments their feud — this presents Paris as courteous and diplomatic, a stark contrast to fiery Romeo and hot-tempered Tybalt.
CAPULET
But saying o’er what I have said before:
My child is yet a stranger in the world;
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride,
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
Capulet repeats what he’s told Paris before: Juliet is too young. She’s not yet 14, and he wants to wait two years before marriage. Are they afraid of using the number 13?
Imagery of ripening fruit underscores Juliet’s immaturity — she’s compared to something not ready for picking.
PARIS
Younger than she are happy mothers made.
Paris argues: many girls younger than Juliet are already mothers.
This shows a Renaissance reality: noblewomen often married young.
It also introduces the theme of haste: Paris presses for early marriage, paralleling Romeo and Juliet’s own rushed romance.
CAPULET
And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
The earth hath swallow’d all my hopes but she;
She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part;
An she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
Capulet counters Paris: girls married too young are “marred” (damaged) by it — both physically and emotionally.
“The earth hath swallow’d all my hopes but she”:
a poignant line revealing that all Capulet’s other children have died; Juliet is his only surviving heir.
He seems tender here: Paris must win Juliet’s heart. Capulet claims he will not force her, though later he violently insists she marry Paris — an important change in his character.
CAPULET
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love; and you, among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house; hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be:
Which on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none,
Come, go with me.
Capulet shifts the conversation: tonight is his feast (the masquerade).
He uses rich imagery: the young women are “earth-treading stars” — heavenly beauty brought to earth.
He tells Paris to look at all the maidens and choose the one he likes best. Juliet will be just “one among many.”
Irony: this advice opens the door for Romeo and Juliet’s meeting. Capulet, by encouraging Paris to woo Juliet, unknowingly sets up her love with another man.
Act I Scene 3 #
This is the first scene where Juliet herself appears. It takes place in the Capulet household, with Lady Capulet, the Nurse, and Juliet. It is largely about the idea of Juliet’s marriage to Paris, and it introduces us to Juliet’s age, her relationship with her mother and Nurse, and her initial (somewhat indifferent) feelings toward marriage.
Act 1, Scene 3 (Capulet’s House)
[Enter LADY CAPULET and Nurse]
Stage direction: Lady Capulet has called for Juliet, and the Nurse attends as usual. This already signals that Juliet’s upbringing has been shaped less by her mother and more by her nurse — a common situation among noble households.
Lady Capulet:
Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.
Lady Capulet relies on the Nurse to summon Juliet — showing how little direct authority or closeness she has with her daughter. Even the first call to Juliet goes through the Nurse.
Nurse:
Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
I bade her come. What, lamb! What, ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!
The Nurse’s earthy oath (“by my maidenhead, at twelve year old”) is humorous — her maidenhood was lost long ago, and she swears on the memory of it.
She calls Juliet with affectionate pet names (“lamb,” “ladybird”), revealing her deep maternal bond with Juliet.
Her exclamation “God forbid!” is comic — perhaps she stumbles or worries Juliet hasn’t heard.
[Enter JULIET]
Juliet:
How now, who calls?
Juliet enters politely, asking who wants her. This shows her obedience and courtesy.
Nurse:
Your mother.
Juliet:
Madam, I am here.
What is your will?
Juliet addresses her mother with formality — “Madam.” This distance contrasts with her warmth toward the Nurse.
“What is your will?” shows both respect and a lack of initiative — she waits for her mother’s direction.
Lady Capulet:
This is the matter:—Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret.—Nurse, come back again; I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel. Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.
Lady Capulet awkwardly tries to dismiss the Nurse for privacy, then immediately calls her back, feeling she cannot manage Juliet alone.
This highlights her discomfort with intimacy and her dependence on the Nurse.
She begins the subject: Juliet’s “pretty age” — old enough for marriage.
Nurse:
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
The Nurse boasts of her intimate knowledge, underscoring her closeness with Juliet. She’s almost comic in her eagerness.
Lady Capulet:
She’s not fourteen.
Nurse:
I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
The Nurse jokes about her missing teeth — a moment of coarse humor.
She is exact in remembering Juliet’s age and connects it to the calendar (Lammas-tide, August 1).
Lady Capulet:
A fortnight and odd days.
Nurse:
Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen. Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls!— Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God; She was too good for me. But, as I said, On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen; That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
The Nurse recalls her own dead daughter, Susan, who was Juliet’s age. This deepens our sense of why she clings so maternally to Juliet.
Her chatter is repetitive and digressive, but it shows her warmth, grief, and tendency to ramble.
Nurse:
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years; And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it,— Of all the days of the year, upon that day…
The Nurse launches into a long, comic anecdote about Juliet’s infancy, linking it to an earthquake (likely the 1580 quake in England, which audiences would recall).
This makes Juliet’s age exact and dramatizes the Nurse’s earthy memory of Juliet’s upbringing.
[The Nurse’s long speech continues with memories of weaning Juliet, her falling down, and her father’s crude joke about her bumping her head and someday “falling backward” as women do in sex. Juliet laughed at this as a child, and the Nurse recalls it fondly.]
This earthy, bawdy memory shows the Nurse’s low-class humor and her role as Juliet’s real parent figure.
Juliet’s embarrassment here shows her modesty and contrast with the Nurse’s coarse joking.
Lady Capulet (cutting off the Nurse):
Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
Lady Capulet is irritated — showing again that she doesn’t share the Nurse’s warm, comic style.
Nurse:
Yes, madam; yet I cannot choose but laugh,
To think it should leave crying, and say ‘Ay.’
And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
A bump as big as a young cock’rel’s stone;
A perilous knock; and it cried bitterly.
‘Yea,’ quoth my husband, ‘fall’st upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted and said ‘Ay.’
And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.
The Nurse cannot resist continuing the anecdote, dragging in bawdy humor again.
Juliet’s first word “Ay” becomes an omen for her marriage and sexual “falling.” The humor contrasts with Juliet’s innocence.
Lady Capulet (again trying to regain control):
Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace.
A second time she must stop the Nurse, who dominates the conversation.
Lady Capulet (to Juliet):
Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers. By my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.
She pivots to the main subject: Juliet’s marriage to Paris.
She compares Juliet to others who are already married, and recalls that she herself was a mother at Juliet’s age.
“Valiant Paris” is described in noble, attractive terms.
Nurse:
A man, young lady! lady, such a man
As all the world—why, he’s a man of wax.
The Nurse praises Paris with comic enthusiasm. “Man of wax” means like a perfect wax figure — handsome, flawless.
Themes in Act 1, Scene 3
Parental distance vs. intimacy: Lady Capulet is formal, distant, and practical; the Nurse is affectionate, bawdy, and deeply attached. Juliet is caught between them.
Marriage as duty: For Lady Capulet, marriage is about status and timing. For Juliet, it is an abstract duty she is not yet eager for.
Comedy and foreboding: The Nurse’s bawdy jokes foreshadow Juliet’s sexual awakening. The “fall backward” anecdote and the “book” imagery set up Juliet’s transition from innocence to experience.
Juliet’s character: She is obedient, modest, and thoughtful. Her reserved words contrast strongly with the passion she will soon feel for Romeo.
Friar Laurence #
Act 2
Act 2, Scene 3 of Romeo and Juliet, is often called the “Friar Laurence and the flowers” scene.
This is an important transitional moment in the play: it bridges Romeo’s rash, passionate turn from Rosaline to Juliet, and sets in motion the ill-fated plan that will dominate the rest of the story.
Overview of the Scene
The flowers scene opens early in the morning, with Friar Laurence alone, gathering herbs and speaking a soliloquy about the powers of plants—how they can heal or harm, depending on how they are used.
This speech serves as both a meditation on nature and a symbolic commentary on human behavior. Shortly after, Romeo enters, and they talk: Romeo confesses his love for Juliet and asks the friar to marry them.
Friar Laurence is initially shocked at Romeo’s sudden change of heart, but eventually agrees, in the hope that their union will reconcile the feud between the Montagues and Capulets.
Line-by-Line and Thematic Analysis
Friar Laurence’s Soliloquy
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light…
Friar Laurence’s opening lines set the stage at dawn. The imagery of the “smiling morning” driving away the “frowning night” reflects themes of light versus darkness and hope versus conflict.
Shakespeare consistently uses these contrasts—Romeo and Juliet’s love is a bright flame against the dark feud.
The friar then shifts into a meditation on herbs and plants:
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power…
This passage highlights the duality of nature: everything contains the potential for both good and evil.
This is a key motif throughout the play. Just as plants can heal or kill, so too can human passions—love can uplift or destroy.
Importantly, this foreshadows how Juliet’s sleeping potion will be both a tool for preservation and a cause of disaster.
Romeo’s Entrance
Romeo arrives, and the friar teases him for being up so early:
Young son, it argues a distempered head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.
The friar assumes Romeo has been troubled by sleeplessness—or worse, that he’s been out all night in sin.
Romeo’s reply, that he has been “feasting with mine enemy,” is ambiguous: it hints at his time with Juliet, a Capulet.
Romeo’s Confession
Romeo quickly declares that he no longer loves Rosaline and is now passionately devoted to Juliet:
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.
This shocks Friar Laurence. His response is one of Shakespeare’s sharpest critiques of Romeo’s impulsiveness:
Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken?
Friar Laurence essentially calls Romeo fickle.
Yesterday he was sighing over Rosaline, writing sonnets about her chastity; today, he’s ready to marry Juliet.
This exchange highlights Romeo’s youthful impetuosity, one of the play’s central tragic flaws.
Friar Laurence’s Caution
Friar Laurence warns Romeo about rushing into love:
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
This line is prophetic. Romeo and Juliet’s entire romance is one of haste—the decision to marry within a day of meeting, the hurried plan with the potion, the rash suicides. Shakespeare uses Friar Laurence as the voice of reason, but ironically, the friar himself will become complicit in enabling their speed.
Agreement to Marry
Despite his reservations, Friar Laurence agrees to marry them:
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.
The friar hopes that the marriage will reconcile the feuding families. This is a noble intention, but it is also dangerously idealistic. He underestimates the depth of the feud and overestimates the power of young love to bring peace.
In this, Friar Laurence becomes a well-meaning but flawed figure: his intervention aims at peace but leads instead to tragedy.
Speeches #
The Prince uses strong imperious, authoritative language in rebuking the two families engaged in a feud to attempt to control events: The Prince appears to speak with well earned, legitimate and unquestioned authority.
I am so bold as to assert that it is the most authoritative speech in Shakespeare’s plays, but willing to be called wrong.
PRINCE
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,–
Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground,
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
This speech imbues unquestioned authority. Unapologetically threatening, firm, decisive and resolute. He does not mince his words demonstrating an uncompromising stance that will not brook defiance.
It is worth noting that though powerful, the speech fails to curb the violence between the feuding families. Actions are more powerful than words.
Shakespeare is also the most intellectual of playful fantasists and the most playfully fantastic of intellectuals.
The Queen Mab speech by MERCUTIO illustrates medieval fascination with the powers of the supernatural. She has obviously visited Romeo in his dreams providing him with sexual fantasies.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams;
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail,
Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscados, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she,—
Mercutio is one of the most memorable and complex characters in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. A kinsman to Prince Escalus and a close friend to Romeo, Mercutio plays a pivotal role in the first half of the tragedy. His wit, cynicism, and flamboyant personality offer comic relief but also deepen the play’s themes of fate, love, and violence.
The playfulness of the language provides comic relief. Though a hag, she teaches young maidens how to carry the weight of men to become women of good carriage – standing.
The dreams occur in the dark, stem from the unconscious, are inconstant, full of sexual innuendo - grubs, - worms of love which ultimately destroy us.
Critics often interpret this speech as evidence of Mercutio’s imaginative energy and underlying bitterness. Harold Bloom argues that Mercutio is Shakespeare’s
“most inventive comic character” up to that point in his career, whose verbal virtuosity momentarily threatens to overshadow Romeo himself (Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1998).
Mercutio acts as a foil to Romeo. While Romeo idealizes love and is prone to melancholy, Mercutio mocks romantic notions, favoring bawdy humor and physicality:
“If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down” (I.iv.27–28)
This earthy realism contrasts with Romeo’s poetic seriousness. Scholar Marjorie Garber notes that Mercutio helps to expose the performative, even artificial, aspects of courtly love that Romeo embraces (Shakespeare After All, 2004).
Mercutio’s death marks the play’s pivot from comedy to tragedy.
In Act III, Scene I, he becomes embroiled in the feud between the Montagues and Capulets. When Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt, Mercutio takes up the challenge himself and is fatally wounded. His curse—
“A plague o’ both your houses!"—is both literal and prophetic.
Critics see Mercutio’s death as a symbol of chaos unleashed. As Northrop Frye writes, Mercutio represents a world of order and satirical balance, and his death marks the end of that harmony (Northrop Frye on Shakespeare, 1986).
His departure signals a descent into irreversible conflict.
Though he is often beloved for his humor, Mercutio is also a source of instability. His impulsiveness and aggressive pride contribute to the violence. Some critics, like Jan Kott, view Mercutio as a more dangerous figure—a man whose personal honor and mockery make him a wildcard in a play already seething with tension (Shakespeare Our Contemporary, 1964).
Mercutio is both a scene-stealer and a structural keystone in Romeo and Juliet. His vivid personality brings life to the play’s early acts, while his death precipitates its tragic conclusion. As a character, he balances comedy and darkness, offering one of Shakespeare’s most vibrant examples of a “tragicomic” figure whose complexity helps elevate the emotional and philosophical stakes of the drama.
Allusions #
Figure of speech referencing a place, person, or something that happened. This can be real or imaginary and may refer to anything, including paintings, opera, folk lore, mythical figures, or religious manuscripts. The reference can be direct or may be inferred, and can broaden the reader’s understanding.
Because allusions make reference to something other than what is directly being discussed, you may miss an allusion or fail to understand it if you do not know the underlying biblical story, literary tale or other reference point.
Allusions allow the writer to give an example or get a point across without going into a lengthy discourse. Allusions engage the reader and will often help the reader remember the message or theme of the passage. Allusions are contingent on the reader knowing about the story or event that is referenced. Fortunately, today it is easy to look these things up so when someone references something you do not understand, you can easily turn to the Internet to learn enough to grasp the allusion for yourself.
Allusions create the impression that a personal issue has historical comparison; the microcosm is reflected by the macrocosm. It is not a singular problem, but a general one; of universal and historical significance.
Hero and Leander - tragic couple who die due to their love.
Tristan and Isolde - another fated couple who perish
Echo - cursed by Hera, Echo could only call after her lovers, - including Narcissus .
There are also many allusions to biblical references.
The Pun #
It is undeniable that the British are fond of puns. It is usual to sneer at the pun as the lowest form of wit. But the pun may contain a very high form of wit, and may please either for its cleverness, or for its amusing quality, or for the combination of the two.
Naturally, the really excellent pun has always been in favor with the wits of all countries. Johnson’s saying,
“that a man who would make a pun would pick a pocket, is not to be taken too seriously.”
It is recorded that when Napier captured Scinde, he notified the government at home of this victory by sending a dispatch of one word:
“Peccavi” (Latin for “I have sinned”).
The pun is of the sort that may be appreciated intellectually for its cleverness, while not calculated to cause laughter.
Puns combined with antithesis:
Hie/high, hurry to/ exalted
colliers/choler/collar – coal miners/anger/around your neck.
“Ask for me tomorrow and you will find me a grave man.” Mercutio
The effect of this pun lifts some of the black humour from the situation making is more palatable to us.
Romeo on the way to the Capulet feast:
“Being but heavy, I will carry the light”
Romeo demonstrates that he is capable of ridiculing himself.
At the end they are finally resigned
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse. (IV. v. 86 -90)
The old families are finally beginning to recognise the error of their ways.
Antithesis #
used to indicate internal conflict - ambivalence. Elsewhere linked opposites (oxymorons) are used to convey the clash of opposing emotions:
parting is such sweet sorrow.. (ll.ii)
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical
Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb (III.ii)
JULIET
My only love sprung from my only hate!*
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.
Juliet’s initial response to Tybalt’s death:
If he be slain, say ‘I’; or if not, no:
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
Oxymorons: #
(incongruent words side by side – loving hate, /bitter, sweet)
Consistent with the clash of opposites is the use of oxymorons that reveal inner turmoil and confusion especially in youth. This is evidenced in Romeo’s first travail over the unattainable Rosaline.
ROMEO
Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
……
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire,
sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Find up to twelve oxymorons in the above passage.
Juliet’s response when she hears that Romeo was the cause of Tybalt’s death is full of oxymorons, reflecting the conflict in her heart. She feels deceived and betrayed by Romeo and yet struggles to overcome the negative effects in her heart due to his actions.
JULIET
What storm is this that blows so contrary?*
Is Romeo slaughter’d, and is Tybalt dead?
JULIET
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!*
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In moral paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
Find at least seven oxymorons in the above
But as soon as the nurse criticises Romeo, Juliet springs to his defence.
JULIET
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! he was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d;’
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
Nurse
Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?
Juliet struggles with her conflicted loyalties as she comes to terms with Romeo’s killing of her cousin Tybalt.
JULIET
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband:
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband:
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
The power of Love #
At least three kinds of love are dramatised.
- For Rosalind Platonic,
- Juliet - Romantic and
- for the lower orders - bawdy and carnal as indicated in the Vugar lust in the dialogue of the servants and Benvolio and Mercutio.
General: #
*The I defy fortune – Romeo
- Inauspicious stars
To Apothecary: Gold – more poisonous to men’s souls.
Dateless bargain to unsavoury death.
Prince
Scourge on your hate
Pure sacrifice of your enmity
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished,
ROMEO
JULIET appears above at a window
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
This is verse, and verbal dexterity of this sort was expected of the dramatist: it was a convention of courtly love.