Romeo and Juliet
Act 3; Scene 1
Another hot, hot summer day in Verona, Italy. While Romeo and Juliet are getting married, Benvolio and Mercutio are walking down the street with Mercutio teasing and joking with Benvolio. It is about 1:30 in the afternoon.
Mercutio accuses Benvolio of everything that he, Mercutio, is the most guilty of.
Vocabulary:
Tavern: bar or saloon
Drawer: the bar keeper who draws the beer
Pun: Benvolio draws his sword on the drawer (the bar keeper who draws the beer)
“Hot a jack in thy mood as any in Italy”: jack is any fool. Romeo is saying Benvolio is hot tempered and quick to anger. Do you think that’s really true or is Mercutio actually joking about himself?
Moved: to be moved with emotion
Moody: emotional
Most of the jokes show how quickly Benvolio (actually Mercutio) can become angry over very unimportant things.
Quarrel: to argue
Thy head hath been addled: You have been beaten so many times your head is scrambled like eggs.
Foreshadowing:
“Any man should buy the fee simple of my for an hour and a half.
Benvolio says that insurance on Mercutio’s life should only be for an hour and a half.
Consort: a lesser member in a relationship.
Insults of a sexual or musical punning nature ensue between Mercutio and Tybalt.
The dialogue is composed mostly of dueling puns and references.
Benvolio, the peace keeper, knows where this is going - to no good - and remembering the Prince's edict, says, "We talk here in the public haunt of men: / Either withdraw unto some private place, / And reason coldly of your grievances, / Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us." He is urging Mercutio and Tybalt to leave the public street and go in private to discuss their issues with each other.
Romeo arrives and Tybalt replies, “Here comes my man.” A well born man refers to his servant as his man. Tybalt is calling Romeo his servant at which Mercutio takes great offense.
Remember: Tybalt has challenged Romeo to a duel.
Tybalt immediately begins the attack, calling Romeo a "villain!" However, from where did Romeo just leave? The church where he just married Juliet!
When Romeo says to Tybalt, "Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee / Doth much excuse the appertaining rage / To such a greeting..." And when Romeo further says, ""I do protest, I never injured thee, / But love thee better than thou canst device; / Till thou shalt know the reason of my love..."Mercutio becomes incensed (enraged) over Romeo's weak, mealy-mouthed, wimpy response to Tybalt's direct challenge.
Mercutio will have none of this and begins to insult Tybalt ("...you rat-catcher..." and "Good king of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives...." Remember, the name of Tybalt was also the name of a cat in a well-known fable at the time.
Both men draw their swords and begin to fight, with Romeo begging and reasoning with them to put their swords away. The two boys ignore him and continue to slash and feint and perry, until Romeo steps between them, blocking Mercutio from defending himself and giving Tybalt a perfect opening - a bull's-eye - under Romeo's arm to stab Mercutio fatally. Tybalt, realizing he hit Mercutio, immediately flees the scene.
Mercutio reveals he's been hurt, and angry at the ignominy of being cut and not getting in a jab of equal measure to Tybalt, he curses both houses - that of the Montagues and the Capulets. It is thought that the curse of a dying man holds great power, that the gods hear those curses more than others, and Mercutio curses the house of both Romeo and Juliet - not just once, but four times.
But Mercutio jokes around so much - even when he's dying - that at first, all of his friends at the scene think he's joking.
Romeo tries to comfort Mercutio and perhaps appease his own role in this tragic turn of events, "Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much."
Mercutio, even at the time of death, jokes, "No tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a / Church door; but 'tis enough, twill serve; ask for / me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man, I / am peppered, I warrant, for this world."
And then he curses him again: "A plague o' both your houses!" And then Mercutio laments the stupidity of how he was fatally wounded,
Romeo, shocked and overwhelmed with grief, blames his love for Juliet for making him soft and weak (effeminate).
Romeo's mood turns black and he again utters the words that his future will end in deep sorrow: "This day's black fate on more days doth depend; / This but begins the woe, others must end."
Perhaps he doesn't want to be seen as a coward, but inexplicably, Tybalt comes running back with sword unsheathed. Romeo challenges him to a duel to the death and in a dangerously suicidal state warns, "...Mercutio's soul / Is but a little way above our heads, / Staying for thine to keep him company; / Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him."
They begin to fight, and fueled by adrenaline and hate and grief, Romeo kills Tybalt, which shocks him into a stunned, immobile silence when he realizes he has just taken a life. Benvolio must scream at him to jolt him back to the desperate reality of the situation - people are filling the streets and soon, the police and the Prince will be here.
Benvolio, "Stand not amazed: the prince will doom the death, / If thou art taken/ hence, be gone, away!"
Romeo screams in anguish, "O, I am fortune's fool!" Again, revealing that his life is not his own but rather dark, cynical, uncaring forces - fate, the stars - are controlling his actions to insure a catastrophic future. Romeo then flees.
The people spill out on the streets in a state of confusion. Soon, the Capulets and the Prince arrive to make the grim discovery of the bodies of Mercutio, the Prince's kinsman, and Tybalt, the nephew of Lord Capulet. The Prince turns to Benvolio for an explanation, which he supplies, softening it a bit to make Romeo look less guilty, but Lady Capulet isn't buying it, "He is a kinsman to the Montague; / Affection makes him false; he speaks not true...." Lady Capulet then demands Romeo's life,"I beg for justice...Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live."
Benvolio reasons with the Prince that Mercutio was killed by Tybalt who was then killed by Romeo and that the "fault should end with the life of Tybalt."
The Prince agrees with Benvolio's logic and decides that rather than to execute Romeo, that "And for that offense / Immediately we do exile him hence...." He has lost a kinsman, "I have an interest in your hate's proceeding, / My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding."
Vocabulary:
Brawl: a street fight
His kinsman is Mercutio.
Vocabulary:
Amerce: punishment
He will punish all the participants in this fight so severely that they will feel the sting as keenly as he does over the death of his cousin. "But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine / That you shall all repent the loss of mine...."
The Prince decrees that they will allow Romeo to leave Verona immediately but if he is found in Verona, then that hour will be his last and he will be killed.
The Prince concludes with, "Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill...." which means that being too merciful, too lenient with the murderer, pardons those who kill.
Act 3; Scene 2
Personification: giving human characteristics to inanimate objects.
(mnemonic device: tricks to help you memorize or to remember something)
Allusion: an historic reference to the bible, Greek or Roman mythology, or to another piece of literature or an event in history.
Alliteration: repetition of a consonant, usually in the beginning of two or more words.
Find personification, allusion, metaphor
Juliet’s soliloquy: a soliloquy is when a person stands alone on stage and speaks what he or she is thinking or feeling.
Examples of Allusion in Juliet's soliloquy:
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steed,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging! Such a wagoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Fiery: means on fire; someone with a hot personality
Phoebus was the Greek sun god who drove his chariot pulled by beautiful fiery steeds (horses) through the sky. The Greeks believed that at sunset he stabled his horses in the west where they rested during the night. Phaethon was his teenage son who stole the chariot for a “joy ride”. The horses, knowing the strange hands on the reins were young and inexperienced, took the bit and ran out of control, dragging Phaethon to his death.
Personification:
Spread thy close curtain, thy love-performing night,
That runaway eyes doth blink (refers to Phoebus’s horses)
Leap to these arms untalked of and unseen (reference to her virginity)
Amorous: means having to do with love
Rites: rituals or activities
Personification
Or if love be blind:
Personification
Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron all in black, (a matron is an older married woman)
And learn me how to lose a winning match (this is a paradox and ironic)
Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods - both hers and Romeo’s virginity.
Cover my unmated blood, which is fluttering in my cheeks (she is blushing)
A matron is a married lady. In many countries, married women dressed in black.
Sober is solemn, serious. Suited means to wear; the dark, sober clothes the married women are wearing.
Pay no worship to the garish sun (personification)
Garish: brightly colored; harshly, brightly colorful,
Come thou day in night (Juliet is saying Romeo is like the daylight in night, which is a metaphor, a paradox and ironic)
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night (metaphor, hyperbole and imagery)
Give me my Romeo and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars…. imagery, foreshadowing)
Imagery, Personification, Hyperbole
And he will make the face of heaven so fine (the face of heaven: personification)
That all the world will be in love with night. (imagery, hyperbole)
O, I have bought the mansion of a love, (Marina: metaphor; the mansion refers to her marriage which is not yet consummated. In other words, she has bought the house but has not moved in yet.)
But not possessed it, and though I am sold, - metaphor
Not yet enjoyed…..
The nurse enters Juliet’s bedroom in a state of shock, confusion, anger, fright and grief.
When the nurse says “He’s dead!” Juliet thinks the Nurse is talking about Romeo.
Juliet’s speech, lines 42 and 51, are examples of puns.
“Ay” which means yes, sounds like “eye” and “I”. If the answer is yes, then “I” (Juliet) will be no more; the death darting eye of the cockatrice continues the assonance sound of the “aye”, “I” and “eye”.
The cockatrice was a mythological creature which killed with the look of its eye.
Weal: state of well being
The nurse is so overwrought that it takes her quite a while to tell her that Tybalt is dead and that Romeo was the one who killed him.
Juliet is torn with conflicting emotion and expresses her ambivalence (ambi = two; ambivalence means two conflicting feelings about something or someone) by using oxymorons to describe her feelings towards Romeo: “Serpent heart”, “Beautiful tyrant!” “Fiend angelical!" Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave!"
Juliet asks the question that Shakespeare asks in so many of his plays: “When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend / In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?” Why would such wickedness be clothed in such beauty?
The Nurse is so overwhelmed with emotion that she asks for her “aqua vitae” – or brandy!
But notice that as soon as the Nurse begins to criticize Romeo (“Shame come to Romeo!”) how quickly Juliet turns on her: “Blistered by thy tongue / For such a wish! He was not born to shame. / Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit…”
("Shame is ashamed to sit" would be personification.)
Ambivalent: (prefix: ambi: both/two) mixed feelings
Juliet is expressing her ambivalent feelings about her new husband by using oxymorons: Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave!
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face…..
Dichotomy: one thing that has two conflicting qualities.
(The prefix “di” lets you know that it means “two” or has a split. Diverge: means to split)
Pages 855 - 857; lines 97 – 127: Read and try to decipher what Juliet is saying. What conclusion does Juliet arrive at?
Find the hyperbole used by Juliet to express how her intense feelings about Romeo’s banishment, and the death of Tybalt.
But unlike Romeo, Juliet quickly figures out that if he hadn’t killed Tybalt, Tybalt would have killed him. “My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain; / And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.”
The following are examples of both metaphor, personification, imagery and foreshadowing:
Juliet takes the rope ladder (the cords) and says to it, “Poor ropes, you are beguiled (fooled), Both you and I, for Romeo is exiled. He made you for a highway to my bed; / But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.” (Maiden-widowed is ironic - a maid is a virgin and a widow is a married woman whose husband has died. Although, technically a widow can be a virgin, it is highly unusual and unexpected. This is also an example of dramatic irony and - spoiler alert! - foreshadowing.)
“I’ll to my wedding bed; / And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!” The references to death are of course, foreshadowing. And in a moment filled with irony, Juliet does not realize how true her statement is - "And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!"
Rail: to rant, to scream about;
Carrion: dead road kill
Carrion flies: flies that buzz around road kill.
Romeo does not know the Prince's edit - that he is to be banished from Verona - until the Friar tells him. Instead of being grateful for the reprieve Romeo cries that "Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven is here (meaning Juliet is here, and therefore Verona is heaven), and every cat and dog /And little mouse, every unworthy thing, / Live here in heave and may look on her; / But Romeo may not...."
The Friar, taken aback by Romeo's outburst, tries to "get a word in edgewise" in the middle of this emotional diluge. He soothes Romeo by saying, "I'll give thee armor to keep off that word (banishment): / Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, / To comfort thee, though thou art banished." But Romeo wants none of this, and rather petulantly and like billions of teenagers down through the ages, tells the Friar he couldn't possibly understand what he's going through:
"Thou can't not speak of that thou dost not feel:
Weret thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting (crazy in love) like me and like me banished,
Then mightiest thou speak, then mightiest thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground, as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave." (Dramatic irony and spoiler-alert! foreshadowing)
Suddenly, there is a knock at the door! But it is the Nurse who is there to seek help from the Friar. Romeo, still being overwrought with emotion, draws a sword to impale himself but the Nurse quickly disarms him. This shows how out of control Romeo is, for to kill oneself is a mortal sin, but to kill oneself in front of a priest and in the Church compounds the sin.
The Friar’s Speech:
Romeo
Lines 109 – 111: the Friar is saying that Romeo needs to get himself together; although he "seems" like a man, his "unseemly behavior" - crying - makes him "seem" like a woman.
Did you not kill Tybalt? Would you slay (kill) yourself and also kill your wife who lives in your love by committing the unforgivable sin against yourself - suicide?
Why do you rail (rant) against your birth (life, family), Heaven (God/Fate) and Earth (Society) when all three had a hand in creating you, which you would destroy all at once with suicide?
You shame your body (shape), your love and your intelligence (wit) which like a rich person you are blessed in great quantity ("Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all") but you do not use your gifts in the way they should be used ("And uses none in that true use indeed / Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit").
You only appear like a man ("Thy noble shape is but a form of wax, / Digressing from the valor of a man;") but your behavior digresses (splits) from how a man should behave.
The love you swore to Juliet was a hollow perjury.
Vocabulary:
Perjury: lies
The love Romeo swore to Juliet was an empty lie.
Your wit (or intelligence or mind), the top gift crowning your body and your love, is being distorted, perverted by your behavior. Your mind is like gun powder in an inexperienced soldier's hand who sets the gun on fire or blows it up through his own ignorance. ("Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love, / Misshapen in the conduct of them both, Like powder in a skill less soldier's flask, / Is set afire by thine own ignorance.")
Would you kill yourself when you still have Juliet? If you hadn’t killed Tybalt, then he would have killed you! Therefore are you a lucky man!
"...thy Juliet is alive, / For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead; / There art thou happy: / Tybalt would kill thee, / But thou slew's Tybalt; there art thou happy too: / The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend / and turns it to exile; there are thou happy; / A pack of blessings light up upon thy back;"
Personification:
"Happiness courts thee in her best array."
Vocabulary:
Court: to woo, to befriend
Array: clothes
Instead of being grateful, the friar tells him he is behaving like a spoiled brat and warns him that people who do not see their blessings will have a terrible end.
What happens to people who don’t see the blessings that heaven gives them?
Lines 43 – 45: The ungrateful people die miserable deaths.
What does the Friar say to Romeo about what he is going to do tonight?
The Friar says to Romeo he is to spend the night with Juliet tonight (comforting her). Before daybreak he is to leave Verona for Mantua, and there he will stay until everyone cools down. From time to time the Friar will send important updates to his servant in Mantua. Then at the appropriate time, the Friar will reveal the marriage and Romeo will be welcomed home with great fanfare and with open arms.
Act 3, Scene 4
Setting: Capulet’s house. Before dawn.
Ere: before
Capulet seems strangely detached about Tybalt’s death – he seems almost indifferent. “We are all born to die.”
Impulsive: rash, quick to act on impulse
Capulet is impulsive, or is he?
He makes a sudden, impulsive decision to marry Juliet to Paris – “his son".
It is now late Monday night, early Tuesday morning, before dawn, and as Paris is about to walk out the door, Capulet seems to suddenly hit upon the idea of marrying off his daughter to him - in two days! Again, this seems to show just how mercurial (changeable) he is. Why do you think he changes his mind so quickly? What prompts this decision? Does he ask his wife what she thinks?
One possible explanation for Capulet's sudden offer of Juliet's hand to Paris is that he IS upset over Tybalt's death and has been drinking, which can make people impulsive and irrational. Another explanation could be that this street brawl which resulted in the death of two young men, one of whom was Capulet's nephew, might reflect badly on the respectability of his family, so he wants to quickly secure a commitment from Paris before he can back out. The sooner he says "yes" the better, for it would be scandalous for Paris to then break off his engagement to Juliet after the family has agreed.
Meanwhile, upstairs - unbeknownst to her parents, Juliet is having her wedding night with Romeo - just thirty six hours after meeting him. This is double dramatic irony because the parents are unaware of what Juliet is doing and Juliet is unaware of what her parents are planning for her.
Act 3, Scene 5
Nightingale: a bird which sings at night
Lark: a bird that sings during the day
The two newly weds are lying in bed near dawn. Juliet thinks she hears the nightingale which sings at night and tries to reassure Romeo that it is still night, they still have time before the morning light before he must leave.
But Romeo does not hear a nightingale - he thinks it is the lark which welcomes the morning sun with her beautiful song! "It was the lark, the herald (messenger) of the morn...."
He brings Juliet's attention to the envious streaks of cloud which lace the clouds in the east. He says that Night's candles (the stars) are burnt out and jocund day (happy day) stands tiptoe (straining to step over) the misty mountain tops. He quickly gets up to dress. "I must be gone and live, or stay and die."
But Juliet rather fancifully says that it is not daybreak but some meteor the sun expelled ("the sun exhales") that will act as a torch bearer to light him on his way to Mantua during the night.
Romeo is drawn back to his charming, beautiful wife and in lines of foreshadowing he says, "Let me be taken (taken - the "K" is taken out to preserve the iambic pentameter) let me be put to death"...."Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so."
"Come, death, and welcome" is a form of apostrophe, which is a figurative language device used to address either an inanimate object, a concept or a person who is not present.
"I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye, (personification) / tis but the pale reflex (reflection) of Cynthia's brow (allusion; Cynthia is another name for Diana, goddess of the moon.)
Juliet realizes, to her horror, that it is the lark, the herald of the morning, that is singing.
"It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining hard discords and unpleasing sharps."
To her ear, the lark's song, usually so beautiful, is ugly and discordant, filled with sharps (a musical notation).
"Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she dividith us;"
Division means a melodic run of notes - for example, a soprano singing a beautiful string of notes. However, Juliet makes cruel pun (word play) for the lark's division (melodic run) is not beautiful for it signals the morning which divides or separates them.
"Some say the lark and loathed toad changed eyes,
O, now I would they had changed voices too."
The above refers to a legend that the toad once had beautiful eyes but the lark had ugly one; both admiring of the other, swapped each other's eyes. Now Juliet wishes they had swapped voices too for her voice pulls them apart ("Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray") and now the hunt is on and Romeo is the prey ("Hunting thee hence with hunt's up to the day.")
She now urges him to depart.
Vocabulary:
Woe: sorrow
The Nurse enters and warns Juliet that her mother is about and coming to her room.
Apostrophe and Metaphor:
Juliet says, "Then, window, let day in, and let life out."
She is addressing an inanimate object. Life is Romeo. By opening the window, light - the enemy of the lovers - will enter and Romeo will exit.
Hyperbole:
Juliet:
"I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there many days;"
For each minute will seem like days without her Romeo!
Juliet, in a moment of doubt, asks her Romeo:
"O thinkst thou we shall ever meet again?"
Romeo reassures her that the coming separation and sorrows will be sweet things to talk about when they are reunited.
Foreshadowing:
Juliet has a sense of foreboding and of doom:
O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Me thinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb;
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
As Romeo is leaving, Juliet catches a glimpse of him and he looks as one who is dead, pale and at the bottom of a tomb.
Romeo is also feeling a sense of doom:
And trust me, love, in my eyes so do you;
Personification:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood.
He is saying that their paleness (paleness was seen as a sign of suffering or sorrow) is caused by thirsty sorrow draining them of their blood.
Vocabulary:
Adieu: French for goodbye.
Again, there is a reference to Fortune or fate controlling their lives. Fickle means changeable, not loyal, and throughout history, including this century, there are many references to Fortune being fickle ("The Fickle Finger of Fate").
Apostrophe:
Juliet:
"O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle;
If thou art fickle, what does thou with him.
That is renown'ed for faith."
Juliet is addressing fortune in an apostrophe and asking if you are fickle, then what are you doing with Romeo, who is famous (renowned) for loyalty and faithfulness.
Juliet then says,
"Be fickle, fortune;
For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long,
But send him back."
Spoiler-Alert!
She will never see Romeo alive after this.
Lady Capulet walks through the door just as Romeo is going out the window. When Juliet tells her mother she is not feeling well, Lady Capulet automatically assumes it's from grieving over her slain cousin, Tybalt.
"Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?
What, wil thou wash him for his grave with tears?"
Lady Capulet shows a toughness, a steely pragmatism:
"An if thou couldst, thou couldn't not make him live;
Therefore, have done; some grief shows much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit."
Vocabulary:
Want: Lack
She is saying that some grief shows love, but too much shows a lack of intelligence. Your tears can not wash him from his grave, and even if they could, they will not bring him back to life.
Lady Capulet quickly brings up the subject of the "villain" who killed Tybalt - Romeo! Juliet says in an aside that "Villain and he (Romeo) be many miles apart -", or that Romeo is anything but a villain, but she says it as an aside, which is a device used by a character to speak her mind or her true intention so that the audience may hear but not the other characters on stage.
In the next interlude Juliet leads Lady Capulet in a brilliant dance of misdirection: She tells her mother the absolute truth but in such a manner to mislead her mother into thinking Juliet is expressing her hatred for Romeo, not her love and longing for him! The whole scene between mother and daughter is filled with dramatic irony: Juliet speaking the truth and Lady Capulet not understanding the truth her daughter is saying.
Lady Capulet:
"Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death,
As that the villain (Romeo) which slaughter'd him."
Juliet:
God pardon him! I do, with all my heart (weep for him);
And yet no man like he (Romeo) doth grieve my heart (for I love and miss my husband, Romeo).
But Lady Capulet thinks she is saying he (Romeo) grieves her heart because he is still alive:
"...because the traitor murderer lives."
Juliet:
"Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands: (Yes, she wants to lay hands on Romeo but not in the manner Lady Capulet thinks! Lady Capulet thinks Juliet wants to lay hands on Romeo to kill him!)
Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!"
Lady Capulet reveals a sinister plan to Juliet - that she will hire a contract killer to go to Mantua to poison Romeo - a motif which foreshadows an important plot point in the next act and acts as a mirror or echo of that point. In Shakespeare's time, poisoning was a very common way to kill someone.
Vocabulary:
Runagate: fugitive, one who has escaped justice
Unaccustom'd dram: a large amount
Juliet says in a brilliant misdirect to her mother:
"Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him -- dead--
Is my poor heart for a kinsman vexed."
Juliet is expressing the pain she is feeling for both Romeo's banishment and Tybalt's death. She is saying she will never be satisfied until she beholds Romeo, which is the truth, but then she runs that line into the next thought, also true, which is "dead is her poor heart for a kinsman (Tybalt) vexed (harmed, cursed). But her mother only hears Juliet saying she won't be happy until she beholds Romeo dead for the death of her kinsman.
Then Lady Capulet, completely unaware of how her "happy news" will devastate her daughter, says:
But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl."
Then, she delivers the news in a moment of perfect dramatic irony:
"Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn,
The gallant, young and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride."
Juliet responds with absolute honesty, but cloaked in such a way as to disguise the truthfulness of what she is saying:
"I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear,
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris...."
Lord Capulet enters the room to share in the familial joy of the coming marriage (nuptials) and to bask in his family's gratitude and adoration for arranging such a fortunate marriage for his daughter; however, Lady Capulet, possibly angry and worried about how her mercurial husband will take the news of their sweet obedient daughter's obstinance, passes the burden of dealing with a suddenly willful daughter to her husband:
"Here comes your father; tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands."
It might be worth to remember that she was married off (probably against her wishes) at much the same age as Juliet (thirteen) to a much older man (Lord Capulet), and as we can see, with disastrous results. Lord and Lady Capulet do not get along and there are some hints that Lady Capulet may have had a very "close" relationship with Tybalt. She may have some ambivalent (conflicting) feelings about marrying off her very young daughter.
Lord Capulet enters with a metaphor comparing the day's end to the end of his nephew's life:
"When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother's son
It rains downright."
The rest of the monologue is an extended metaphor, comparing Juliet's crying to a ship at sea:
"How now! a conduit, girl? what, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeit's a bark, a sea, a wind;
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs;
Who, raging with thy tears, and they with them,
Without a sudden calm, will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body...."
Vocabulary:
Conduit: pipe
Counterfeit: feign, pretend
Bark: ship
Tempest-tossed: storm tossed
He notes that her convulsing sighs and crying "will overset / Thy tempest-tossed body!" or overturn her body (the ship or bark).
He then turns to his wife and asks:
"How now, wife!"
Have you deliver'd to her our decree?"
Lady Capulet informs him:
"Ay, sir, but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave!"
Which Lady Capulet will not realize until later the horrible truth of what she has just uttered: "I would the fool were married to her grave!"
Lord Capulet is not used to having his wishes disobeyed. He is NOT PLEASED!
"Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.
How! will she none? doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?"
He is so shocked by Juliet's ingratitude and disobedience that he tells his wife to explain this to him!
Juliet protests that she is not proud but appreciates his efforts but could never be proud or happy about something she hates - a marriage to Paris. She is, however, grateful for something she hates for it was offered by her father in love.
Her father is enraged and mocks her:
"How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this? (What kind of stupid logic is this?!)
'Proud', and 'I thank you', and 'I thank you not;'
He then threatens Juliet with abandonment if she refuses to go along with this marriage.
"Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next,
To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!"
Vocabulary:
Carrion: rotting animal carcass
Juliet falls to the floor imploring her father to just listen to her, but Capulet is on a tear:
"Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what: get thee to church o' Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face:
Speak not, replay not, do not answer me;
My fingers itch!"
He is so angry that he wants to hit her ("My fingers itch!")
When the Nurse tries to protect Juliet, Capulet becomes verbally and perhaps even physically abusive to her.
Capulet:
"And why, my lady wisdom? hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go."
And:
"Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter (speak) your gravity ("wisdom") o'er a gossip's bowl;
For here we need it not."
He then starts to complain that he worked so hard to arrange this very lucky match and that Juliet, a wretched, whining fool, does not appreciate all that he has done for her. This is not Capulet's finest hour.
"God's bread! it makes me mad:
Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match'd: and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage.....
Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
To answer ''l'll not wed; I cannot love,
I am too young; I pray you, pardon me,'
He then storms out after delivering this frightening threat:
"But as you will not wed, I'll "pardon" you (he's being sarcastic - he will do no such thing!)
Graze where you will you shall not house with me:
Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest (to joke)
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:
An (if) you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in
the streets,
For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn."
If she doesn't do as he wishes, he will throw her out onto the street to starve to death.
Juliet is left on her knees crying, but when she appeals to her mother,
"O, my sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week;
Of, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies."
But Lady Capulet is emotionally exhausted by Tybalt's death, Capulet's violence and Juliet's sudden disobedience:
"Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word:
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee."
Lady Capulet has abandoned her own daughter:
"Don't talk to me, I will not say a word to you.
Do what you want because I am finished with you."
Juliet then turns to the Nurse to ask for some advice about what to do, and the Nurse, considering the harsh reality of Juliet's situation, offers her some very good, pragmatic advice: forget Romeo. He's gone and is good as dead to you, and he can't come back for you because it will mean his death. Marry Paris. Romeo is a dish cloth compared to Paris.
Juliet questions her;
"Mean thou from thy heart?" (Do you really mean this?")
And the Nurse answers:
"And from my soul too;
Or else beshrew them both." (Or else curse both my soul and my heart.)
The Nurse speaks from a place of love and caring, and although she knows how much Juliet loves Romeo, she considers the wisest course of action now is to forget Romeo and marry Paris.
Her life will be one of ease and privilege if she does marry Paris for she will then be the Countess Juliet.
Juliet says with irony dipped in bitterness:
"Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeased my father, to Laurence's cell,
To make confession and to be absolved."
The Nurse exits, leaving Juliet quite alone in the world. In a fit of rage, Juliet says about the Nurse:
"Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor;
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy:
If all else fail, myself have power to die."
Vocabulary:
Forsworn: to deny under oath; to denounce
Counsellor: the Nurse
Bosom: heart
Henceforth: here on out
Twain: separate
Remedy: advice; solution
Here, Juliet makes a fateful decision: From here on out, she will not reveal her counsel, her thoughts to the Nurse. She is now utterly alone in her decision making. She will tell her mother she is seeking counseling from the Friar and once there, she will ask him to help and if he cannot, she will find the power within to kill herself.
This decision will determine the rest of her life.
How does Juliet fool her mother in lines 81 - 103?
What type of irony is this?
Does Juliet mean what she is saying?
What is Juliet actually saying as opposed to what Lady Capulet actually hears?
What does Lady Capulet plan to do to Romeo? Is this a surprising revelation about the character?
What is Lord Capulet's reaction when he hears Juliet's response to his news. What are some of the things he threatens her with?
What does the Nurse urge Juliet to do at the end of the scene?
What fateful decision does Juliet make regarding the Nurse?
How could this decision affect the rest of the play?
With Capulet's explosive rage at her for refusing to marry Paris, Lady Capulet's plan to murder Romeo, and the Nurse's betrayal of her love for Romeo, is there any wonder Juliet feels alone, angry and frightened?
