Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4

Act 1, Scene 4:
Setting: late that night (Sunday night) in front of the Capulet villa. Romeo, Benvolio and Mercutio are deciding how best to crash the party. Remember, they are sworn enemies of the Capulets and what they are about to do is very dangerous.

Romeo: What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? / Or shall we on without apology?

Benvolio: The date is out of such prolixity.

At that time it was the custom, although even then the custom was fading and increasingly considered old fashioned, for invited guests to announce themselves in a clever or eloquent way when they entered.

The three friends are deciding whether they should announce themselves

Tartar’s painted bow of lath: badly made costume of a savage with fake bow and arrow. This costume would scare the ladies at the party.

Nor no without-book prologue: Memorized.

Faintly spoke / After the prompter: Shyly and badly spoken by an ill prepared actor.

Benvolio boldy states they should saunter in and let the Capulets look at them if they like (“measure us by what they will”) and he, Romeo and Mecutio will dance (“measure them a measure”) and then leave.


There are many references to light and dark and lightness and heaviness; and LOTS of puns relating to feelings of depression and heaviness.

Can you find them?

Romeo: Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling. // Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Find other examples of Romeo being totally emo over his unrequited love for Rosaline.

Romeo: Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, / Too rude, too boist’rous, and it pricks like thorn.

Notice Mercutio’s tough love approach to love:
“if love be tough with you, be tough with love!”
More puns which show Romeo being emo over Rosaline.

Romeo: You have dancing shoes / With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead / So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

Romeo: Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

Romeo: I am too sore empierced with his shaft ; To soar with his light feathers; and so bound / I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe. // Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

Romeo: I’ll be a candleholder and look on;
The game was ne’er so fair. And I am done.

Dun: mouse color. It is grayish brown and is also the color of a horse.

Romeo: I am done. (As in stick a fork in me, I’m done).
Mercutio, ever clever, plays off that word “done”, refers to a mouse (“Dun’s the mouse”) in a fairy tale that is now lost to us, and a horse that is stuck in the mud.
Thou art dun (as in being a horse, a dun colored horse, stuck in the mud….).

Mercutio is calling Romeo a stick in the mud (a killjoy, a wet blanket, etc.). “We’ll pull thee from the mire (the mud) of this self-reverence love (self-indulgent, self absorbed love), wherein thou stickest / Upon to the ears.”

Is Mercutio a good friend?

What is Mercutio trying to do with the Queen Mab speech?

Midwife: a person who helps to deliver babies. Queen Mab helps deliver fairy babies.

Agate stone: a nice mineral

Alderman: official in the church
How does she get around? In a wagon drawn by atomies (tiny creatures)
Wagons spokes are made of spider legs.
The wagon cover is made of grasshoppers’ wings.
Traces: rings and harnesses (Long poles attached to the cart which are then attached to the harness of the horse so the horse can pull the cart.)
Traces are made of spider webs.
Collars are made of watery moon beam.
The whip is made of cricket’s bone.
The wagoner is the coachman. He drives the wagon.
Gnats: tiny insects that fly around fruit.
Lazy people had worms in their fingers.
Chariot (couch) is made from empty hazel nuts.
Joiner squirrels make the chariots (or couch) for Queen Mab.
They have been doing this since “time out o’ mind” – which is a long time.
Courtier: someone who waits on the king and the queen in court.
Parson: a minister or a preacher
Tithe: a tenth of someone’s money which one is suppose to give to the church.
400 years ago most people were farmers and used the barter system. How did a typical farmer pay his tithe (1/10 of his income) to the church?
A tenth of a pig would be its tail.
Benefice: Parson’s income

“…Of healths five fathoms deep…”
Health: is a toast (To your health!)
Fathom: is twenty feet deep
And is used to measure the depth of water.
The soldier is dreaming of a huge (100 feet deep) tankard of ale or beer or whatever.
“…Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes, / And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two / And sleeps again….”
Anon: soon
War drums: drums were used to urge the soldiers into battle. When old warhorses or soldiers heard the war drums they knew they would be going back into battle.
If you have a bad hair day, (“…bakes the elflocks in foul, sluttish hairs…”) blame Queen Mab, but don’t untangle it because you will have bad luck (“…which once untangled much misfortune bodes.”)

Choose four of the following scenes or sections from the Queen Mab speech; illustrate the four scenes and write the lines underneath them as captions. This will be due on Friday, May 14th.

Lines 53 – 69: 1 scene
Lines 67 – 69: 2nd scene
Lines 70 – 71: 3rd scene
Line 72: 4th scene
Line 73: 5th scene
Lines 74 - 76: 6th scene
Lines 77 – 78: 7th scene
Lines 79 – 81: 8th scene
Lines 82 – 88: 9th scene
Lines 88 – 91: 10th scene
Lines 92 – 95: 11th scene

Foreshadowing:
“…for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels and expire the term
Of a despised life, closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death…”

Romeo has a premonition that tonight will be the start of a series of events that will lead to his death.

This is an example of foreshadowing which is a literary device used by writers to give hints that something is going to happen later in the play or novel. Anton Chekhov, a Russian writer and playwright who died in 1902, believed that if a gun is spoken about or referred to in the first act, it should definitely be used in the third act.