Romeo

“ Here comes Romeo—poor fellow he’s mooney
Sweet on Rosaline! Oh, regular spooney,—
Found him this morning at the lady’s door,
Waving up kisses to the second floor—
Radiant with joy, as Phœbus or Aurora,
Wooing with warm smiles a second Flora!
And then unto his lady love he played
Upon the Jewish harp a serenade;
While ever and anon there came a flow
Of voice with “Sweep!” and then of “Milk below!”
Romeo enters in a melancholy mood.
Mercu.—
His bosom swells, the heavy sighs rise on it;
The man’s in love—that’s about the size on it.
Romeo. ”

“ That night Romeo passed with his dear wife, gaining secret admission to her chamber, from the orchard in which he had heard her confession of love the night before. That had been a night of unmixed joy and rapture; but the pleasures of this night, and the delight which these lovers took in each other's society, were sadly allayed with the prospect of parting, and the fatal adventures of the past day. ”

“ Or, if thou wilt not, only swear to love me, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” said Romeo to himself, enraptured at hearing such words.
“It is only thy name that is my enemy,” continued Juliet. “What’s ‘Montague’? It is not hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.... Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee, take all myself!” ”

“ I loved the rôle of Romeo, because I could give expression in it to warlike sentiments and feelings of chivalrous detestation. When my audience, always half French, applauded my dramatic outbursts, I felt as if I were revenged for our national degradation; for those conquerors were unconsciously applauding curses aimed at them, longings for their death and threats to attain it. ”

“ Romeo took his leave of his dear wife with a heavy heart, promising to write to her from Mantua every hour in the day; and when he had descended from her chamber window, as he stood below her on the ground, in that sad foreboding state of mind in which she was, he appeared to her eyes as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Romeo’s mind misgave him in like manner. But now he was forced hastily to depart, for it was death for him to be found within the walls of Verona after daybreak. ”

“ Romeo, then, is introduced to us with perfect truth of costume, as the thrall of a dreaming, fanciful passion for the scornful Rosaline, who had forsworn to love; and on her charms and coldness, and on the power of love generally, he descants to his companions in pretty phrases, quite in the style and taste of the day. [24]
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lover's eyes ”

“ While they were settling this point, Juliet was repeatedly called for by her nurse, and went in and returned, and went and returned again, for she seemed as jealous of Romeo going from her, as a young girl of her bird, which she will let hop a little from her hand, and pluck it back with a silken thread; and Romeo was as loath to part as she: for the sweetest music to lovers is the sound of each other's tongues at night. ”

“ But when Romeo revealed his new passion for Juliet, and requested the assistance of the friar to marry them that day, the holy man lifted up his eyes and hands in a sort of wonder at the sudden change in Romeo’s affections, for he had been privy to all Romeo’s love for Rosaline and his many complaints of her disdain; and he said that young men’s love lay not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. ”

“ Romeo, affecting sadness, but in reality merry by nature, becomes grave when the realization of love comes upon him. Juliet, when love comes, rises gladly to meet its full claim. She is the one who plans and dares, and Romeo the one who listens. ”

“ Thus knowing nothing of the old monk's plan, and believing his beloved one to be dead, Romeo was distracted with grief; but, determined to at least look once more upon the sweet face of Juliet, even though in death, he instantly mounted a horse, and galloped at a furious pace to Verona. ”

“ She and Romeo have been secretly married, and in the evening of that same day we see her waiting, in a transport of anticipation, among the orchard trees. The blood has mounted to her cheeks as she sees her girlhood about to be relinquished; she has a lively sense of the too garish day; and being so modest she wishes night to fall speedily so that her own eyes may wink, or be blinded ”

“ When darkness fell, Romeo made his way once more to the Capulet's garden, and, scaling the balcony, bade a long and passionate farewell to the weeping Juliet. With the first signs of dawn, he was compelled to depart, with a last fond embrace, and then, with a heavy heart, and reluctant steps, he made his way to Mantua, from whence his messengers and friends could keep him acquainted with all news concerning the fair young bride from whom he had been thus so cruelly parted. ”

“ Enter Romeo.
Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power: 24
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will; 28
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Rom. Good morrow, father!
Fri. L. Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? ”

“ The young Italian, even before he has seen the woman who is to be his fate, is reticent and melancholy, full of tender longings and forebodings of evil. Then he is seized as though with an overwhelming ecstasy at the first glimpse of Rosaline's girl-kinswoman.
Romeo's character is less resolute than Juliet's; passion ravages it more fiercely; he, as a youth, has less control over himself than she as a maiden. ”

“ In conjuring up the probabilities which would lead a man into such a course of conduct as Romeo's, Shakespeare had in his mind the probabilities and facts in real life rather than the probabilities demanded by the stage.
Romeo must be a man almost wholly made up of emotion, a creature very young, a lyric poet in the intensity of his sensations, a child in his helplessness beneath the ever-varying currents and whirlpools of his feeling. ”

“ Comfort me, counsel me. Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems Upon so soft a subject as myself! What say'st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, nurse.
Nurse. Faith, here it is. Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you; Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth. Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, I think it best you married with the County. O, he's a lovely gentleman! Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye As Paris hath. ”

“ He is a kinsman to the Montague; Affection makes him false, he speaks not true. Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, And all those twenty could but kill one life. I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give. Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live. ”

“ We make the acquaintance of Romeo at the critical period of that not dangerous sickness to which youth is liable. It is that 'love lying in the eyes' of early and just blossoming manhood, that humorsome, whimsical 'love in idleness,' that first bewildered, stammering interview of the heart with the scarcely awakened nature. ”

“ He assumes the calmness of a man of his rank who is about to fight. More than this, Romeo, the man of words and moods, when once roused, as we shall see later, in a worser cause,—when once pledged to action,—Romeo shines with a sort of fatalistic spiritual power. ”

“ Now was Romeo blessed indeed, and Juliet, who knew his intent from a messenger which she had dispatched according to promise, did not fail to be early at the cell of friar Lawrence, where their hands were joined in holy marriage; the good friar praying the heavens to smile upon that act, and in the union of this young Mountague and young Capulet to bury the old strife and long dissensions of their families. ”

“ That he shall soon keep Tybalt company: 92
And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.
Jul. Indeed, I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo, till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd: 96
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it,
That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O! how my heart abhors
To hear him nam'd, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt
Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him.
Lady Cap. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man. ”

“ Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,' And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice. I am not I, if there be such an 'I'; Or those eyes shut that make thee answer 'I.' If be be slain, say 'I'; or if not, 'no.' Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe. ”

“ That one might almost say her body thought.”
Romeo, if dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. Life, with this pair, has no other aim, asks no more, than Juliet,—than Romeo. Night, day, studies, talents, kingdoms, religion, are all contained in this form full of soul, in this soul which is all form. The lovers delight in endearments, in avowals of love, in comparisons of their regards. When alone, they solace themselves with the remembered image of the other. ”

“ Romeo, indeed, to do him justice, was troubled by no disturbing spirit of radicalism, and carried on the ancestral pursuit of doing nothing with a grace and a persistence which one could not help but admire. ”

“ And he stormed and raged exceedingly, and would have struck young Romeo dead. But his uncle, the old lord Capulet, would not suffer him to do any injury at that time, both out of respect to his guests, and because Romeo had borne himself like a gentleman, and all tongues in Verona bragged of him to be a virtuous and well-governed youth. Tybalt, forced to be patient against his will, restrained himself, but swore that this vile Montague should at another time dearly pay for his intrusion. ”

“ Whether we think of him in his relation to history or psychology, dandiacal or dramatic art, he is a salient, pathetic figure. That he is memorable for his defects, not for his qualities, I know. But Romeo, in the tragedy of his wild love and frail intellect, in the folly that stretched the corners of his 'peculiar grin' and shone in his diamonds and was emblazoned upon his tumbril, is more suggestive than some sages. ”

“ Shakespeare has retained this first passing fancy of Romeo's, which he found in his sources, because he knew that the heart is never more disposed to yield to a new love than when it is bleeding from an old wound, and because this early feeling already shows Romeo as inclined to idolatry and self-absorption. ”

“ She is thinking aloud; it is the young heart 'triumphing to itself in words.' In the midst of all the vehemence with which she calls upon the night to bring Romeo to her arms, there is something so almost infantine in her perfect simplicity, so playful and fantastic in the imagery and language, that the charm of sentiment and innocence is thrown over the whole ”

“ Romeo.
He loves not who loves not e'en beyond the grave;
My saddened heart beats slowly and alone.
My queenly Julia, cold, icy death himself
Dares not to rob thee of a single charm.
The garish sun dies daily ”

“ One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.
ROMEO.
Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
BENVOLIO.
For what, I pray thee?
ROMEO.
For your broken shin.
BENVOLIO.
Why, Romeo, art thou mad?
ROMEO.
Not mad, but bound more than a madman is:
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp’d and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.
SERVANT.
God gi’ go-den. I pray, sir, can you read? ”

“ Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new beloved anywhere;
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.
Exit.
ACT II. Scene I. A lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard. Enter Romeo alone.
Rom. Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.
[Climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]
Enter Benvolio with Mercutio.
Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Romeo! ”

“ O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won, I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world. ”

“ MERCUTIO.
’Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
NURSE.
Out upon you! What a man are you?
ROMEO.
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.
NURSE.
By my troth, it is well said; for himself to mar, quoth a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?
ROMEO.
I can tell you: but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
NURSE.
You say well.
MERCUTIO.
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’faith ”