quotes, notes, timelines & more

Home » Shakespeare's Works » Elements » Characters » Juliet of Verona

Juliet of Verona

Romeo and Juliet

Richard, Romeo, Juliet and the Sonnet

Read the Note

Two of Shakespeare’s earliest playsRichard III and Romeo and Juliet, open with sonnets and then employ variations on the sonnet’s structure for dramatic and poetic effect, which is not surprising. At this point in Shakespeare’s life he seems to have had dual career goals. First, he wanted to make money, which he could accomplish through theatre.
… continue reading this note

Unhappy Fortune! The Plague in the Plays

Read the Note

Shakespeare killed scores of his characters — by sword, by dagger, by poison, by flame, by drowning, by hanging, by murder, by suicide, by accident — men, women, children, all ages, killed by many means, even by a bear. But the deaths of only two of his central characters can be attributed to the plague, and even then, only by proximate cause, not directly by the plague.
… continue reading this note

You and Thee

Read the Note

In Henry IV Part 1, in the exchange between Hotspur and Owen Glendower, about calling up devils from the vasty deep, Hotspur deliberately shifts from the word you to thee when he addresses Glendower. You was often used to convey respect while thee was used when speaking to someone of inferior rank,
… continue reading this note

A Plague and a Scourge

Read the Note

Mercutio’s curse, “A plague o’ both your houses!” is fulfilled, although not literally. Despite the numerous ways scores of characters die in Shakespeare’s plays, no one in this play or any other Shakespeare play dies of the plague. But the plague is the proximate cause of Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths.  When Friar Lawrence sends Friar John to deliver a letter to Romeo telling him of Juliet’s fake death,
… continue reading this note

Tombs and Wombs

Read the Note

Friar Lawrence’s rumination on soil as both a tomb and a womb works as a metaphor of one of the play’s central themes. The “misadventure’d piteous overthrows” of  Romeo and Juliet in the Capulet tomb at the end of the play gave birth to a growth of amity between their two families.
… continue reading this note

Caves, Temples & Palaces

Read the Note

Juliet’s biting reference to Romeo as “a gorgeous palace,” when she hears that Romeo has killed her cousin, contrasts with Romeo’s earlier reference to Juliet as “this holy shrine.” Both metaphors are echoed about fifteen years later near the end of Shakespeare’s career when Miranda in The Tempest speaks of Ferdinand in a similar figure of speech.
… continue reading this note

Richard III and the Sonnet

Read the Note

“Now is the winter of our discontent” is nearly as familiar as Hamlet’s, “To be, or not to be” and Mark Antony’s, “Friends, Romans, countrymen”. Not one of these three passages is a dramatic dialogue. Mark Antony addresses a large Roman crowd in an extended speech. Hamlet muses to himself in a soliloquy while we the audience listen in.
… continue reading this note

Birds — Martial and Marital

Read the Note

In Hamlet (1.1.432), a cock trumpets in the morn, a bird more fitting to the combative nature of Hamlet than the lark that heralds the morn after the first night of marital bliss in Romeo and Juliet (3.5.6).
… continue reading this note

Sonnets in Romeo and Juliet

Read the Note

Shakespeare, who had begun writing his sonnets sometime in the 1590’s, decided that the form would be useful in Romeo and Juliet. In fact, he wrote four sonnets in the play. The first, spoken by a chorus, opens Act 1. The second appears in Act 1, Scene 5, and it is dialogue spoken by Romeo and Juliet.
… continue reading this note

Madam, I am here. What is your will?

Read the Quote

Juliet
Madam, I am here. What is your will?
Lady Capulet
This is the matter.—Nurse, give leave awhile.
We must talk in secret.—Nurse, come back again.
I have remembered me, thou ’s hear our counsel.
Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.
Nurse
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 1
Scene 3
Line 7

Source Type:

Spoken by:
, , ,

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

Read the Sonnet

Romeo
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrineMetaphor, the gentle sinOxymoron is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrimsMetaphor, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

My lips, two blushing pilgrimsMetaphor,
… continue reading this quote

What’s he that follows here, that would not dance?

Read the Quote

Juliet
What’s he that follows here, that would not dance?
Nurse
I know not.
Juliet
Go ask his name. The Nurse goes. If he be marrièd,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 1
Scene 5
Line 146

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

Themes:

Figures of Speech:
, ,

He jests at scars that never felt a wound

Read the Quote

Romeo
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
  Enter Juliet above.
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.
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 2
Scene 2
Line 1

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

Connected Notes:
You and Thee

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

Read the Quote

Juliet
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet

Romeo, aside
Shall I hear more,
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 2
Scene 2
Line 36

Source Type:

Spoken by:

Themes:
, ,

Figures of Speech:

Connected Notes:
You and Thee

By whose direction found’st thou out this place?

Read the Quote

Juliet
By whose direction found’st thou out this place?
Romeo
By love, that first did prompt me to inquire.
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.

O,
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 2
Scene 2
Line 84

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

Themes:
,

Figures of Speech:
, , ,

Hist, Romeo, hist!

Read the Quote

Juliet
Hist, Romeo, hist! O, for a falc’ner’s voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again!
Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud,
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of “My Romeo!”

Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say “Good night” till it be morrow.
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 2
Scene 2
Line 176

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

Themes:
,

Figures of Speech:
, ,

The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse

Read the Quote

Juliet
The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse.
In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him. That’s not so.
O, she is lame! Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills.

Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 2
Scene 5
Line 1

Source Type:

Spoken by:

Themes:
, ,

Now, good sweet nurse

Read the Quote

Juliet
Now, good sweet nurse—O Lord, why lookest thou sad?
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily.
If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.
Nurse
I am aweary. Give me leave awhile.
Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunt have I!
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 2
Scene 5
Line 21

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

So smile the heavens upon this holy act

Read the Quote

Friar Lawrence
So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.
Romeo
Amen, amen. But come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.

These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die,
… continue reading this quote

Source:
Act 2
Scene 6
Line 1

Source Type:

Spoken by:
, ,

Themes:
, , ,

Figures of Speech:
,

Connected Notes:
Plagiarizing Himself