Grief
Notes on Grief
Banishment: Romeo and Coriolanus
Read the NoteFor two of Shakespeare’s most passionate male characters, banishment holds passionately different meanings. Romeo, banished from Verona, is grief-stricken and in fear of never seeing Juliet again. For him, banishment is the equivalent of death. Coriolanus, banished from Rome, is enraged and contemptuous of the plebeians who he hopes he will never have to see again. For him, banishment is an opportunity for a new life.
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Quotes including the Theme Grief
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead
Read the QuoteModerate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the livingAlliosis, Ellipsis & Isocolon.
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Set down, set down your honorable load
Read the QuoteSet down, set down your honorable load,Epimone
If honor may be shrouded in a hearse,Personification
Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
Th’ untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
They set down the bier.
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,Alliteration
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster,
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O that this too too solid flesh would melt
Read the QuoteO, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
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Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
Read the QuoteAntony
Friends, Romans, countrymenExordium, lend me your earsSynecdoche!
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.Antithesis
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bonesAntithesis;
So let it be with Caesar.
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Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?
Read the QuoteNurse
Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?
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 killed my husband.
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Bind up your hairs
Read the QuoteKing Philip
Bind up your hairs.
Constance
Yes, that I will. And wherefore will I do it?
I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud
“O, that these hands could so redeem my son,
As they have given these hairs their liberty!”
But now I envy at their liberty,
And will again commit them to their bonds,
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Did your letters pierce the Queen
Read the QuoteKent
Did your letters pierce the Queen to any demonstration
of grief?
Gentleman
Ay, sir, she took them, read them in my presence,
And now and then an ample tear trilled down
Her delicate cheek. It seemed she was a queen
Over her passion, who, most rebel-like,
Fought to be king o’er her.
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If you go on thus, you will kill yourself
Read the QuoteLeonato’s Brother
If you go on thus, you will kill yourself,
And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief
Against yourself.
Leonato
I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel,
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
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O, O, O!
Read the QuoteOthello
O, O, O!
Othello falls on the bed.
Emilia
Nay, lay thee down, and roar!
For thou hast killed the sweetest innocent
That e’er did lift up eye.
Othello, standing
O, she was foul!—
I scarce did know you, uncle. There lies your niece,
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