Useful short quotations: Romeo and Juliet


You don't need to learn them all! Just choose the ones you understand.

Fate:

Prologue:
'fatal loins'
'Star-cross'd lovers'
Why?   Links to the theme of fate throughout the play.
 Links to 
Romeo: Some consequence yet hanging in the stars (I.iv) - Just before the masked ball where he meets Juliet
Romeo: 'black fate (III.i) - after Mercutio has been killed
Romeo: I defy you stars (V.i) - after he has been told that Juliet is dead
Romeo: 'inauspicious stars' (V.iii) - just before he kills himself
What does it tell us about Romeo's character?

Love:
Lots of different kinds of love in the play. 

Romantic love:
Romeo: Did my heart love till now? (I.v) - he has just glimpsed Juliet at the ball

Romeo: It is my lady. Oh, it is my love (II.ii) - he has seen Juliet at her window 
Juliet: be but sworn my love (II.ii) -  about Romeo, whom she does not know can hear her
Juliet: If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully (II.ii) - to Romeo
This scene uses the word 'love' or 'lover' 26 times!

Romeo: my love, my wife (V.iii) - of Juliet in the tomb
Romeo: Here's to my love (V.iii) - as he drinks the poison

It's worth looking at II.ii and comparing Romeo's and Juliet's attitudes to love. Romeo is hyperbolic and Petrarchan*: he is still in love with the idea of love, just as he was with Rosaline.  Juliet is more practical, though still uses very poetic language. By the end of the scene, Romeo has agreed to marry Juliet and it's worth asking yourself 'Why?'
If the exam decides it wants you to explore the ideas of love in the play, this is the scene to focus on for romantic love, but remember to contrast it with Rosaline.
*This is a good thing to show that you understand and it's not hard once you can spell the word! 
Petrarch was a medieval Italian poet who gave up the priesthood because he had fallen in love with a woman named Laura whom he worshiped from afar and wrote numerous love poems - in this case sonnets - for. (This is what Romeo is doing when we first meet him.) Shakespeare was no fan of this kind of 'love' and wrote the wonderful Sonnet 130 as an anti-Petrarchan love poem. 
It seems to me that this play explores real as opposed to idealised love. 

Love between friends
In the past, love and loyalty between men was considered superior to the love between a man and a woman.
It is important not to confuse this with homosexuality, which was not simply illegal but a capital offence. Mercutio's death comes as a result of Tybalt accusing him of having a homosexual relationship with Romeo.  
 No short quotations for this - sorry. I'd go for close reference and talk about Benvolio and Romeo and Mercutio and Romeo.

Family love. 
Juliet, her father, mother and the nurse.
Romeo and his mother. 

Note: 'cuz' or 'cousin' usually simply mean 'close friend', but Tybalt is Juliet's actual cousin. 

 Capulet: My child is yet a stranger to this world (Telling Paris that Juliet is too young to marry)
Lady Capulet: Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age (to the nurse) She's actually asking the nurse to remind her how old Juliet is.

Nurse: Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed (about Juliet)

 Capulet: ... she will be ruled/In all respects by me (To Paris about Juliet)

 Lady Capulet: 'have done' (to Juliet whom she thinks is weeping for Tybalt)

 Lady Capulet: I wish the fool were married to her grave (when Juliet refuses to marry Paris)
Capulet: ... we have a curse in having her (as above)
Capulet: ... a wretched, puling fool (as above)
Capulet: An you be mine I'll give you to my friend (to Juliet about Paris)

Juliet: Oh, sweet mother, cast me not away
Lady Capulet: Talk not to me.

 Capulet: this same wayward girl is so reclaimed (after Juliet says she will marry Paris after all)

 Capulet: ... my child is dead/And with my child my joys are buried (when Juliet's 'body' is found)

 Montague: ...my wife is dead tonight/Grief of my son's exile stopp'd her breath

 Look particularly at Lady Capulet's speeches. What does it tell us about her and her relationship with Juliet?

A note about Friar Lawrence: the fact that Romeo calls him 'father' is the correct way to address a priest. It doesn't mean that the friar is dearer to him than his own father. (Google 'Father Ted'!)

Violence

The play begins with a brawl and it is a violent play throughout.
Tybalt: ... peace! I hate the word/As I hate Hell, all Montagues and thee. (To Benvolio)
 
Tybalt threatens to kill Romeo at the ball.

Juliet:  My only love sprung from my only hate! (about Romeo)
Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee. (In the orchard to Romeo)

Juliet: .... the place of death .... /If  any of my kinsmen find thee here (as above)

Friar: These violent delights have violent ends (to Romeo and Juliet just before he marries them - illegally)

 Benvolio: these hot days is the mad blood stirring (before the fight which kills Tybalt and Mercutio)

 Mercutio: thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat (to Benvolio)

Final note:
Dark and light in the play are motifs, not a theme. 








  

 




 
 





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