What City Does Romeo and Juliet Take Place
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ROMEO: I'm Romeo, and I used to be emo and annoying but now I'm so totally in luuuuurve and it's AWESOME.
MERCUTIO: Okay, three things: One, there's only room in this play for one awesome character and it's me, bitch. Two, you're still emo and annoying. Three, didn't you say that exact same stuff yesterday about Rosaline?
ROMEO: Who?
*meanwhile, Juliet prances around her room and draws hearts on things and scribbles "Mrs. Juliet Montague" in her diary over and over. Beca
Romeo and Juliet, abridged.ROMEO: I'm Romeo, and I used to be emo and annoying but now I'm so totally in luuuuurve and it's AWESOME.
MERCUTIO: Okay, three things: One, there's only room in this play for one awesome character and it's me, bitch. Two, you're still emo and annoying. Three, didn't you say that exact same stuff yesterday about Rosaline?
ROMEO: Who?
*meanwhile, Juliet prances around her room and draws hearts on things and scribbles "Mrs. Juliet Montague" in her diary over and over. Because she is THIRTEEN. How old is Romeo supposed to be? Let's not talk about that, k?*
CAPULET: Good news, Juliet! I found you a husband!
PARIS: Hello, I'm a complete tool.
JULIET: Daddy, I don't want to marry that apparently decent and unflawed guy! I'm in love with Romeo Montague – we met yesterday and it was HOT.
CAPULET: I WILL BE DAMNED IF I SEE MY ONLY DAUGHTER MARRIED TO THE ONLY SON OF THE MAN WHO IS MY MORTAL ENEMY FOR REASONS TOO UNIMPORTANT TO SPECIFY IN THIS PLAY!
JULIET: *stamps foot, runs off to her room to watch High School Musical again and sulk*
TYBALT: Hey Romeo, your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
MONTAGUE POSSE: Oh, snap.
MERCUTIO: YOU TAKE THAT BACK!
TYBALT: MAKE ME!
ROMEO: No! You can't fight him, Mercutio
TYBALT: I KEEL YOU!
*Romeo attempts to stop the fight and fails miserably*
MERCUTIO: FUCK YOU ALL! *dies*
ROMEO: Okay, forget what I said about not fighting. I KEEL YOU!
TYBALT: *dies*
PRINCE: I've had enough of your shit, Emo McStabbypants. You're banished.
ROMEO: Waaaaaahhhhhh! I'm banished and Juliet is going to marry another guy and it's not fair WHY DOES GOD HATE ME?
FRIAR LAURENCE: Jesus Christ, not this again. Okay, if you promise to grow a pair, I'll help you and your wife out. Here's the plan: she takes a potion that'll make her go into a coma, and then she'll get put in the family tomb and then you'll sneak back into town, break into the tomb, wait until she wakes up, and then the two of you escape and live happily ever after! It's perfect!
AUDIENCE: …the hell?
*Shockingly, the plan fails. Romeo goes back to the tomb (pausing to kill Paris just for good measure), but he thinks Juliet's dead and drinks poison and dies, and then like two seconds later she wakes up and sees that Romeo isn't mostly dead like she was, he's dead, so she stabs herself.*
MONTAGUE: Wow, we are awful parents.
CAPULET: I have an idea – let's make solid gold statues of our dead children to commemorate their love and serve as a constant reminder of the fact that our only children killed themselves because we were such uncaring parents.
*they actually do this.*
SHAKESPEARE: Beat that, Stephenie Meyer.
THE END.
Read for: 9th grade English
BONUS: courtesy of The Second City Network. Every Shakespeare heroine needs a sassy gay friend
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Keep in mind that Juliet was THIRTEEN YEARS OLD. (Her father states she "hath not yet seen the change of fourteen years" in 1.2.9). Even in Shakespeare's England, most women were at least 21 before they married and had children. It's not clear how old Romeo is, but either he's also a stupid little kid who needs to be slapped, or he's a child molester, and neither one is a good thing.
When I was in middle school or high school, around the time we read this book, I remember a classmate saying in class that when her and her boyfriends' eyes met across the quad, they just knew they were meant to be together forever. How convenient that her soulmate happened to be an immensely popular and good-looking football player, and his soulmate happened to be a gorgeous cheerleader! That's not love at first sight, that's lust at first sight. If they were really lucky, maybe as time went on they would also happen to "click" very well, that lust would develop into love (it didn't), and they would end up together forever (they didn't). But if they saw each other at a school dance, decided they were "like, totally in love," and then the next day decided to run off and get married, we shouldn't encourage that as a romantic love story, we should slap the hell out of them both to wake them up to reality.
For what it's worth, my cynicism doesn't come from any bitterness towards life or love. I met my wife when we were 17, and we've now been together almost 10 years, married for a little over 2. Fortunately for me, she turned out to be awesome. If we had decided the day after meeting each other that we were hopelessly in love and needed to get married immediately, we would have been idiots, and I hope someone who I trusted and respected would have slapped me, hard. If we were 13 at the time, that would be even worse. Enlightened adults injecting this into our youth as a classic love story for the generations, providing further support for their angst-filled false ideas of love and marriage, is probably worst of all.
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This is what happens when you jump into a Rebound Relationship.
So, when the story opens, Romeo is desperately in love with Rosaline. But since she
Annoying emo style.
His friends, tired of his constant whining, give him a Beyoncé mixtape.
He takes her words to heart, and her lyrics begin to mend his broken soul.
His boys drag his sad ass to a party, and across a crowded room, Romeo spies his next victim
THIS!This is what happens when you jump into a Rebound Relationship.
So, when the story opens, Romeo is desperately in love with Rosaline. But since she
Annoying emo style.
His friends, tired of his constant whining, give him a Beyoncé mixtape.
He takes her words to heart, and her lyrics begin to mend his broken soul.
His boys drag his sad ass to a party, and across a crowded room, Romeo spies his next victim...er, his really-really for real this time True Love.
Meet 13 year old Juliet. Who is 13.
And how old is Romeo? Well, he's old enough to kill Juliet's cousin in a sword fight, so...yeah. Probably not 13.
But since he's such a punk little pussy - what with the whining, sobbing, and spouting off crap poetry - I'm going to assume he's not much older than she is and say 15 or 16.
If I'm wrong, don't correct me. It'll help me sleep tonight.
Tragically, Juliet is a Hatfield, and Romeo is a McCoy. Their families have been feuding over a McCoy pig that was killed during a Hatfield moonshine run decades ago. Totally true. I swear.
Needless to say, tensions are still running high.
So. Shhhhh. They gotta keep their love on the down low.
And it is love, dammit! I mean, they've stared at each other a whole bunch, and had like two conversations.
This time around, Romeo isn't going to make the same mistake as before, and let the
Fuck, yeah! Time to get married!
Because marriage will solve all your problems. No, really.
Pinkie promise!
And we all know what happened next, right?!
Well...Ish.
You know, I can't help but wonder what that first encounter would've been like if they'd met when they were older?
Romeo: Hey baby, Heaven must be missing an angel. Mind if I crawl up to your balcony tonight?
Juliet: The fuck?!
*taser crackles...Romeo screams*
Anyhoo, this isn't a romance, it's a cautionary tale.
And a pretty funny one at that! I originally gave it 3 stars, but I had to bump it up for making me giggle so much. Between Romeo & Juliet both crying, moping, and twirling around like tweenage girls and the rest of the cast flailing around to accommodate these idiots, this was waaaaaay better than I remembered it.
I listened to this on Playaway, so I got to have the audio version with a full cast of characters, sound effects, and music. Loved it! Totally recommend going this way if you're planning on trying out Shakespeare.
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Perhaps the two lovers weren't truly in love, but their last living moments were spent believing so, so what does it matter? How can on The people who dislike this play are the ones who view common sense over being rational, and prefer to view the world in a structured way. One of the main arguments that come across is the 'meeting, falling in love, and dying all in a weekend when Juliet is but 13'. We all must die in the end, so wouldn't you want to in the name of love than of an awful disease?
Perhaps the two lovers weren't truly in love, but their last living moments were spent believing so, so what does it matter? How can one truly know if one is in love? Is it a feeling? In that case, what is a feeling? If you believe you are in love, then you may as well be, contrary to what others might say.
The argument with the 'weak' plot; Shakespeare didn't invent Romeo and Juliet. It was infact a poem which is constantly being adapted over time. Shakespeare did add in some aspects but the meeting in the ballroom, Tybalts death, the sleeping draught and such were already in the poem.
I personally love this play, purely because it's an escape from this modern world. I'm not saying I like the treatment of women, nor the fighting, but it's like a different world that i'm never going to experience, and reading it through Shakespeare's gorgeous writing makes Verona seem all the more romantic.
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Two things struck me during this re-reading:
1) From the first scene of the play, the sexual puns are drenched in metaphorical violence (drawing your weapon, laying knife aboard, forcing women to the wall, etc.), creating a stark contrast with the purity of Romeo and Juliet's love and language, and
2) Mercutio, the Nurse and Old Capulet are something totally new both in Shakespeare and also in English drama, that is, characters who are not only realistic but whose language completely reflects th
Two things struck me during this re-reading:
1) From the first scene of the play, the sexual puns are drenched in metaphorical violence (drawing your weapon, laying knife aboard, forcing women to the wall, etc.), creating a stark contrast with the purity of Romeo and Juliet's love and language, and
2) Mercutio, the Nurse and Old Capulet are something totally new both in Shakespeare and also in English drama, that is, characters who are not only realistic but whose language completely reflects their thought processes to the point where they take on a life of their own. Shakespeare would create many other such characters, but these three are the first.
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Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, written by William Shakespeare early in his career, about two young star-crossed lovers, whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families.
Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity.
The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of
Romeo and Juliet = The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, William ShakespeareRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy, written by William Shakespeare early in his career, about two young star-crossed lovers, whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families.
Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity.
The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567.
Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris.
Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597.
The text of the first quarto version was of poor quality, however, and later editions corrected the text to conform more closely with Shakespeare's original.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «رومئو و ژولیت»؛ «رومئو و جولیت شعر عربی ترجمه علی احمد باکثیر»؛ «رومیو و ژولیت»؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1977میلادی
عنوان: رومئو و ژولیت؛ ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم علی اصغر حکمت؛ مقایسه با لیلی و مجنون نظامی، تهران، در 248ص؛ 1332؛ در سال 1333 و سال1335خورشیدی با عنوان پنج حکایت؛
عنوان: رومئو و ژولیت؛ ویلیام شکسپیر؛ مترجم: هدایت کاظمی؛ تهران، نشر هنر، سال 2536 = 1356؛ در 225ص؛ موضوع نمایشنامه های نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 16م
مترجم: علاء الدین پازارگادی؛ تهران، علمی و فرهنگی، 1375؛ در 223ص؛ چاپ دهم 1385؛ شابک 9789644451676؛ چاپ چهاردهم 1392؛
مترجم: فواد نظیری؛ تهران، نشر روایت، 1375؛ در 191ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، ثالث، 1377، شابک 9646404332؛ چاپ بعدی 1380، چاپ هفتم 1394؛ در 191ص؛ شابک 9789646404335؛ چاپ هشتم 1395؛
مترجم: هوشنگ آزادی ور؛ نشر مرداد، 1379؛ در نه و 147ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، رشدیه؛ 1395؛ در 184ص؛ شابک 9786009168576؛
مترجم: مریم رسولی؛ تهران، اردیبهشت، 1390؛ در 223ص؛ شابک 9789641710882؛
مترجم: مریم نظری؛ مصطفی اکبری؛ قم، نوید ظهور، 1393؛ در 144ص؛
مترجم: شیما طیبی جزایری؛ تهران، گیسا، 1393؛ در 82ص؛ برای نوجوانان
مجله فرهنگی «بهار»، که در سال 1328خورشیدی توسط «یوسف اعتصامی (ملقب به اعتصامالملک پدر پروین اعتصامی)» منتشر میشد، در شناساندن «شکسپیر» جایگاه ویژه ای داشت؛ در یکی از نخستین شماره های آن ماهنامه، نخستین بیوگرافی کامل درباره ی «شکسپیر» منتشر کرده، و از «شکسپیر» به عنوان «یکی از اعاظم شعرا و اساتید ارباب نظم و نثر» یاد نموده است؛ «اعتصامالملک» که به زبانهای «عربی» و «فرانسه» تسلط داشتند، افزون بر اشعار، به نمایشنامههای «شکسپیر» نیز توجه نشان دادند، و برخی از آنها را، با نامهای «افسانه لیر (شاه لیر)» و «ای محبوبه من رومیو و ژولیت)» به فارسی برگرداندند
ترجمه های بسیاری با عنوان «رومئو و ژولیت» چاپ شده، که بازنگاری نویسندگان، از اثر: «ویلیام شکسپیر» است، که به فارسی برگردان شده اند
تراژدی «رومئو و ژولیت»، روایت داستان دو دلداده ی عاشق، و از نخستین آثار استاد سخن «ویلیام شکسپیر» است؛ ایشان کششی به آثار عاشقانه دوران باستان داشتند؛ درونمایه، براساس داستانی «ایتالیائی» است، که به صورت شعر، و با عنوان «تاریخ باستانی رومئو و ژولیت»، اثر «آرتور برووک»، در سال 1562میلادی، و به صورت نثر، در سال 1591میلادی، توسط «ویلیام پینتر»، نوشته شده اند؛ «شکسپیر»، در نگارش اثر خویش، از هر دو اثر سود برده، و شخصیتهای «مرکوشیو» و «پاریس» را نیز دیگر کرده، اثر ایشان، نخستین بار در سال 1597میلادی، به چاپ رسیده است؛
چکیده: قهرمانان نمایشنامه، دختر و پسری، از دو خانواده ی بزرگ و رقیب، در شهر «ورونا» هستند، که با یکدیگر دشمنی، و اختلاف دیرینه دارند؛ «رومئو»، که از خاندان «مونتگیو» است، به امید دیدار با «رزالین»، دختری که «رومئو» دلباخته اش شده، به ضیافت «لرد کپیولت» میرود؛ آنجاست که «رومئو»، دختر «لرد کپیولت»، «ژولیت» را دیدار، و «رزالین» را فراموش میکند و ...؛ ...؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 28/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 11/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
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• fall in love with hot boy/girl (delete as appropriate) that parents can't stand;
• tender words and some sex - gotta find out what that's like;
• major tragic incident that really wasn't your fault, you were provoked;
• everyone's mad at you;
• die beautiful death in loved one's arms;
• parents finally understand how much they cared about you and are sorry they didn't treat you better when you were alive.
So how did Shakespeare manage to
Every emo fourteen year old's dream. In bullet-point form:• fall in love with hot boy/girl (delete as appropriate) that parents can't stand;
• tender words and some sex - gotta find out what that's like;
• major tragic incident that really wasn't your fault, you were provoked;
• everyone's mad at you;
• die beautiful death in loved one's arms;
• parents finally understand how much they cared about you and are sorry they didn't treat you better when you were alive.
So how did Shakespeare manage to turn this heap of crap, which even Zac Efron would think twice about, into one of the most moving stories of all time? If you still need proof that he was a genius, look no further.
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i went to verona this past weekend and there is a very special experience that comes from reading a story in the same place where it is set. the city has a very romantic feel to it, but its a gentle and quiet romance. which is completely different from the urgent and desperate love between romeo and juliet.
we could argue for days about whether or not romeo and juliet were actually in love with each other (let alone old enough to know what love is) b
'in fair verona, where we lay our scene..'i went to verona this past weekend and there is a very special experience that comes from reading a story in the same place where it is set. the city has a very romantic feel to it, but its a gentle and quiet romance. which is completely different from the urgent and desperate love between romeo and juliet.
we could argue for days about whether or not romeo and juliet were actually in love with each other (let alone old enough to know what love is) but, for me, my focus isnt the story. its how its told. the writing in this is so lovely (even when tybalt gets called a saucy boy lololol). i think shakespeare is a genius and the way his characters express love and longing and desire in this is really something else.
'come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;
give me my romeo; and, when i shall die,
take him and cut him out in little stars,
and he will make the face of heaven so fine
that all the world will be in love with night.'
maybe i just fell under the spell of city, or maybe shakespeares words really do have a profound effect on the reader, but i enjoyed this play and these star-crossed lovers. and its true what the prince says, 'for never was a story of more woe than this of juliet and her romeo.'
↠ 4.5 stars
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I will be the first to admit that I although I enjoy reading through modern drama, usually Pulitzer winners, Shakespeare is tough for me. The language I am able to slog through; however, most plots are dull and leave me with much to be the desired. The only dramas I enjoy enough to want to reread is The Merchant of Venice and MacBeth for their strong, female protagonists. Which, brings me back to Romeo and Juliet. Most people know the basis of the story, one that has been retold so many times that it is part of western vernacular. My favorite version of Romeo and Juliet is the musical Westside Story. The song that begins "when you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way" sets the tone for the entire musical: the Jets and Sharks just flat out don't like each other but they are loyal to members of their own gang until their last dying day. This plot comes right out of Romeo and Juliet which features the Montagues and Capulets of Verona who have been feuding for time eternal. Like its more modern counterpart, the Montagues and Capulets just flat out don't like one another no matter the circumstances. It has always been thus and no member of the leadership of either family has done anything to lessen the feud.
All these feelings of ill will change on one special night when young Romeo Montague is smitten with Juliet Capulet at a masked ball. The two instantly fall in love and do everything in their power to hide their romance from their feuding family members, parents included. I can understand why this is the play often assigned to fourteen year olds because what young teenager has not been smitten and thinks that he/she is in love. Combine this with the aspect of star crossed lovers who are going against the prevailing trends of society, and there are many directions that a teacher can go in while discussing this with students. Boys will like enjoy the dueling between members of the Montagues and Capulets and perhaps also the innuendo imagery that Romeo uses to describe Juliet whereas, perhaps, girls will swoon over the descriptions of Romeo and how he does everything in his power to marry and be with Juliet for all eternity. Reading through adult eyes and admittedly 21st century eyes, I enjoyed the plot myself as well as descriptions of Juliet. The star-crossed lover unique aspect of this play allowed me to read it quicker than I would with other Shakespearean drama that I find tedious to get through at best.
Despite the imagery and the storyline, Shakespeare's language was still a bore for me to read. The planning and plotting and long soliloquies made for heavy reading. The story of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet and the consequences of their relationship could be completed in one to two acts. Yet, then the story would not be a Shakespearean five act timeless classic. Perhaps because I am reading this drama during the 21st century where people need information before it happens makes plays with more speaking than action too slow at times for modern readers. Even with modern literature, unless it is quality literary fiction, I find it sluggish to get through slow moving novels with little plot movement, and prefer those novels with shorter chapters. After rereading a number of Shakespearean plays over the past few years I have come to realize that unless there is a lot of plot development-- feuding, fighting, falling in love, illicit marriage, more fighting-- that it is a challenge for me to get through the text. Lucky for me that Romeo and Juliet contains the elements of a quality story so it is only the text that challenges me, not the story itself.
Shakespeare's story of star-crossed lovers remains timeless classic that has been redone many times over. Romeo and Juliet have made appearances in some form on Broadway plays to Hollywood movies including a modern version starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo. Without stretching one's imagination all that much, Romeo and Juliet even resurface in the Star Wars story during the prequel trilogy. Their imagery is everywhere in modern society and by telling of two feuding groups as a backdrop, Shakespeare created a tale that could relate to people across many places and times, from school groups to rival governments. Now that I got through my first book of the year I am excited to get a jump start on bingo and my other challenges, both in groups and personal ones. Whether I read another Shakespeare remains to be seen because at the end of the day, if there are no feuds, fights, star-crossed lovers, and other elements of a modern story, Shakespeare's long soliloquies are not really my taste.
3.75 stars
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The two teenaged lovers, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love the first time they see each other, but their families' feud requires they remain mortal enemies. Ultimately, the characters love does resolve the hatred, but at the price of their lives.
Romeo and Juliet in the famous balcony scene
Romeo and Juliet
Juliet is the thirteen year old, beautiful daughter of the aristocratic Capulet's. She begins the play as a naïve child who ha
"For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."The two teenaged lovers, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love the first time they see each other, but their families' feud requires they remain mortal enemies. Ultimately, the characters love does resolve the hatred, but at the price of their lives.
Romeo and Juliet in the famous balcony scene
Romeo and Juliet
Juliet is the thirteen year old, beautiful daughter of the aristocratic Capulet's. She begins the play as a naïve child who has thought little about love and marriage. As a young woman her role is to obediently wait for her parents to marry her to someone and when her mother announces that Paris will be her future husband, Juliet's response is obedient, but unenthusiastic. But she grows up quickly upon falling in love with Romeo, the son of her family's great enemy, the Montaque. Trusting her entire life and future to Romeo shows courage but also desperation, particularly after he killed her cousin and requires her to turn against her family.
Romeo is the young, handsome and intelligent son of the Montague's. Though impulsive and immature, he shows idealism and great passion. At the beginning of the play he is madly in love with a woman named Rosaline, but forgets all about her, the instant he lays eyes on Juliet, though daughter of his father's worst enemy. Romeo goes to extremes to prove the seriousness of his feelings, secretly marries Juliet, kills her cousin in a duel and would rather die than live without his beloved.
Double Suicide
Juliet takes a potion to appear as dead, Romeo believes her to be actually dead and kills himself with poison, Juliet awakes and stabbes herself in the heard
The themes of death and violence permeate Romeo and Juliet, and they are always connected to passion, whether that passion is love or hate. In the play, love is a grand passion, and as such it is blinding; it can overwhelm a person as powerfully and completely as hate can. The passionate love between Romeo and Juliet is linked from the moment of its inception with death. Juliets cousin determines to kill Romeo, just as he catches sight of Juliet and falls instantly in love with her. Romeo and Juliet are plagued with thoughts of suicide, and a willingness to experience it. Romeo brandishes a knife and threatens to kill himself after he has been banished from Verona and his love. Juliet also pulls a knife in order to take her own life. After Capulet decides that Juliet will marry Paris, Juliet says, "If all else fail, myself have power to die". Finally, each imagines that the other looks dead the morning after their first, and only, sexual experience. This theme continues until its inevitable conclusion: double suicide. This tragic choice is the highest, most potent expression of love that Romeo and Juliet can make. It is only through death that they can preserve their love, and their love is so profound that they are willing to end their lives in its defense. In the play, love emerges as an amoral thing, leading as much to destruction as to happiness. But in its extreme passion, the love that Romeo and Juliet experience also appears so exquisitely beautiful that few would want, or be able, to resist its power.
Social Pressure
A war between two families: The Capulet's vs. the Montague's
It is possible to see Romeo and Juliet as a battle between the social world and the private desires of the individual. The enmity between their families, coupled with the emphasis placed on loyalty and honor, combine to create a profound conflict for Romeo and Juliet, who must rebel against their heritages and their Christianity. Further, the patriarchal power structure inherent in Renaissance families, wherein the father controls the action of all other family members, particularly women, places Juliet in an extremely vulnerable position. Her heart, in her family's mind, is not hers to give. Their love gives both lovers a sense of freedom. But no sooner are the lovers happily married than the play shifts from comedy to tragedy.
Romeo, believes himself freed from the feud kills Juliets Capulet cousin, after he killed his Montague friend. Although he was provoked into the murder, and would have been killed had he not killed first, he is no longer an innocent, blameless character. It now seems unlikely that Romeo and Juliet will be able to live happily together. Romeo is banished from Verona. Before he leaves, he and Juliet spend their first—and last—night together. At dawn both try to believe that morning hasn't come, since the new day brings nothing but grief. Neither character can go back to who they were before they met, but the possibility of them being together is very slim. For Romeo, reality takes the form of his banishment from Verona to Mantua, for Juliet, reality is her impending marriage Paris. The two lovers' separate fates close in on them. In a desperate attempt to escape her forced marriage, Juliet fakes her own death, using a sleeping potion. But an outbreak of plague in Mantua, prevents Romeo from getting the news that Juliet's only asleep. Romeo rushes to Juliet's tomb, where he finds Paris. Romeo kills Paris, then enters Juliet's tomb and kills himself moments before she wakes because he believes her to be dead. When Juliet finds Romeo dead, she stabs herself with his dagger. By killing themselves, the lovers accept that they are trapped by their fate. At the same time, they are freed from the world that has kept them apart.
Are Romeo and Juliet really in love?
Romeo marries the thirteen year old Juliet in secret, only one day after they have met
The lovers' haste raises questions about the legitimacy of their affection for one another. Do they truly love each other, or has Romeo merely a teenage crush and Juliet sexual desire, fear of being married to a stranger and a possible way out? If we look, we can find plenty of evidence that Romeo and Juliet's love for one another is, at least initially, immature. Romeo begins the play claiming to be passionately in love with another woman, Rosaline. When he sees Juliet, he abandons Rosaline before he has even spoken to his new love, which suggests that his feelings for both women are superficial. Juliet, meanwhile, seems to be motivated by defying her parents. She is unenthusiastic about her parents' choice of husband for her, and at the party where she is supposed to meet Paris, she instead kisses Romeo after exchanging just fourteen lines of dialogue with him. Juliet's love for Romeo seems at least in part to be a desire to be freed from her parents' control by a husband who can't control her either. Yet, while the two characters may have initially fell for each other due to a mixture of convenience, rebellion and lust, Romeo and Juliet's language shows their passion maturing into real love. When Romeo sees Juliet, the clichés drop away, and he begins to describe his feelings in original terms. When they are together, Romeo and Juliet create a shared vocabulary. As their relationship develops, they use less rhyme, which has the effect of making their language feel less artificial. In their final scene before they part for good, Romeo and Juliet are on the brink of talking about something other than their thwarted love, before being prevented from having their first real conversation by Romeo's banishment.
"Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall."
For each part the death of the other means that they are socially ruined and that they have no way of going back. For Romeo finding Juliet dead means that he became a murderer and was banished from his city for no reason. He betrayed his families alliance by marring the daughter of the enemy and thereby lost their sympathies and his home. By marring in secret against the Capulet's wishes, Juliet burned all bridges of returning to her family and finding a decent husband who would allow her a happy future. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is not the power of their love, but that the lovers never get the chance to see if their love will grow into a mature, enduring relationship, that would have saved them.
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Thou talk'st of nothing.
MERCUTIO: True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind.
Read this one many years ago so it was time for a reread. Witty, sarcastic, and sad, enjoyed it all over again.
I enjoyed actually reading Juliet's melodramatic expressions of love....."O R
Excellent! I can't believe I've waited so long to read this classic play! Having only surmised the story of ROMEO AND JULIET and not even seen the movie (yet) I now know Romeo was a Montague and Juliet a Capulet, two houses at odds. I know about the disastrous duels, the secret marriage, the surprise suitor and the botched plan; and then there's the fatal ending..... I even had that wrong, and OMGOSH they were so young!I enjoyed actually reading Juliet's melodramatic expressions of love....."O Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" and "Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow....That I shall say good-night till it be morrow." But, IMHO, none were better than this one......
"Give me my Romeo. And, when I shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun."
Bring on more Shakespeare! Unforgettable read!
Update: March, 2016
Oh Boy! Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 movie version of Romeo and Juliet is excellent! Just like reading the screenplay. Loved it!
Thank you GR friends Sara, Lisa and Jonetta for the recommendation!
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As I looked over my previously read books and searched for one that was missing a review, Romeo and Juliet stood out to me. But then I thought about it... who doesn't know about this play? Who hasn't read it in school sometime in the past? Who hasn't watched a movie version or seen some sort of take on the classic tortured romance story? And why on earth would anyone care to read another review, let alone my review, on it? Exactly. So... don't look for much here as I'm sure mos Review
As I looked over my previously read books and searched for one that was missing a review, Romeo and Juliet stood out to me. But then I thought about it... who doesn't know about this play? Who hasn't read it in school sometime in the past? Who hasn't watched a movie version or seen some sort of take on the classic tortured romance story? And why on earth would anyone care to read another review, let alone my review, on it? Exactly. So... don't look for much here as I'm sure most everyone has read it already. And I'm not that funny to even make reading my opinions worth it. That said... a few shared thoughts about what I've learned from this play:
1. Parents exist to torture their children. It's a simple fact. If your child wants X, it is your responsibility to keep X away from him/her.
2. Love will always end in disaster. Don't attempt it without proper back-up.
3. Even though someone looks dead, they probably aren't. Kill them again just to be sure.
4. Your bros or girls don't always have your back.
5. Magic powders are the cure for everything. Always trust what you don't understand. And just inhale it like the world is about to end.
In all sincerity, I do like the play a lot. I've enjoyed countless interpretations. I think parts of it are brilliant and parts of it are pure illogical nonsense. Every TV show and movie has their own re-appropriation to tell. Not everything can be perfect when it comes to love. But this play certainly teaches a lot of lessons and provides a lot of bumps. And this reader still goes along for the ride...
About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.
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And then I saw the movie Shakespeare in Love (on cable TV, years after it was in the theaters). The movie has Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow doing numerous scenes from R&J together, not to mention a little Dame Judi Dench on the side, which always helps, and I totally ate it up. The actors were amazing, and it hit me right in the heart.
So all of that is to say that yes, Shakespeare is a genius, but sometimes it just takes the right set of actors in one of his shows to make you love it emotionally as well as intellectually. Which reminds me of my favorite actors ever in a Shakespeare production, Oberon and Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream ... but that's a different story.
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I have never enjoyed Shakespearean writing as much as I did in this play. It is passionate, lyrical, and humorous. It is amazing that you find all these in a tra
My first reaction when the read was over is why on earth it took me so long to read this beautiful work of Shakespeare having it physically with me all this while. Perhaps, I thought I didn't really need to read it since I know the story from the movie adaptations I have watched. How foolish! I had no idea what I had missed for so long.I have never enjoyed Shakespearean writing as much as I did in this play. It is passionate, lyrical, and humorous. It is amazing that you find all these in a tragedy; only a great master can accomplish that feat. The story is both romantic and tragic, as we well know. But what is incredible is that the play is a "beautiful" tragedy.
This is one of the most outstanding plays that I have read. I loved it. I haven't read many Shakespearean tragedies, and in my mind, no tragedy will outmatch the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet. It certainly will be my favourite Shakespearean tragedy.
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So you're at a nice outdoor cafe one day, eating your lunch, and all of a sudden some fool kids come running through the square with their swords out (apparently they've got some strong Second Amendment advocates in Verona) and insist on skewering each other right there in front of you in the square! And seriously all you want to do is just eat your (damn fine, not that anyone asked you) pasta and get back to work before your lord finds some excuse to fire you. But nooooo,
"Hey! I'm eatin' here!"So you're at a nice outdoor cafe one day, eating your lunch, and all of a sudden some fool kids come running through the square with their swords out (apparently they've got some strong Second Amendment advocates in Verona) and insist on skewering each other right there in front of you in the square! And seriously all you want to do is just eat your (damn fine, not that anyone asked you) pasta and get back to work before your lord finds some excuse to fire you. But nooooo, instead you've gotta deal with a whole lot of screaming, panicky, dangerous crowds rubbernecking around (and betting on) these rich kids fighting over who knows (or cares) what and there's no way you're gonna get back in time.
Yeah.. that's about the read I got from Shakespeare on this play. This is an excellent deconstruction of the elements that make up major Greek tragedies, breaking it down into parts and fitting them into modern day (or it was then) society. Shakespeare was a great adapter of older tales retold to suit his own purposes, and here, it shows.
So there's this Greek story, right? It's set up on this grand scale, with major, crashing chords that are played over and over throughout the tale. There's the Greek chorus, of course, at the beginning and then somewhere in the middle to remind us what it is we're watching. There's a good deal of sky imagery to go along with this invoking of the old gods- moons, suns, clouds, night, stars, dreams, even the otherworldly fae("Juliet is the sun," "the lark the herald of the dawn" "take him and cut him into little stars", the Queen Mab speech, tons of other examples). By the same token, the gods of the Underworld are equally called to witness- lots of death, grave, earth imagery as well (examples: too many to count). These extreme terms are then often juxtaposed next to each other ("wedding bed/grave" is probably the most frequently used, for obvious reasons) throughout the course of the tale.
Through this, Shakespeare shows you just how seriously his main characters take everything that's going on. Especially Romeo and Juliet, of course, but also all the other family members of the Capulets and Montagues (with the exception of Mercutio). Everything is on a Grand Scale. Everything is the Most Important Thing Ever! Nothing could be more Lofty!....
Until Shakespeare quite strongly states his opposition to that idea.
He thrusts this Grand Tragedy into the midst of a bustling, thriving city, where the participants must brush elbows with and be interrupted by the every day facts of life. He uses each stupid mistake to show us all the ways the end we know is coming could have been and should have been averted, were it not for the stupidest thing that could possibly happen happening in every single scenario. I ended up thinking this after seeing all those scenes of servants at the Capulet house preparing for parties, servants running about the city with messages, escorting Nurse on her errands, inserting a plague that prevented the letter from getting to Romeo. While the two teenage idiots are upstairs enacting this farce, life is happening all around them, and they are just way way too self-centered to see it. Juliet is a bit more aware than Romeo, though. She understands the conflict between the two families, what it will likely mean for them, what she needs to do to get what she wants, and how to accomplish it. And yet... even she is so centered on the fulfillment of what she wants she can barely pause to think of others. There's a great little moment when Nurse comes back from seeing Romeo in the square and Juliet is really impatient to hear what he had to say. Nurse is all 'I'm old! I'm out of breath, give me a second!' Juliet doesn't seem to really care if she dies on the spot, so long as she gets the information she wants, and then Nurse says, accidentally, the words that I think explain this whole play:
Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a
courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I
warrant, a virtuous,--Where is your mother?
EXACTLY. She's THIRTEEN, you guys. That's exactly what he SHOULD have said when he met her, and didn't. You know why? 'Cause Romeo's a virgin who really really would prefer not to be. He tells the Friar that he likes Juliet instead of Rosalind now because she loves him back and will presumably have sex with him whereas Rosalind would not. Friar's great response: "O, she (Rosalind) knew well/Thy love did read by rote and could not spell."
Just another case of why True Love Waits is a poor plan! If only Romeo had himself a girlfriend, this whole thing could have been avoided.
This play displays the soul of adolescence. Both positive and negative. Negative seems to be more promiently on display at first. The characters are self-centered, impatient, convinced that if what they want doesn't come true the way they want it to, the whole world will end. There's also another big adolescent theme: masks. Teenagers spend a lot of time trying to figure out what face they want to wear to the world, what they want to present themselves as, so it makes sense that there's tons of masks, hiding (lots of hiding) and subterfuge going on here.
What's interesting to me though is that it also shows the other side of adolescence, the part that's thinking about growing up, but can't quite leave behind his childish things. One major example of this to me the influence of several characters on Romeo- Mercutio and the Friar, even Benvolio. It seems to me that they're starting to get through to the guy in the short time he's there. Especially Mercutio. He gets him to go to the party, gets him to laugh and joke again, and manages to give him some fine counsel into the bargain. I witnessed a lot of echoes of Mercutio coming out in Romeo... they just don't seem to quite take hold. For instance there's Mercutio's magnificent Queen Mab speech, which he follows up with: "True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind"
Ie, don't take all these heart burnings so seriously, kid! Romeo does appear to consider this later, though he does dismiss it. Similarly, the Friar's long speech about manhood (ie, his great smackdown of how why Romeo is terrible) seems to get to him, even Benvolio's urgings that he'll find someone else to love at the banquet seem to have worked (if not quite in the way he intended). He just couldn't quite get there. Juliet herself... well, I think we see a lot of the mature woman that she could have become- but she doesn't have a woman's experience or resources yet and she ends up giving up rather than having the opportunity to grow. Which, funnily enough, her father predicts in the first act when Paris asks for her hand in marriage with: "Younger than she are happy mothers made," and the dad answers with, "And too soon marr'd are those so early made." Of course, he then proceeds to do the opposite of his own advice, but I don't think that undermines the message.
Elizabeth mentioned in her review that she thought there were a lot of comedic elements in this play. I agree- what with the servant characters, the stupid mixups, and that raillery that takes place between the minor members of the family, and that one Romeo/Mercutio scene before the Nurse interrupts them. My closest guess is that was Shakespeare saying, "Look! I could be writing this! But instead, you people want to see this stupid stupid tale enacted stupidly, so I can't! I can write this soapy crap if you want me to, but this isn't who I am."
Or, as Mercutio says:
"Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
for this driveling love is like a great natural,
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole."
And yet... for all of that annoyance, that satire, that social criticism, that biting realism... for all of that, Shakespeare still gives this tale a beautiful sympathy, putting gorgeous words into the mouths of his leads. He makes Romeo and Juliet people, people you can envision and who you know, people you don't want to see die, in spite of all their errors right there in front of you. He respects the beauty in the craziness, explores it in wonder. He was, after all, a storyteller, and if this was a story to affect people, it deserved to be told and told as well as he knew it to be in him to do, with a understanding that extends from his characters to the audience that wanted to see it.
It is worth reading. Even if you think you've heard it all before. After all, even if you don't like it it is "not so long as (it) is a tedious tale."
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The book has its merits as well as the demerits. Shakespeare is the vacuum. You can keep your experiments going on... I would like to rather appreciate him for his creation this time. I enjoyed reading the play and truly did! ...more
My senior year of high school, however, my drama teacher selected it as our spring play. I was stage manager, and I was horrified when he told me. I pl
The first time I read Romeo and Juliet (my freshman year of high school), I hated it. I had always heard it built up as a great love story, a great romance- and I didn't see it at all. To me, it seemed a pretty pointless story about a couple of idiotic teenagers in lust. The ridiculous essays I was forced to compose about it certainly didn't help.My senior year of high school, however, my drama teacher selected it as our spring play. I was stage manager, and I was horrified when he told me. I pleaded for anything but R & J. But as I worked through the lines with my actors, and saw the scenes slowly put together, I came to realize the power and the beauty of the play.
Yes, they are somewhat idiotic teenagers in lust: but the sweeping passion of adolescence, with all its power and impatience, is something worth looking at in itself.
I don't know why English classes always seem to assign R & J to teenagers- I think it's a play that is actually much better appreciated by those who are past their own early adolescence. Because now, I love it.
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WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:
"Bruce Springsteen mixes Shakespeare's best known romance with electric guitars, pianos, keyboards and saxophones." (Rolling Stoned)
"Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, cars, bikes, gangs, bangs, brawls, literature, blood, sugar, death, magik, kitchen sinks, meatloaf, clowns. It's got everythnig." (Grauniad)
"E-Street Bard." (Village Voyce)
"Star-crossed Lovers Killed by Loose Windscreen." (Notional Enqu
ROMEO AND JULIET: THE MUSICAL (A BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN PRODUCTIONS EXTRAVAGANZA)WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:
"Bruce Springsteen mixes Shakespeare's best known romance with electric guitars, pianos, keyboards and saxophones." (Rolling Stoned)
"Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, cars, bikes, gangs, bangs, brawls, literature, blood, sugar, death, magik, kitchen sinks, meatloaf, clowns. It's got everythnig." (Grauniad)
"E-Street Bard." (Village Voyce)
"Star-crossed Lovers Killed by Loose Windscreen." (Notional Enquirer)
"The Boss Updates Big Willie" (The Unyun)
"Bruce Shakesteen or William Springspeare: You Decide!" (Variete)
"I Haven't Seen It. Have You Seen My Backlog of GR Notifications?" (Paul Bryant)
"Like." (Bird Brian)
"Well everybody better move over, that's all/He's running on the bad side/And he's got his back to the wall/Tenth avenue freeze-out, tenth avenue freeze-out" (Richard)
"This show sets the bar very high, almost out of reach of regular top-shelf drinking patrons." (Bruce Shakespeare, The Australian Shakespearience Dinner and Floorshow)
CHORUS:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
BRUCE:
The midnight gang's assembled
And picked a rendezvous for the night
Man there's an opera on the turnpike
There's a ballet being fought in the alley
PRINCE:
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona's ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate.
BRUCE:
Outside the street's on fire
In a real death waltz
Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
And the poets down here
Don't write nothing at all
They just stand back and let it all be
PRINCE:
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.
BRUCE:
In the quick of the night
They reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand
But they wind up wounded
Not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland
CHORUS:
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows,
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
Enter Romeo, still love-sick for Rosaline.
ROMEO:
Rosaline, jump a little higher
Senorita, come sit by my fire
I just want to be your lover, ain't no liar
Rosaline, you're my stone desire
MERCUTIO:
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air
And more inconstant than the wind.
BRUCE:
In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway Italian dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines
Romeo, still pining for Rosaline, discovers Juliet and becomes newly infatuated.
ROMEO:
Juliet, let me in, I wanna be your friend,
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Bruce realises he has competition for Juliet's love and wants to elope without her parents' permission.
BRUCE:
Together we could break this trap
We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back
Romeo pleads even harder, now he has learned about his rival, Bruce.
ROMEO:
I gotta know how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
Babe, I want to know if love is real
Oh, Juliet, can you show me
Juliet learns that Romeo comes from a rival family.
JULIET:
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Juliet falls for Romeo regardless.
JULIET:
What 's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Juliet decides she must confront Bruce and tell him they are not meant to be.
JULIET:
Bruce, the angels have lost their desire for us
I spoke to them just last night
and they said they won't
set themselves on fire
for us anymore
Bruce persists, trying to hold onto the memory of their love.
JULIET:
I'm really sorry, Bruce
I've gotta set you loose
I know you've got a beat up old Buick
And dreams of something better for me
But, frankly, I just can't see it
My vision for me can't be achieved
In the back seat of a second hand Fiat
While your friends hang around drinking Corona
BRUCE:
You say you don't like it
But girl I know you're a liar
'Cause when we kiss
Ooooh, Fire
Juliet grows weak and almost falls.
BRUCE:
What is wrong, my love?
JULIET:
I have the worst headache.
BRUCE:
Here take some of these now, and again when you feel the pain coming on.
Bruce gives her a small glass bottle of non-prescription drugs. Blue tablets.
JULIET:
How many should I take?
BRUCE:
No more than two every four hours.
Juliet takes three tablets immediately.
JULIET:
It hurts me to say but you gotta know it
There's no point in remaining coy
I can't marry you, Bruce.
I could never be happy with a boy
From Long Branch, New Jersey
No amateur actor or drama queen
No busboy, bellhop or dead ringer
For De Niro or a film student from Pomona
Not for me, your guitar-slinging outlaw singer
I crave more than an Asbury Duke or an E Street Loner.
Romeo looks dashing in his open-necked shirt and film director scarf. Juliet has never seen anything like him.
The love between Romeo and Juliet grows in leaps and bounds.
JULIET:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
ROMEO:
Beneath the city two hearts beat
Soul engines running through a night so tender
In a bedroom locked
In whispers of soft refusal
And then surrender.
JULIET:
I long for a real hot-blooded man
An alpha male of the highest order
A man of another world from here
Someone from across the border
I don't just mean New Jersey
Or Philadelphia, PA
You see, I love a Prince from far Verona
With a flash suit and money to burn,
A mansion and a real fast car
A smart haircut and a leather-coated boner
He's waiting for me now
I've got him in my view
He's the rising son
Of the House of Montague
ROMEO:
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
CHORUS:
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
Juliet feels no relief for her headache. She opens the bottle and takes another two tablets. It's only an hour since her last dose.
JULIET:
I want to be a star
Of the stage and screen
I don't want a bit part
Or a role that's obscene
I've had enough of men who work
All week for minimum wages
I want to be remembered
Through time eternal...and for ages and ages
My love's a director who makes serious films
Not just action flics designed to wow
Even his money men are all agreed
"Romeo, Romeo, we're for art now"
The moment he cast his eyes on me
He sat me down and cast me on his couch
He said he'd get my photo in the magazines
And we'd drive around all night in limousines
Romeo and Juliet resolve to escape in Romeo's car.
JULIET:
Just so I could live in this promised land
I turned my back on Bruce's traveling band
No more Buicks or Fiats for this Capulet
Dear husband, I pledge to be your wife, Juliet
So I can feature in a film cameo
In the front seat of your Alfa, Romeo.
Tybalt chases them on a motor bike. He crosses suddenly into Romeo's path and clips the front edge of the car. He loses control of his bike and falls to the thundering road. Romeo can't avoid running over the top of Tybalt and killing him. Still, Romeo rolls his car three times while taking evasive action, and both Romeo and Juliet are knocked unconscious when their heads hit the side door panels.
ROMEO:
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead (in that order).
Juliet wakes first, only to look over to the driver's seat, where she sees Romeo. She can't tell if he is alive or dead. She realises that her headache has now become extreme. If she can treat her pain, she can try to help Romeo.
She touches her forehead where it hit the inside of the car door and pulls her hand away, covered in blood that still seems to be flowing profusely. Tears form in her eyes and her eyesight becomes blurry. She reaches into her purse and takes another four tablets, in the hope that it will kill her pain. She lapses into unconsciousness.
Shortly afterwards, Romeo awakes and finds Juliet still beside him. There is blood everywhere and a white froth has descended from her lips and dried on her chin.
ROMEO:
O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Romeo wipes the froth from her lips and gives her one last kiss. He lifts the left leg of his trousers and pulls out his knife.
ROMEO:
O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love!
Romeo drags the knife across his throat. He drops the knife and holds his hand to the artery in his neck. He continues to feel the slow, regular pumping of his heart, until it pumps no more.
Now, Juliet wakes again. Still groggy, she looks over to Romeo. Convinced by the abundance of blood that he has died, she shakes the rest of the tablets in the bottle into her hand and swallows them eagerly.
JULIET:
O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
She kisses Romeo and dies.
PRINCE:
Never was a story of more woe
Than this of Bruce, Juliet and her Romeo.
Bruce lives alone and works his day job, almost like an automaton. His only salvation is the time he spends in his beat up old Buick. Every night, he drives the streets of Verona, haunted by the love he felt for Juliet and the guilt that it was the pills he gave her that took her life. Sometimes, through the tears in his eyes, he imagines that he sees her walking down the street, only to lose sight of her as she slips quietly down an alleyway.
BRUCE:
You're still in love with all the wonder she brings
And every muscle in your body sings as the highway ignites
You work nine to five and somehow you survive till the night
Hell all day they're busting you up on the outside
But tonight you're gonna break on through to the inside
And it'll be right, it'll be right, and it'll be tonight
And you know she will be waiting there
And you'll find her somehow you swear
Somewhere tonight you run sad and free
Until all you can see is the night.
APOLOGIES:
Please don't sue me, Boss.
How can I possibly argue that your lyrics deserve to be on the same page as Shakespeare, unless I shamelessly misappropriate them in the pursuit of parody, pastiche, spoof, send-up or lampoon?
This isn't damning with faint praise. This is no piss-take. This is a full-on homage, a big hurrah, a laud almighty. I say, more kudos to the Boss!
As the literary theorist Linda Hutcheon puts it (as quoted by my WikiLawyer), "parody...is imitation, not always at the expense of the parodied text."
I already have multiple copies of your albums on both CD and vinyl, even the boring ones. I don't need any more, until you release 50th anniversary editions with bonus disks I don't already have. [I really hope I'm still around in 2045, so I can be the first to buy "The Ghost of Tom Joad Uncut".]
If that doesn't convince you it's not worth suing me, Brucewad, I won't have any money left to support this great music industry of ours that is being killed by illegal downloads.
Please get your lawyers to spare my humble upload.
And if they do come looking for me, they'd better be pretty damned fit, coz tramps like us, baby we were born to run.
...more
"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
"Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
The very word "Romeo" has become synonymous with "male lover" in English, and the idea of the doomed romantic lovers, whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families, is famous world
Who does not know the story of Romeo and Juliet? And these immortal lines,"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
"Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow."
The very word "Romeo" has become synonymous with "male lover" in English, and the idea of the doomed romantic lovers, whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families, is famous world-wide. It has been adapted numerous times for stage, film, musical, opera and radio; the latest film went on general release just a few months ago in 2013.
However, Shakespeare did not invent the story of Romeo and Juliet. He reworked a long poem by Arthur Brooks, called "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet", written in 1562. The tradition of tragic romances had been well established in literature - in particular Italian literature - for almost a hundred years, but what may be surprising is that many of the plot elements of Romeo and Juliet were all in Brooks' poem. The first meeting of the lovers at the ball, their secret marriage, Romeo's fight with Tybalt, the sleeping potion, and even the timing of their eventual suicides, are all episodes which we usually attribute to Shakespeare. This is characteristic of the author, who often wrote plays based on earlier works.
Shakespeare's text is believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, and as such was one of his earliest performed plays, although not published until later. It was an immediate success; so popular that Shakespeare continued to rework and hone the notes from the play's performances. It was then first published in 1597, with later editions improving on it still further. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime, and has remained so, now being the most performed of all his plays alongside "Hamlet." Although the initial idea for Romeo and Juliet came from the earlier text, it is Shakespeare's wonderful play which is credited with having had such a profound influence on subsequent literature.
It starts with a short prologue, in sonnet form, which tells the audience what is to follow. Nobody can be in any doubt that the story is a tragedy about young love, and that it will take their deaths to bring an end to family feuds. We are then straight into the action, which is a masterly piece of writing, full of bawdy references to ensure his audiences' attention, while providing all the background information needed to understand the world of the play. We are immediately told about the long-standing hatred between the two feuding families, the Capulets and the Montagues, and then immediately find ourselves engaged by an exciting brawl.
Shakespeare cleverly establishes some of the major themes of the play, right at its start. He also portrays all of the layers of Veronese society starting with the servants, right through to Prince Escalus. Many of the secondary characters important to the play are also introduced here; for instance, Romeo's friend, Benvolio, thoughtful, pragmatic and fearful of the law, and Juliet's cousin Tybalt, a hothead, professing a hatred for peace as strong as his hatred for Montagues. A modern audience becomes aware that in the Verona of this play, masculine honour is not restricted to indifference to pain or insult. Tybalt makes it plain that a man must defend his honour at all times, whether the insult is verbal or physical.
Mercutio is established as another friend; one who who can poke friendly fun at Romeo quite mercilessly. Benvolio is not nearly so quick-witted. Mercutio is confident, constantly joking, making puns and laughing. He is a passionate man, but his passions are different from Romeo's love and Tybalt's hate. Their passions are founded respectively upon two ideals of society - love and honour - but Mercutio believes in neither. He comes across as the character with the clearest vision. Just as Mercutio can see through words to other meanings, he can also see through the ideals held by those around him. He understands that often they are not sincerely held, but merely adopted for convenience.
The characters in this play are multi-layered and complex, and Shakespeare is adept in revealing their subtleties by means of the action. Even as Mercutio dies, he utters his wild witticisms, cursing both the Montagues and the Capulets,
"A plague o' both your houses!
They have made worms' meat of me!"
"Ask for me tomorrow, and
You shall find me a grave man."
The character of Romeo develops significantly from the first impression we have of him as a stock callow youth. At first he is melancholy, distracted and lovelorn, as we expect. But surprisingly he is not lovesick over Juliet, but is in love with Rosaline. This love seems to stem almost entirely from the reading of bad love poetry! We understand from this that Romeo's love for Rosaline is an immature love, more a statement that he is ready to be in love than actual love. Perhaps Rosaline, who never appears in the play, exists only to demonstrate Romeo's passionate nature, his love of being in love.
We meet Juliet in scene 3, and learn that in the Verona of this play, her status as a young woman leaves her with no power or choice in any social situation. Juliet at 13 years old is completely subject to parental influence, and is being encouraged to marry her parent's choice of Paris. Lady Capulet observes wryly that that she had already given birth to Juliet herself when she was Juliet's current age, before she was 14.
In this way the forces that determine the fate of Romeo and Juliet are laid in place well before they even meet. Parental influence in the tragedy becomes a tool of fate. Juliet's arranged marriage with Paris, and the longstanding feud between Capulets and Montagues, will eventually contribute to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The reader enjoys the tension, and knowledge that terrible events are about to happen. Events and observations continually reinforce the presence and power of fate.
Juliet's speeches have many different facets, and are capable of many interpretations. She often professes one thing, whilst we know she has an ulterior motive, and another intention. This is particularly evident when she is speaking to her parents, knowing that she intends to make her own decisions, she perversely wants to speak her mind, but deliberately couches her words in double meanings so that the truth will remain hidden.
Juliet is a strong character in the play, particularly fascinating to a modern reader as she seems almost contemporary. She repeatedly goes against what is expected of women of her time and place, and takes action. The best example of this is when she drinks the sleeping potion. She comes up with many reasons why it might cause her harm, and recognises that drinking the potion might lead her to madness or even death. Yet she chooses to drink it anyway. This demonstrates a willingness to take her life into her own hands - and also hints at future events. There is never just one side to, or interpretation of, any event in this play. It is a portent. Juliet drinks the potion just as Romeo will later drink the apothecary's poison.
Another instance of ominous foreshadowing is when the Nurse teases Juliet by saying that she is too tired to tell her what happened when she first met Romeo. This delay in telling Juliet the news is mirrored in a future scene, when the Nurse's anguish prevents her from relating news to Juliet and thereby causing terrible confusion. Another example of delicious dramatic irony is when Romeo is proclaiming his love to be the most powerful force in the world. Friar Laurence advises caution, saying,
"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triump die, like fire and powder
Which, as they kiss, consume".
The reader knows that the play is a tragedy, and that Romeo and Juliet will die. Shakespeare ingeniously manipulates the plot, so that we feel the impending doom, and are swept up in the inevitability of it all. Even the characters themselves are sometimes aware that they are pawns. Romeo cries,
"O, I am fortune's fool!"
when he realises he has killed Tybalt. He knows that by killing his new wife's cousin, he will be banished from Verona, and feels the inevitability of the situation. This emphasises the sense of fate - or fortune - that hangs over the play.
Juliet also indicates in her speeches the power of fate and predestination. In her final scene with Romeo, the last moment they spend alive together, she says that he appears pale, as if he were dead. She looks out of her window and cries,
"O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb."
This vision blatantly foreshadows the end of the play. The next time she sees Romeo, he will be dead.
Friar Laurence is a pivotal character in the play. When we first see him he is collecting herbs and flowers for medicinal purposes, demonstrating a deep knowledge of the properties of the plants he collects, and alerting the reader to what may be to come. He meditates on the duality of good and evil that exists in all things; another clearly portentous speech. Referring to the plants, Friar Laurence says that, although everything in nature has a useful purpose, it can also lead to misfortune if used improperly,
"For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometime's by action dignified".
Friar Laurence ruminates on how good may be perverted to evil and evil may be purified by good. By making plans to marry Romeo and Juliet, he hopes that the good of their love will reverse the evil of the hatred between the feuding families. Shakespeare portrays him as a benign, wise philosopher. But his schemes also serve as tools of fate; secretly marrying the two lovers, sending Romeo to Mantua, and staging Juliet's apparent death. The tragic failure of his plans are outside his responsibility, and due to chance.
The structure of the play is carefully controlled; it would be interesting at this distance to read the earlier versions. Different poetic forms are used by different characters, and sometimes the form changes as the character develops. There are many instances of the sonnet, as the reader would expect, because it is a perfect, idealised poetic form often used to write about love. The play starts with a Prologue in sonnet form, a masterly precis of the story. As it describes Romeo and Juliet's eventual death, it also helps to create the sense of fate that permeates the entire play.
Romeo himself, develops his expertise in the sonnet over the course of the play. When Romeo and Juliet meet they speak just fourteen lines before their first kiss. These fourteen lines make up a shared sonnet, which creates a link between their love and their tragic destiny, as told in the introductory prologue.
There are numerous instances of such tightly written formal structure, which is remarkable in such an early play. Even the dramatic action of the play has a tight schedule, spanning just 4 days. Perhaps this is why many of the most important scenes, such as the balcony scene, take place either very late at night or very early in the morning.
Shakespeare makes great use of effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten the tension, and bringing minor characters into the foreground to increase depth and interest. His additional use of sub-plots to enrich the story, is often cited as an early sign of his dramatic skill.
This play has everything; love, beauty, and romance, but also sudden, fatal violence early on. Viciousness and danger are continually present, yet just at the point when they threaten to overcome the reader, the action will be tempered by wit, comedy and humour. We are in a masculine world in which notions of honour, pride, and status are prone to erupt in a fury of conflict, but there is a strong female who defies her confined expectations. Rashness, vengeance, passion, grief; they are all here. The motif of fate continues to the very end of the play. Romeo proclaims,
"Then I defy you, stars" and
"I will lie with thee tonight" in a last desperate attempt to control his own destiny by spending eternity with Juliet.
Yet in this ultimate example of tragic irony, this defiant act seals both his fate, and their double suicide. Shakespeare tells his audience that nothing can withstand the power of fate. The neat twists of the ending are supremely ironic, devastating and heart-wrenching. Here is Romeo, in despair,
"O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die."
And on waking, Juliet,
"I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative...
O happy dagger!
This is thy sheath...
There rust and let me die!"
It is said that the best way to appreciate Shakespeare is to go to a live performance of a play. Of course in one sense this is true of any play; the live action is how the play was intended to be experienced. But there is a lot to be said for reading Shakespeare on the page. The structure and poetry of the language is so much more evident. The puns and in-jokes are so much clearer. The reader can give pause to properly interpret the manifold meanings of both the exciting events and the rousing speeches. And above all we can marvel at the mastery of a writer who can still speak to us with relevance, move us with poetry and story, and entertain his audience well over 400 years later.
"For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."
I don't get it. What?
What I thought about this book in high school:
This is stupid. What?
What I thought about this book in college:
Okay, so two kids meet once, "fall in love", and then commit suicide over each other in just four days? IDIOTS.
What I thought about this book after finishing it today, aged 44:
Wow. Shakespeare is a GD genius.
What I didn't realize until today, after reading it a few times and watching several movie adaptations, is tha
What I thought about this book in middle school:I don't get it. What?
What I thought about this book in high school:
This is stupid. What?
What I thought about this book in college:
Okay, so two kids meet once, "fall in love", and then commit suicide over each other in just four days? IDIOTS.
What I thought about this book after finishing it today, aged 44:
Wow. Shakespeare is a GD genius.
What I didn't realize until today, after reading it a few times and watching several movie adaptations, is that this story isn't about young, stupid love at all. First of all, these characters are people I know. Romeo is my friend Mike, Juliet is my friend Jess, the nurse is my mom telling her embarrassing stories all the time, and Mercutio is my friend Chris. Chris "that's what she said" Chris.
Yes, love is in there. But what I saw when reading it again this time is that everyone has their own ideas of what love is. Romeo and Juliet are in passionate, crazy, how-you-feel-about-someone-the-first-few-weeks-of-a-relationship love. The nurse has a more practical idea of love. Juliet's mom thinks love is based on what you can get from someone. Juliet's father thinks love is being obedient. Mercutio thinks love is only a means to a sexual end. Paris thinks love is something you can earn or demand from someone.
But much more than love, this story is about life. It is about the people in our lives, how we deal with them, how they each have their own agenda without knowing or even caring about anyone else's agenda, how life fucks around with us and knocks us down, and how your destiny will hunt you and get what it wants from you no matter how you try to avoid it.
I particularly liked Shakespeare's use of day and night/light and dark. Romeo describes Juliet as the sun, and Juliet describes Romeo as stars. They see each other as sources of light. But they must sneak around to see each other, and can therefore only meet up at night when it is dark. In order for them to see each other's light, there must be some darkness. Damn it, Shakespeare. *swoon*
There are many other great themes and symbols in here, more than I could possibly go into in a review. The bottom line is that Romeo and Juliet is now my second favorite Shakespeare play, just behind Hamlet. The balcony scene alone is worth the time it takes to read the entire book.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, at far more fair than she.
Damn it, Shakespeare. *double swoon*
...more
And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
This is the first William Shakespeare I've read and it was interesting how the conclusion is literally in line 6 of the prologue.
It really isn't easy English to read, very indirect sentences, although at time the dialogue and wit is razor sharp. For instance near the end Romeo takes a shot at capitalism in a few sentences:
T
And yet I wish but for the thing I have:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
This is the first William Shakespeare I've read and it was interesting how the conclusion is literally in line 6 of the prologue.
It really isn't easy English to read, very indirect sentences, although at time the dialogue and wit is razor sharp. For instance near the end Romeo takes a shot at capitalism in a few sentences:
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then to be not poor, but break it, and take this.
My poverty, but not my will, consents.
The drama and everything coming together conveniently (including a sudden outbreak of the plague) is quite reminiscent to Victor Hugo his writing much later.
Overall the writing is very filmic, you can see every scene before your eyes while reading and there's so much drama and tight packed events clustered into this, with a lot of violence and death.
For instance the father of Juliet responds as follows on the unfortunate infatuation of his daughter:
My fingers itch. - Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That God had sent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much
There is some criticism to be given from a modern reader perspective.
Nowhere do we really get to know why Romeo and Juliet love each other, they are hardly fleshed out characters besides him apparently being an excellent swordsman. And the whole family feud is nowhere clarified or charged with some kind of background.
And why would a friar have a magical potion (and if he hadn't facilitated the kids every step along the way I think they'd be less spoiled and dead set on getting what they want)?
What I also found very funny, beside Romeo being compared to a dishcloth when rated against another suitor of Juliet, was how multiple characters comment on how only last week Romeo was in "love" with Rosaline.
That Juliet is only 13 (and already overdue in getting married according to her parents) does not help in taking the whole plot and emotions felt by Romeo and Juliet very serious, despite the grim ending.
A quick and quite fun classic, about maybe more the dangers of teenage overdramatic tendencies than true love persé.
Ha such a good idea; one of my best. First off all I could think about the whole time I was reading it was Douglas Booth staring at me like this while he told me I smelled like roses and was the sun...
(accidentally saved this picture as Romeow and I'm laughing so much harder than I should be about it)
So the who
Okay so I just watched the "new" Romeo and Juliet movie (the one with Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld) and thought "you know what I could really use a re-read of this".Ha such a good idea; one of my best. First off all I could think about the whole time I was reading it was Douglas Booth staring at me like this while he told me I smelled like roses and was the sun...
(accidentally saved this picture as Romeow and I'm laughing so much harder than I should be about it)
So the whole time I'm reading this I'm dying!!!! I don't know if yall have seen the movie or not, but Douglas Booth does a butt ton of running in it and good lord!!!! It is hilarious. He like swings his arms a lot and his wrist are flapping around. So anytime there was an action scene in it I couldn't take it seriously. (If a gif or a video of Douglas Booth running isn't a thing that's been made someone please for the love of the internet make it!)
Since I know everyone and there mom (literately) has read this book I'm just gonna give you a quick run down of everything that happens... *alarm sounds* Spoiler alert!!! Yes that was meant sarcastically... Romeo meets Juliet and is instantly like BAM "I need to wife that girl up", and Juliet is all like "I need to be wifed up" so these two star-crossed love birds embark on a super secret love affair. After getting married shit starts hitting the fan and drama is thrown all over the place. This resulting in 6 deaths, a marriage only lasting a vast 3 days, and a botched suicide plan that actually turns into suicide! *gasp* Plot twist!! Am I right?!?!
Oh and I gotta mention this little sidenote: in the movie Juilet's mom is rocking this sick rat-tail look so anytime she comes into play in the book I can only imagine her with her rat-tail up do. All these things blended together made me really enjoy re-reading this. Yes Romeo and Juliet story now-a-days might be laughed at and not seen for what it really is. And yeah, Juliet is WAY too young to be taking this stud into her room. Even if he is a chiseled jawed brit with great hands. And I'm pretty sure this book (maybe) invented insta-love, but hell I don't even care.
I had a ton of fun re-reading this twist tale of death and desire. It's why I figured I write a little something something about it. It seriously gives us so much hope... I mean when Romeo sees Juliet wake up and then is so happy and forgets that he just drank poison; we for a split second too believe in love at first site... Then when he realizes what he's done Shakespeare crushes our spirits and takes it all away! Then to top it all off Juliet is like "ehhhh I'm gonna die now too". Like little girl you DAF, but stabbing yourself is the boss way to go out. At least you didn't go the sissy way like yo man did. Hmmmm it's all pretty brilliant if you ask me.
Watching this movie was so bad that it made reading the book even better. Romeo and Juliet gives us everything we both hate and love in books. Inst-forbidden-love, quotable moments, something that makes us questions our morals, death, soap-opera like drama that all starts out at a sweet dance party. Ahhhh ta be young and in luv.
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I've managed to live almost four decades without reading or watching this classic and I was pretty excited to get going. On paper this is my ideal story, boy meets girl, girl already has boy. In reality this wasnt my ideal at all, the play format is really not my jam and the theres only so much of 'yee art thou donkey' language that I can take.
Basically I didnt bond with anything except the bottle of poison.
This piece of literature is often as
Popsugar challenge 2020 - A book with a pink coverI've managed to live almost four decades without reading or watching this classic and I was pretty excited to get going. On paper this is my ideal story, boy meets girl, girl already has boy. In reality this wasnt my ideal at all, the play format is really not my jam and the theres only so much of 'yee art thou donkey' language that I can take.
Basically I didnt bond with anything except the bottle of poison.
This piece of literature is often associated with romanticizing suicide so from that standpoint it was an interesting read for me. And did I find it romantic? No. Tragic, most definitely yes.
I'm sorry Shakespeare, maybe I'd do better with a more modern translation. Who am I kidding, I'll watch the film!
...more
I finally read this.
I regret everything.
review to come
I can't believe I actually liked this! I don't know why I went into it believing it would be hard to read and boring, but it was so easy and fun to read even though it is a tragedy. So many witty lines and people being too dramatic, I loved it.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. Scholars believe that he died on his fifty-second birthday, coinciding with St George's Day.
At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.
Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.
According to historians, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets throughout the span of his life. Shakespeare's writing average was 1.5 plays a year since he first started writing in 1589. There have been plays and sonnets attributed to Shakespeare that were not authentically written by the great master of language and literature.
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And in their triump die, like fire and powder
Which, as they kiss, consume"
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite."
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What City Does Romeo and Juliet Take Place
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