Quotes

• Key quotes from the prologue include references to the ancient grudge between the families, fate, and the lovers' tragic end
• Key quotes from Act 1 Scene 1 highlight the violence, conflict, male pride, and the Prince's authority in Verona
• Key quotes from Act 1 Scene 2 show Capulet's protective nature towards Juliet and his conditions for Paris to marry her
• Key Quotes:

  • Friar: "O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies / In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities"
  • Friar: "Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied / And vice itself sometime’s by action dignified"
  • Romeo: "the sweeter rest was mine."
  • Friar: "Young men’s love, then, lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes"
  • Friar: "O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste"
• Key Quotes:

  • Mercutio: "Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead: stabb’d with / a white wench’s black eye; run through the era with / a love-song"
  • Mercutio: "thou hast more of he wild goose in one of thy / wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five"
  • Nurse: "the gentlewoman is young; / and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, / truly it were an ill thing [...] and very weak dealing"
  • Nurse: "Doth not rosemary and Romeo / begin both with a letter?"
• Key Quotes:

  • Juliet: "Love’s heralds should be thoughts, / Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams / Driving back shadows"
  • Juliet impatiently asks the Nurse for news
  • Nurse: "He is not the flower of courtesy, but I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb"
• Key Quotes:

  • Friar: "So smile the heavens upon this holy act / That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!"
  • Friar: "Therefore love moderately; long love doth so; / Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow"
  • Friar: "you shall not stay alone / Till holy church incorporates two in one"
• Key Quotes:

  • Benvolio: "And if we meet, we shall not ’scape a brawl, For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."
  • Mercutio: " And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something. Make it a word and a blow."
  • Tybalt: "Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford No better term than this: thou art a villain."
• Key Quotes:

  • Lady Capulet and Nurse have banal dialogue after Juliet's dramatic act, highlighting the conflict between Juliet's depressed state and day-to-day life
  • Lord Capulet's haste is shown through sibilance and fragmented sentence structure, augmenting the image of a worried and organized father
• Key Quotes:

  • Nurse's fragmented dialogue represents her gradual realization that something is wrong
  • Nurse's repetition of "dead" reflects shock at Juliet's death
  • Capulet personifies Death, foreshadowing upcoming deaths
  • Friar's words have a deeper meaning, pointing to Juliet's arranged marriage to Paris
• Key Quotes:

  • Exchange between Romeo and Balthasar represents change in tone from happiness to grief
  • Romeo's short line epitomizes the depth of his grief and alludes to death and marriage
• Key Quotes:

  • Friar John's failure to deliver the letter suggests a greater power working against Romeo and Juliet
  • Friar's mention of Juliet "clos'd in a dead man's tomb" represents repression of Juliet by patriarchal society
• Key Quotes:

  • Paris' lamentations highlight connection between Juliet's femininity and nature
  • Romeo's fragmented sentences represent his madness and desperation
  • Montague's final reconciliation reflects tragic values of recognition and hope for a better future