Tag Archives: Romeo and Juliet

Junior students at ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in The Helix

3rd year students were taken to The Helix today to see the Second Age production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Second Age are an award winning company and we will be looking forward to reading the 3rd year reviews of the production here.

2nd years will be going this Tuesday and it is sure to be both an enjoyable and educational experience.

Here is the link to The Helix website:

http://thehelix.ie/romeo-and-juliet/

Some important quotes from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Act II

Here are some quotes from the second act of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ that should be committed to memory.

From Scene 2

Romeo (soliloquy)
‘But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.’

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

Juliet to herself
‘That which me call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.’

Juliet to Romeo
‘How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.’

Romeo to Juliet
‘With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls.
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt.
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.’

Juliet to Romeo
‘If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,
By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.’

Romeo to Juliet
‘Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books;
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.’

From Scene 3

Friar Laurence (soliloquy)
‘Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power.’

Romeo to Friar
‘With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name and that name’s woe.’

Romeo to Friar
‘Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage.’

Friar to Romeo
‘Jesu Maria! What a deal of brine
Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet in they sighs from heaven clears.
Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears.’

Friar to Romeo
‘O she knew well
Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be.
For this alliance may so happy prove
To turn your household’s rancour to pure love.’

Romeo to Friar
‘O, let us hence! I stand on sudden haste.’

Friar to Romeo
‘Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.’

From Scene 4

Mercutio to Romeo
‘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 drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide this bauble in a hole.’

Romeo to Nurse (about Mercutio)
‘A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.’

Romeo to Nurse
‘Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Laurence’ cell
Be shrived and married.’

From Scene 5

Nurse to Juliet
‘Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’ cell.
There stays a husband to make you a wife.’

From Scene 6

Friar to Romeo
‘So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!’

Romeo to Friar
‘Amen, amen! But come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare –
It is enough I may but call her mine.’

Friar to Romeo
‘This violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.’

Romeo to Juliet
‘Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heaped like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue
Unfold the imagined happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.’

Juliet to Romeo
‘Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars than can count their worth>
But my true love is grown to such excess
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.’

Friar to Romeo and Juliet
‘Come, come with me, and we shall make short work.
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
Till Holy Church incorporate two in one.’

Some key quotes from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Act I

Here are just some of the quotations from Act I of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ that you should know off-by-heart.

From Scene 1

Tybalt to Benvolio
‘What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.
Have at thee, coward.’

Prince to crowd
‘Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturbed 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,
Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the foreit of the peace.’

Montague to Benvolio
‘Many a morning hath he there been seen
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs.’

Romeo to Benvolio
‘Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.’

From Scene 2

Capulet to Paris
‘My child is yet a stranger in the world;
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years.
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.’

Capulet to Paris
‘But woo her, gentle Paris, het her heart.
My will to her consent is but a part,
And, she agreed, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.’

Benvolio to Romeo
‘Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself poised with herself in either eye.
But in that crystal scales let there be weighed
Your lady’s love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now seems best.’

From Scene 3

Lady Capulet to Juliet
‘Marry, that ‘marry’ is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?’

Juliet to Lady Capulet
‘It is an honour that I dream not of.’

Juliet to Lady Capulet
‘I’ll look to like, if looking liking move.
But no more will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strenght to make it fly.’

From Scene 4

Romeo to Mercutio
‘You have dancing shoes
With nimble souls. I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.’

Romeo to Benvolio and Mercutio
‘For my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels and expire the term
Of a despised life, closed in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.’

From Scene 5

Romeo
‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear –
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with the crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love til now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.’

Tybalt
‘This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave
Come hither, covered with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.’

Capulet to Tybalt
‘And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-goverened youth.
I would not for the wealth of all the town
Here in my house do him disparagement.’

Tybalt
‘Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw. But this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall.’

Romeo to Juliet
‘If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this.
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand,
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.’

Juliet to Romeo
‘Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands to touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.’

Romeo
‘Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.’

Juliet (aside)
‘My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me
That I must love a loathed enemy.’

‘Romeo and Juliet’ audiobook

For any student struggling to read ‘Romeo and Juliet’, here is the audiobook version. There are no images here (as there would be in a film version), but rather the text appears on screen as it is read by actors.

Another option for students who like to listen to the text being read is to download the audiobook to your mp3 player and listen to it in the car, while out walking or while reading along with the text yourself.

‘Romeo and Juliet’ – The Prologue

In your study of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, be sure that you can answer the following questions on The Prologue:

  1. Who speaks The Prologue?
  2. What is the purpose of The Prologue?
  3. What poetic form does it take?
  4. Explain the importance of lines 5 and 6.
  5. Why does Shakespeare tell us how the story is going to end and what effect does this have on the audience?
  6. What themes are established in The Prologue?

What quotations should you know from the Prologue? You should really know the whole Prologue off-by-heart. It is a sonnet and 14 lines should not present too much of a challenge.  Perhaps the most crucial phrases from are as follows:

‘star-crossed lovers’

and

‘death-marked love’