Portents
in
Romeo and Juliet
The Stars
Many words have double meanings, or
refer to fate or the stars
From forth fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.
-- Prologue
Beneath her balcony, Romeo
imagines that Juliet’s eyes are
stars in heaven.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
2.2.15-17.
Juliet also imagines Romeo among the
stars in heaven, foreshadowing his death.
(In tragedies, thoughts come true,
because action follows feeling.)
Come, gentle night, 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.
3.2.21-24
Romeo ignores his dream.
I fear, too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the
stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels.
1.4.106-07
The nurse ignores a premonition
concerning the letter R.
Nurse: Does not rosemary and Romeo begin
both with a letter?
Romeo: Ay nurse, what of that? Both with an R.
Nurse: Ah, mocker, that’s the dog’s name. R is
for the--no, I know it begins with some other
letter--and she has the prettiest sententious
of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do
you good to hear it.
2.4.206 ff.
Tragedy results when a virtue
becomes a vice.
Even plants have a double meaning:
a lesson, says the friar, that applies
to people.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,
And vice sometime by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this fair flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power.
2.3.21-24
Gold can be a virtue or a vice. It buys Romeo
poison--a vice.
Romeo: There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s
souls,
Doing more murther in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayest
not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
5.1.79-82
But it also pays for statutes of Romeo and
Juliet, to assure their fame.
Montague: For I will raise her statue in pure gold.
...
Capulet: As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie.
5.3.299-300, 303-304
What is Juliet’s strength, her
virtue, that becomes a vice?
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
....
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point!
....
O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink--I drink to thee.
4.3.15-16, 30-32, 55-58
The world of tragedy is one of
good and evil, but the difference
may seem hard to discern. Who is
good, who bad? By convention,
the person who draws first is the
aggressor.
Who draws first?
The Riverside Edition
Merc. O vile, dishonorable, vile submission!
Alla stoccato carries it away. [Draws]*
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?
Tyb. What wouldst thou have with me?
Merc. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of
your nine lives . . .
Tyb. I am for you.
[Drawing]**
*Capell
3.1.73 ff.
**Rowe
Shakespearean tragedy requires
(bad) timing and a near miss
(not).
Romeo steps between them.]
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!
[Tybalt under Romeo’s arm thrusts Mercutio in.]
Away Tybalt [with his followers].
....
Ben.
What, art thou hurt?
Merc. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch, marry, ‘tis enough. . .
. No, ‘tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door, but ‘tis enough, ‘twill serve.
3.1.90 ff.
What is Juliet’s strength, her
virtue, that becomes a vice?
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
....
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point!
....
O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink--I drink to thee.
4.3.15-16, 30-32, 55-58
Their fame--sadly, ironically-depends on their deaths.
For never was story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
– 5.3.309-310
A bit obvious, if we think about it-artificial, just like the sonnets
interspersed in the play, the oxymorons,
the regular meter. Shakespeare, in this
play, gives us an art we can understand,
unlike King Lear.