How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig Page B

revelation.
    VIOLA
If nothing lets to make us happy both
But this my masculine usurped attire ,
Do not embrace me till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump
That I am Viola .
    If nothing lets means “If nothing prevents us.” Masculine usurped attire means “manly, borrowed clothing.” Cohere and jump means “agree.” So the sentence means
If nothing is preventing us both from being happy but my borrowed manly clothes, don’t embrace me until everything that’s going on—this place, this time, and my fortune—adds up and proves that I’m Viola!
    Have your children take it a phrase at a time:
If nothing lets
to make us happy both
But this
my masculine usurped attire ,
Do not embrace me
till each circumstance
Of place, time, fortune ,
do cohere and jump
That I am Viola .
    What I find so unusually touching about this passage is twofold. First, I find Viola so vulnerable, so intelligent, so loving, and so hopeful that I’m rooting for her in a very deep, personal way. I desperately want her to find both her brother and that happiness that she has longed for since the moment we met her. Second, I find it very moving that this rich, complex, intricate play has pulled all its many plotlines and characters and emotions together into one final moment with such perfection.
    Dr. Johnson said that Twelfth Night “is in the graver part elegant and easy, and in … the lighter scenes exquisitely humorous.” If there is any such thing as a “perfect play,” I think it is this one.

CHAPTER 20
    Passage 12
Juliet in Love
(Juliet enters on the balcony, above)
    ROMEO
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.…
It is my lady. O, it is my love!…
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand .
O, that I were a glove upon that hand ,
That I might touch that cheek!
    JULIET
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 .
    ROMEO
(aside)
Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
    JULIET
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy .
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague .
What’s Montague?…O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet .
( Romeo and Juliet ,
Act II, Scene 2, lines 1ff.)
    R omeo and Juliet is the most popular play in the entire world, and the passage above is as well known as anything ever written. It epitomizes what we love best about Shakespeare: his language, his characters, and in this case, probably the most enduring plot in our culture. If there was ever a literary passage that was part of the cultural DNA of the Western experience, this is it.
    One of the most remarkable things about the play is its tone, which is unlike that of Shakespeare’s other tragedies. The other tragedies are about troubled, towering spirits, enshrouded by self-doubts, ambition, or the uncertainties of old age. Think of Hamlet and Othello, Macbeth and King Lear , all of them anchored by tragic heroes in troubled worlds. Their tragedies seem inevitable from the start. Romeo and Juliet is different: The first two acts play like an exuberant romantic comedy, melodramatic to be sure, but youthful and glittering, filled with dazzling flights of language about the breathlessness of being in love.
    As your children may know already, the story is about two teenagers who fall desperately in love with each other despite the fact that their families are at odds. Juliet is a Capulet, Romeo a Montague, and your children should remember these names as they memorize the passage above. It is never explained why the Capulets and the Montagues are feuding, but the play opens with out-and-out street warfare between the two clans, and this violent animosity becomes part of the