is really looking for, but Romeo is too wrapped up in self-deception to listen. In Act 2 Mercutio tries harder, speaks more plainly, but prompts from his pupil only the fatuous “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.” Later still, in the battle of wits (2.4), Mercutio imagines briefly that he has succeeded: “Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art though sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature” (92-95). There are no wiser words in the whole play, and none more ironic; for Romeo even here has not found his identity and is never really to find it except for those fleeting moments when Juliet is there to lead him by the hand.
Time runs out for both principals in this play, but it is Juliet who makes the race exciting. Her five-day maturation is a miracle which only a Shakespeare could have made credible; yet at the end she is still a fourteen-year-old girl, and she succumbs to an adolescent’s despair. Mercutio might have helped had he been available, but Mercutio is dead. All the others have deserted her—parents, Nurse, the Friar, who takes fright at the crucial moment, and Romeo, who lies dead at her feet. She simply has not lived long enough in her wisdom to stand entirely alone. This is really the source of pathos in Romeo and Juliet . One hears much about the portrayal of young love here, about the immortality of the lovers and the eternality of their love; but such talk runs toward vapid sentimentality and does an injustice to Shakespeare. No one has more poignantly described the beauty of young love than he, and no one has portrayed more honestly than he the destructiveness of any love which ignores the mortality of those who make it. Romeo struggled toward full understanding but fell far short of achievement, leaving a trail of victims behind him. Juliet came much closer than we had any right to expect, but she too failed. Both have a legitimate claim to our respect, she more than he; and the youth of both relieves them of our ultimate censure, which falls not on the stars but on all those whose thoughtlessness denied them the time they so desperately needed.
—J. A. BRYANT, JR. The University of Kentucky
The Prologue.
Corus.
T wo housholds both alike in dignitie,
( Infaire Verona where we lay our Scene)
From auncient grudge, breake to new mutinie,
Where ciuill bloud makes ciuill hand uncleane
From forth the fatall loynes of these two soes,
A paire of starre-crost louers, take their life:
Whose misaduentur’d pittious overthrowes,
Doth with their death burie their Parents strife.
The ferafull passage of their death-markt loue,
And the continuance of their Parents rage:
Which but their childrens end nought could remove:
Is now the two houres trafficque of our Stage.
The which if you with patient eares attend,
what heare sall misse, our toyle shall strine to mend.
A z
THE MOST EX cellent and lamentable
Tragedie, of Romeo and Iuliet .
Enter Sampson and Gregorie with Swords and Bucklers, of the boufe of Capulet.
S Amp. Gregorie, on my word weele not carrie Coles.
Greg. No,for then we should be Collyers.
Samp. I meane:,and we be in choller, weele draw.
Greg. I while you hue,draw your necke out of choller.
Samp. I strike quickly being moued.
Greg. But thou art not quickly moued to strike.
Samp. A dog of the house of Mountague moues me.
Grego . To moue is to stirre, and to be valiant, is to stand:
Therefore if thou art moued thou runist away.
Samp. A dog of that house shall moue me to stand
I will take the wall of any man or maide of A founta. gues.
Grego. That shewes thee a weake flaue,for the weakest goes to the wall.
Samp. Tis true, & therfore women being the weaker vessels are euer thrust to the walhthcrfore I wil push Mountagues men from the wall, and thrus his maides to the wall.
Greg. The quarell is betweene our maisters , and vs their men.
Samp. Tis all one,I mill shew my selfe a tyrant,when I haue fought
Time runs out for both principals in this play, but it is Juliet who makes the race exciting. Her five-day maturation is a miracle which only a Shakespeare could have made credible; yet at the end she is still a fourteen-year-old girl, and she succumbs to an adolescent’s despair. Mercutio might have helped had he been available, but Mercutio is dead. All the others have deserted her—parents, Nurse, the Friar, who takes fright at the crucial moment, and Romeo, who lies dead at her feet. She simply has not lived long enough in her wisdom to stand entirely alone. This is really the source of pathos in Romeo and Juliet . One hears much about the portrayal of young love here, about the immortality of the lovers and the eternality of their love; but such talk runs toward vapid sentimentality and does an injustice to Shakespeare. No one has more poignantly described the beauty of young love than he, and no one has portrayed more honestly than he the destructiveness of any love which ignores the mortality of those who make it. Romeo struggled toward full understanding but fell far short of achievement, leaving a trail of victims behind him. Juliet came much closer than we had any right to expect, but she too failed. Both have a legitimate claim to our respect, she more than he; and the youth of both relieves them of our ultimate censure, which falls not on the stars but on all those whose thoughtlessness denied them the time they so desperately needed.
—J. A. BRYANT, JR. The University of Kentucky
The Prologue.
Corus.
T wo housholds both alike in dignitie,
( Infaire Verona where we lay our Scene)
From auncient grudge, breake to new mutinie,
Where ciuill bloud makes ciuill hand uncleane
From forth the fatall loynes of these two soes,
A paire of starre-crost louers, take their life:
Whose misaduentur’d pittious overthrowes,
Doth with their death burie their Parents strife.
The ferafull passage of their death-markt loue,
And the continuance of their Parents rage:
Which but their childrens end nought could remove:
Is now the two houres trafficque of our Stage.
The which if you with patient eares attend,
what heare sall misse, our toyle shall strine to mend.
A z
THE MOST EX cellent and lamentable
Tragedie, of Romeo and Iuliet .
Enter Sampson and Gregorie with Swords and Bucklers, of the boufe of Capulet.
S Amp. Gregorie, on my word weele not carrie Coles.
Greg. No,for then we should be Collyers.
Samp. I meane:,and we be in choller, weele draw.
Greg. I while you hue,draw your necke out of choller.
Samp. I strike quickly being moued.
Greg. But thou art not quickly moued to strike.
Samp. A dog of the house of Mountague moues me.
Grego . To moue is to stirre, and to be valiant, is to stand:
Therefore if thou art moued thou runist away.
Samp. A dog of that house shall moue me to stand
I will take the wall of any man or maide of A founta. gues.
Grego. That shewes thee a weake flaue,for the weakest goes to the wall.
Samp. Tis true, & therfore women being the weaker vessels are euer thrust to the walhthcrfore I wil push Mountagues men from the wall, and thrus his maides to the wall.
Greg. The quarell is betweene our maisters , and vs their men.
Samp. Tis all one,I mill shew my selfe a tyrant,when I haue fought
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