Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
The ranting manner in which it is customary to give Romeo's words in this passage of the play shows how far most actors are from understanding the true purport of the lines; how far from realizing that these few lines are the only opportunity the actor has of establishing the character of Romeo as a gentleman, a man of sense and courage, a formidable fellow, not unfit to be the hero of a play:
His extremely fair complexion, his nurse, and his bottle of medicine, which suggested a vague analogy with the sleeping-potion in the tragedy, caused him to be called Juliet. Certainly Romeo's sweetheart hardly suffered more; she was not, at least, a standing joke in Verona.
So far, then, as great writers great poets, especially are of imagination all compact a peculiarity of mental constitution which makes a man go shares with every one he is brought into contact with; which makes him enter into Romeo's rapture when he touches Juliet's cheek among cypresses silvered by the Verona moonlight, and the stupor of the blinded and pinioned wretch on the scaffold before the bolt is drawn so far as this special gift goes, I do not think the great poet, and by virtue of it he is a poet, is likely to be happier than your more ordinary mortal.
We have so often seen aged Juliets; stiff, stagey Juliets; fat, roomy Juliets; and ill-featured Juliets, that the sight of a young, lady-like girl with natural dramatic genius, a bright face, an unworn voice, is truly refreshing. In the scene where the nurse brings her the bad news of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment, she acted charmingly.
She covered Romeo's cage with a curious arrangement like an altar-cloth on which gay embroidered parrakeets of all colors were supposed to give Romeo, when lonely, a feeling of congenial companionship. Mrs. Bean, thus evaded, screwed up her eyes tight, then opened them wide at Mrs. Tinneray, who sat rigid, her gaze riveted upon far-off horizons, humming between long sighs a favorite hymn.
After slaughter of Duncan, Macbeth appears in his night-gown as if aroused from sleep; Timon ends in rags the play he had begun in splendour; Richard flatters the London citizens in a suit of mean and shabby armour, and, as soon as he has stepped in blood to the throne, marches through the streets in crown and George and Garter; the climax of The Tempest is reached when Prospero, throwing off his enchanter's robes, sends Ariel for his hat and rapier, and reveals himself as the great Italian Duke; the very Ghost in Hamlet changes his mystical apparel to produce different effects; and as for Juliet, a modern playwright would probably have laid her out in her shroud, and made the scene a scene of horror merely, but Shakespeare arrays her in rich and gorgeous raiment, whose loveliness makes the vault 'a feasting presence full of light, turns the tomb into a bridal chamber, and gives the cue and motive for Romeo's speech of the triumph of Beauty over Death.
That same day about noon, Romeo's friends, Benvolio and Mercutio, walking through the streets of Verona, were met by a party of the Capulets with the impetuous Tybalt at their head. This was the same angry Tybalt who would have fought with Romeo at old lord Capulet's feast. He seeing Mercutio, accused him bluntly of associating with Romeo, a Mountague.
What convinces me that he virtually died with Mercutio is chiefly this that this comrade of Romeo's lives so keenly as to be fully capable of the death that he takes at Tybalt's sword-point; he lived indeed, he dies indeed. Another thing that marks the close of a career of ages is his loss of his long customary good luck.
Fancy what Leander would have felt, if, after swimming across the Hellespont, he had surprised Hero at the washing-tub! Imagine Romeo's feelings, if he had scaled the orchard-walls only to find Juliet helping to hang out the family linen! The worst of it was that my lovely Josephine was not in the least embarrassed.
So he tried to reason with Tybalt, whom he saluted mildly by the name of good Capulet, as if he, though a Montague, had some secret pleasure in uttering that name: but Tybalt, who hated all Montagues as he hated hell, would hear no reason, but drew his weapon; and Mercutio, who knew not of Romeo's secret motive for desiring peace with Tybalt, but looked upon his present forbearance as a sort of calm dishonourable submission, with many disdainful words provoked Tybalt to the prosecution of his first quarrel with him; and Tybalt and Mercutio fought, till Mercutio fell, receiving his death's wound while Romeo and Benvolio were vainly endeavouring to part the combatants.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking