Act 2, Scene 3 Flashcards
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies / In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities
The Friar’s religious nature is evidenced through his ability to find grace in all things, including nature which is a central idea of Catholicism. The positive lexical field (‘powerful grace’, ‘true’) foregrounds the religiousness that characterises the Friar as an optimistic and spiritual individual
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied / And vice itself sometime’s by action dignified
The Friar highlights the fragility of virtue, which foreshadows the downfall of Romeo and Juliet’s affair. It also shows the Friar as a cautious and rational individual, again shows when the cautions Romeo against a hasty marriage
That last is true, the sweeter rest was mine. God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?
Romeo claims his sleeplessness due to love is ‘sweeter’ than sleep itself which again highlights his characterisation as a lover, with all his normal bodily functions being disrupted by his love for Juliet. His positivity and that fact he speaks in prose contrasts his melancholic nature in previous scenes where he spoke in verse, highlighting how his meeting Juliet improved his emotional state, highlighting the purity and intensity of their love. The fact that Romeo and the Friar share a rhyming couplet show how they match and understand each other, despite him getting the assumption wrong
Young men’s love, then, lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes
The pun on ‘lies’ emphasises the negativity surrounding the Friar’s sentiment as he doesn’t believe Romeo’s love is genuine but instead comprised of ‘lies’
O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste / Wisely and slowly; they stumble that run fast
There is a parallelism within the exchange between Romeo and the Friar yet a disjunct between the content of their messages. This highlights how they are working towards similar ends but for different reasons (for true love and for the end of the feud)
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. The Earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; / grace and rude will; / Poison hath residence, and medicine power
The Friar comments on the juxtaposition between the good and bad in nature as it has the power to heal but also the power to poison (duality of nature). He is likely collecting plants for herbal medicine as Friars also acted as doctors at the time due to their likely high level of education and therefore intelligence. He also discusses the duality of life and death and the duality of personality within everything. However, throughout his speech he never mentions the theme of love which suggests he isn’t as knowledgeable on everything as he thinks which leads to the tragic ending. All of the Friar’s speech is in rhyming couplets to show is very important and also his intellect
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
The Friar is shown to be a sort of father figure to Romeo and closer to him than Lord Montague despite his loving and caring nature, suggesting they can speak more freely to each other
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
The Friar comments on the duality of youth and old age as he is saying that old men can never sleep when full of worry yet young men sleep easily. They are again shown to be extremely close as the Friar automatically assumes where he has been since he hadn’t slept that night
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift
The Friar asks Romo to speak with less metaphors and use familiar, simple language which again suggests that Friar’s supposed intelligence is actually quite limited
For this alliance may so happy prove to turn your households’ rancour to pure love
The Friar eventually agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet as he believes it can end the feud between the 2 families if they have a successful union. Therefore, the Friar is shown to be quite calculating as he has his own agenda between marrying the two other than their happiness
