Romeo and Juliet - final - specific excerpts Flashcards
(8 cards)
Summarize Act 1, Scene 1, lines 215-257 of Romeo and Juliet:
Act 1, Scene 1, lines 215-257
MONTAGUE
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew.
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the furthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Away from the light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks far daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night:
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.
BENVOLIO
My noble uncle, do you know the cause?
MONTAGUE
I neither know it nor can learn of him.
BENVOLIO
Have you importuned him by any means?
MONTAGUE
Both by myself and many other friends:
But he, his own affections’ counsellor,
Is to himself–I will not say how true–
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm,
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow.
We would as willingly give cure as know.
BENVOLIO
See, where he comes: so please you, step aside;
I’ll know his grievance, or be much denied.
MONTAGUE
I would thou wert so happy by thy stay,
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away.
Exeunt MONTAGUE and LADY MONTAGUE
BENVOLIO
Good-morrow, cousin.
ROMEO
Is the day so young?
BENVOLIO
But new struck nine.
ROMEO
Ay me! sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?
BENVOLIO
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?
ROMEO
Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
Romeo laments his unrequited love for Rosaline to Benvolio. He describes love as contradictory (“O brawling love, O loving hate”). Benvolio advises him to look at other women, but Romeo insists no one compares to Rosaline.
Key themes: Romeo’s melancholy, love as paradoxical, foreshadowing of Romeo’s passionate nature
Literary devices: Oxymoron, antithesis, hyperbole, metaphor (love as a thorn)
Summary: This excerpt captures an important conversation between Montague, Benvolio, and eventually Romeo. Montague is describing Romeo’s melancholy behavior to Benvolio, expressing concern about his son’s habit of shutting himself away and avoiding daylight. When Benvolio offers to speak with Romeo to learn the cause of his sadness, Romeo appears, and we get our first glimpse of his lovesick demeanor as he laments the slow passage of time when one is sad.
Summarize Act 1, Scene 5, lines 46-122 of Romeo and Juliet:
Act 1, Scene 5, lines 46-122
ROMEO
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
TYBALT
This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
CAPULET
Why, how now, kinsman! wherefore storm you so?
TYBALT
Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,
A villain that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.
CAPULET
Young Romeo is it?
TYBALT
‘Tis he, that villain Romeo.
CAPULET
Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone;
He bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth:
I would not for the wealth of all the town
Here in my house do him disparagement:
Therefore be patient, take no note of him:
It is my will, the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.
TYBALT
It fits, when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him.
CAPULET
He shall be endured:
What, goodman boy! I say, he shall: go to;
Am I the master here, or you? go to.
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul!
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop! you’ll be the man!
TYBALT
Why, uncle, ‘tis a shame.
CAPULET
Go to, go to;
You are a saucy boy: is’t so, indeed?
This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what:
You must contrary me! marry, ‘tis time.
Well said, my hearts! You are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or–More light, more light! For shame!
I’ll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts!
TYBALT
Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall
Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.
Exit
ROMEO
[To JULIET]
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
[Kisses her]
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
[Kisses her]
JULIET
You kiss by the book.
At the Capulet feast, Romeo sees Juliet and is instantly captivated, forgetting Rosaline. They speak, share a sonnet, and kiss. Tybalt recognizes Romeo and is enraged, but Lord Capulet intervenes. Both discover each other’s identities as enemies.
Key themes: Love at first sight, shared sonnet symbolizing perfect love, realization of forbidden love, Tybalt’s anger foreshadowing conflict
Literary devices: Sonnet form, religious imagery (“pilgrims,” “saints”), metaphor (Juliet as a shrine), dramatic irony, light imagery
Summary: This pivotal section contains the famous first meeting between Romeo and Juliet at the Capulet feast.
The passage begins with Romeo first spotting Juliet from across the room. He is immediately struck by her beauty, wondering how he could have ever thought himself in love before. In poetic language, he describes her as outshining everyone else at the party, comparing her to a bright jewel against a dark background.
While Romeo gazes at Juliet, Tybalt (Juliet’s cousin) recognizes Romeo as a Montague by his voice. Enraged at a Montague’s presence in his uncle’s house, Tybalt calls for his sword and declares he’ll kill Romeo for this intrusion. Lord Capulet intervenes, however, commanding Tybalt to leave Romeo alone. Capulet insists that Romeo is behaving like a gentleman and doesn’t want the feast disrupted. Despite Tybalt’s continued protests about the dishonor of allowing a Montague to remain, Capulet firmly overrules him, growing increasingly angry at Tybalt’s persistence. Tybalt reluctantly backs down but vows that this intrusion will be remembered and avenged later.
Meanwhile, Romeo approaches Juliet. In one of the play’s most famous exchanges, Romeo uses religious imagery to speak to Juliet, comparing her hand to a holy shrine and his lips to pilgrims. They engage in a shared sonnet where Juliet continues the religious metaphor. This verbal exchange culminates in their first kiss, followed quickly by a second.
The Nurse interrupts them, calling Juliet away to speak with her mother. As Juliet leaves, Romeo learns from the Nurse that Juliet is a Capulet—the daughter of his family’s enemy. He is devastated by this revelation. Similarly, after the Nurse tells Juliet that Romeo is a Montague, Juliet laments that she has fallen in love with her “only hate.”
This scene establishes the central conflict of the play: the instant, powerful attraction between the young lovers, tragically complicated by their families’ bitter feud.
Act 2, Scene 3, whole scene:
Act 2, Scene 3
Friar Laurence’s cell.
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a basket.
FRIAR LAURENCE
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels:
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must up-fill this osier cage of ours
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,
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain’d from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.
Enter ROMEO
ROMEO
Good morrow, father.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
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:
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art up-roused by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.
ROMEO
That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.
FRIAR LAURENCE
God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline?
ROMEO
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
That’s my good son: but where hast thou been, then?
ROMEO
I’ll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,
That’s by me wounded: both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies:
I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.
ROMEO
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combined, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage: when and where and how
We met, we woo’d and made exchange of vow,
I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us to-day.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears;
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet:
If e’er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline:
And art thou changed? pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.
ROMEO
Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline.
FRIAR LAURENCE
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
ROMEO
And bad’st me bury love.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Not in a grave,
To lay one in, another out to have.
ROMEO
I pray thee, chide not; she whom I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
The other did not so.
FRIAR LAURENCE
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.
ROMEO
O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
Exeunt
Romeo visits Friar Lawrence early morning to arrange his marriage to Juliet. The Friar is shocked by Romeo’s sudden shift from Rosaline to Juliet but agrees to perform the marriage hoping it might reconcile the feuding families.
Key themes: Friar as voice of wisdom/caution, impulsiveness of youth, hope for peace between families, medicinal plants as metaphor for good/evil
Literary devices: Extended metaphor (plants as human nature), juxtaposition (poison/medicine), aphorisms, foreshadowing, paradox (virtue turning to vice)
Summary:
This scene takes place in Friar Laurence’s cell, where we find him gathering herbs and plants at dawn while philosophizing about their dual nature - how the same plant can contain both medicine and poison, much like humans contain both virtue and vice.
Romeo arrives early, leading Friar Laurence to suspect he hasn’t been to bed. When the Friar assumes Romeo has been with Rosaline, Romeo reveals he’s forgotten her and is now in love with Juliet Capulet. He explains they’ve exchanged vows and asks the Friar to marry them that very day.
Friar Laurence is shocked by Romeo’s sudden change of heart, reminding him how recently he was weeping over Rosaline. He criticizes young men’s love as being superficial - “not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” Romeo defends his new love, saying Juliet returns his feelings while Rosaline did not.
Despite his misgivings, the Friar agrees to perform the marriage, hoping it might reconcile the feuding families. The scene ends with his warning: “Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast” - an ominous foreshadowing of events to come.
Act 2, Scene 5, lines 1-74
This scene in Capulet’s orchard captures Juliet’s anxious anticipation as she waits for the Nurse to return with news from Romeo. The scene begins with Juliet’s soliloquy about how slowly time passes when waiting for news of love - she sent the Nurse at nine o’clock, and it’s already noon. Juliet reasons that if the Nurse were young and in love herself, she would move much faster, like a ball bouncing between lovers.
When the Nurse finally arrives with her servant Peter, she deliberately prolongs Juliet’s anxiety by complaining about her physical discomfort - her aching bones, shortness of breath, and headache from traveling in the heat. Despite Juliet’s desperate pleas for information, the Nurse continues to delay, making vague comments about Romeo’s appearance, asking if Juliet has had dinner, and repeatedly complaining about her pains.
The frustration builds as the Nurse keeps withholding the crucial information, mentioning arrangements at Friar Laurence’s cell but then returning to complaints about her aches. This creates both dramatic tension and comic relief as Juliet’s youthful impatience clashes with the Nurse’s slower, teasing pace.
Finally, after Juliet can bear it no longer, the Nurse reveals the important news - Romeo plans to marry Juliet that very day at Friar Laurence’s cell. The scene effectively illustrates the contrast between Juliet’s passionate urgency and the Nurse’s deliberate delay, while advancing the plot toward the secret wedding.
Juliet anxiously awaits news from her Nurse, who returns exhausted from meeting Romeo. The Nurse teases and delays sharing the marriage plans, frustrating Juliet. Finally, she reveals that Romeo wants to marry Juliet that afternoon at Friar Lawrence’s cell. The scene captures the contrast between Juliet’s youthful impatience and the Nurse’s older, more deliberate pace. It builds dramatic tension through the Nurse’s teasing delay, while also serving as comic relief within the play’s rapidly unfolding tragedy.
Key themes: Juliet’s impatience and anxiety, Nurse as comic relief, youth vs. age (pace of communication), anticipation of the secret marriage
Literary devices: Comic relief, hyperbole (Juliet’s descriptions of waiting), contrast (youth’s haste vs. age’s slowness), exclamations, wordplay and puns
Act 3, Scene 2, whole scene
Act 3, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet is emotionally charged, showing Juliet’s dramatic transition from joyful anticipation to profound grief.
The scene begins with Juliet alone in her chamber, eagerly awaiting nightfall when Romeo will come to her. In a beautiful soliloquy, she expresses her impatience for darkness to arrive so they can consummate their marriage, using rich imagery to convey her passion and excitement.
This anticipation is shattered when the Nurse enters distraught and wailing. Her unclear lamentations about death initially lead Juliet to believe Romeo has been killed, throwing her into immediate despair. When the Nurse finally clarifies that Tybalt is dead, killed by Romeo, Juliet experiences a complex series of emotions.
Her initial reaction is to condemn Romeo, calling him a “beautiful tyrant” and a “fiend angelical” - expressing her confusion about how someone so beautiful could commit such a terrible act. However, she quickly shifts her loyalty back to Romeo, reproaching herself for speaking against her husband. She realizes that Tybalt would have killed Romeo had Romeo not defended himself.
Juliet then focuses on Romeo’s banishment, declaring that this news is worse than ten thousand Tybalt deaths. When the Nurse criticizes all men, Juliet staunchly defends Romeo, showing that her allegiance now lies with her husband rather than her family.
The scene ends with the Nurse promising to find Romeo at Friar Laurence’s cell so the newlyweds can have one night together before Romeo must flee to Mantua. Juliet gives the Nurse her ring as a token for Romeo and expresses her longing to see him one last time.
This scene powerfully illustrates how Juliet has matured from an obedient daughter to a devoted wife whose marriage vows take precedence over family ties, even in the face of such devastating circumstances.
Juliet eagerly awaits Romeo on their wedding night. The Nurse brings news of Tybalt’s death by Romeo’s hand and Romeo’s banishment. Juliet initially feels betrayed but quickly defends Romeo and chooses loyalty to her husband. She grieves his banishment as worse than death.
Key themes: Dramatic shifts in emotion, Juliet’s maturity and loyalty, marriage bed/death imagery, conflict between family honor and love
Literary devices: Soliloquy, apostrophe (addressing night, Romeo), antithesis (beautiful/monstrous Romeo), oxymoron (“beautiful tyrant”), euphemism, imagery (day/night, light/dark)
Act 4, Scene 1, lines 21-49
In these lines, we see Juliet at her most desperate as she turns to Friar Laurence for help. After Paris exits, Juliet immediately begs the Friar not to repeat her father’s plan to have her marry Paris in a few days, since he knows she’s already married to Romeo.
Juliet makes it clear that if the Friar can’t help her, she’ll take her own life rather than be unfaithful to Romeo. Her desperation escalates as she declares she would rather be locked in a charnel house, hidden with the dead, or even placed with the recently deceased Tybalt than marry Paris while being Romeo’s wife.
Throughout this passage, Juliet’s language becomes increasingly intense and macabre, demonstrating how deeply committed she is to Romeo and how desperate she has become. She’s transformed from the innocent girl we met at the beginning of the play to someone willing to face death or terrible suffering rather than betray her love.
Friar Laurence, moved by her determination, tells Juliet to wait and reveals he has thought of a solution that matches the desperate nature of her situation. He says his plan will require courage equal to her willingness to die, to which Juliet responds that she would rather face any danger or horror than marry Paris.
This exchange sets up the Friar’s plan to give Juliet the sleeping potion that will make her appear dead, the catalyst for the play’s tragic conclusion.
Juliet visits Friar Lawrence, encountering Paris there. After Paris leaves, she threatens suicide to avoid marrying him. The Friar proposes a risky plan: a potion to simulate death, allowing her to escape to Romeo after her “burial.”
Key themes: Juliet’s desperation, Friar’s questionable ethics, death as solution to social constraints, foreshadowing of tomb scene
Literary devices: Foreshadowing (death-like sleep), dramatic irony, symbolism (potion as freedom/death), hyperbole (Juliet’s threat of suicide), allusion
Act 5, Scene 1, whole scene
Act 5, Scene 1 is pivotal to the play’s tragic conclusion. It takes place in Mantua, where Romeo has been living in exile after killing Tybalt.
The scene begins with Romeo in an unusually positive mood, describing a dream where Juliet found him dead but revived him with her kisses - creating dramatic irony since the opposite will soon occur. His servant Balthasar arrives from Verona with the devastating news that Juliet is dead and has been entombed. Not knowing this is part of Friar Laurence’s plan, Romeo immediately decides to defy fate (“Then I defy you, stars!”) and join Juliet in death.
Romeo asks if there are any letters from Friar Laurence, but there are none because Friar John never delivered the crucial message explaining Juliet’s fake death. Romeo quickly arranges to return to Verona that night, dismissing Balthasar’s concerns for his safety.
Romeo then seeks out an impoverished apothecary he had previously noticed, and despite the illegality of selling poison in Mantua, convinces the desperate man to sell him a lethal dose for forty ducats. As he obtains the poison, Romeo reflects on how money corrupts men’s souls even more effectively than poison destroys their bodies.
The scene ends with Romeo declaring his intention to go to Juliet’s tomb and die by her side, setting in motion the play’s tragic finale that could have been avoided had Friar Laurence’s message reached him in time.
In Mantua, Romeo happily recounts a dream foretelling good news. Balthasar informs him of Juliet’s apparent death. Devastated, Romeo resolves to die beside Juliet that night. He buys poison from a poor apothecary and departs for Verona.
Key themes: Dramatic irony (audience knows Juliet lives), dreams as omens, Romeo’s impulsiveness, poverty vs. morality (apothecary’s dilemma), love transcending death
Literary devices: Foreboding (Romeo’s dream), dramatic irony, personification (death as a suitor), metaphor (gold as poison), foreshadowing, symbolism
Act 5, Scene 3, lines 75-183
This passage contains the tragic climax of Romeo and Juliet. The scene takes place in the Capulet tomb, where Romeo has come to join Juliet in death after hearing news of her apparent death (not knowing she’s merely under the effects of Friar Laurence’s potion).
The excerpt begins with Romeo recognizing Paris’s body, whom he has just killed in a brief duel outside the tomb. He respectfully places Paris in the tomb and then turns his attention to Juliet. In one of the play’s most poignant speeches, Romeo marvels at how beautiful Juliet still looks in death, believing that even Death himself has fallen in love with her.
Romeo then drinks poison he purchased from an apothecary, kisses Juliet, and dies beside her. Shortly after, Friar Laurence arrives too late, discovering both Paris and Romeo dead. As he enters the tomb, Juliet awakens from her induced sleep and asks for Romeo. The Friar, hearing noises approaching, urges Juliet to flee with him to a convent, but she refuses.
Left alone with Romeo’s body, Juliet discovers he has poisoned himself and left none for her. In her final moments, she kisses his still-warm lips hoping to find enough poison to join him in death.
This scene powerfully depicts the play’s theme of how love and timing tragically intersect - Romeo arriving just minutes too early, before Juliet could wake from her slumber.
In the Capulet tomb, Romeo encounters Paris, kills him in a duel, then sees Juliet’s “dead” body. He drinks poison and dies beside her. Juliet awakens, finds Romeo dead, and stabs herself. The families arrive, discover the tragedy, and resolve to end their feud.
Key themes: Ultimate sacrifice for love, death uniting what life couldn’t, resolution of family conflict, dual suicide as tragic climax, reconciliation through shared grief
Literary devices: Apostrophe (Romeo speaking to dead Juliet), imagery (death as marriage), dramatic irony (Juliet about to wake), symbolism (tomb as marriage bed), metaphor (lips as doors of breath), catharsis
