This article will discuss four important and famous quotes from Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. With 34 film adaptations, Romeo and Juliet is a standard of stage and screen. (Though my favorite version will always be Baz Lurhmann’s 1996 melodramatic banger starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes.) I’ll be the first to admit – it can be hard for modern readers to get past what seems like pure adolescent folly. (Here’s a summary if you need it.) The play becomes more interesting when one considers it as a trenchant exploration of the possibility of individual agency against societal and familial coercion.
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Romeo and Juliet Characters with Descriptions
1) Prologue – “Two households, both alike in dignity,”
CHORUS.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
Imagine attending a performance of Romeo and Juliet without knowing the plot. The theater darkens as you take your seat. A single actor comes out on the stage and, with nary a “spoiler alert,” proceeds to tell you the ending of the play. This is what happens in the quote above. To viewers today, this might be shocking. Indeed, it’s antithetical to the way we have been trained to value plot. Contrast this to Romeo and Juliet, where there is never any doubt as to the young lovers’ fate (“A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life”).
Famous Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
At the same time, de-emphasizing the plot changes the way we read the text. Because we know what happens (lots and lots of death), our attention shifts to details that we might not have noticed if we were wondering what was going to happen to poor Romeo and Juliet. In other words, we can pay more attention to the “how” of the play. We can wonder, “How do Romeo and Juliet arrive at their decision to kill themselves? and, “What structural conditions engender this choice?” As a reader or viewer, we don’t generally expect the plot to be given away; at the same time, this spoiler reorients our attention to what is more important – the background of violence and power that crushes these two lovers.
2) Act I, Scene 4 – Queen Mab Speech
MERCUTIO.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
[…]
This is a thoroughly strange monologue. It starts reasonably enough (“She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes / In shape no bigger than an agate-stone”), but, by the end, gets real weird. First, let’s review the context. This speech occurs in act 1, scene 4 as Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio are on their way to the Capulet’s ball. Remember that at this point in the play, Romeo is still pining over Rosaline. Though Mercutio tries to lift Romeo’s spirits, the latter declares mopily that, “Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.” (Don’t remember who these characters are? Here’s a list!)
Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
Now, we’ve all had that friend who insists on moping on Friday night when their new crush leaves them left on read. When Romeo tells Mercutio and Benvolio that he doesn’t want to go to the party (“’tis no wit to go”), I get the sense that Mercutio finally loses his patience with Romeo’s moping. When Mercutio asks why Romeo doesn’t want to go to the party, Romeo says because, “I dreamt a dream tonight.” (You can almost hear Mercutio’s eye-roll.)
Mercutio tells Romeo that he had a dream as well – that “dreamers often lie.” Romeo tries to change the meaning of Mercutio’s assertion. He takes Mercutio’s “dreamers often lie” and turns it into “Dreamers often lie…in bed asleep while they dream things true”. This is when Mercutio launches into his speech. (I think this version is particularly creepy.)
Famous Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
Before we get to the speech itself, it’s worth noting that it comes on the heels of a fundamental disagreement between Mercutio and Romeo. On the one hand, Romeo believes (perhaps naively) that dreams give the dreamer some access to some external, unvarnished truth. Mercutio has a dimmer view. As we will see, Mercutio holds dreams to be mere expressions of “vain fantasy.” In Mercutio’s view, dreams say little about truth and much about the unacknowledged desires of the dreamer. What’s more, it seems as if Mercutio looks askance at dreamers who attribute truth to their dreams rather than to their own baser desires.
As I said before, Mercutio’s speech starts benignly. Queen Mab is a tiny thing, “no bigger than an agate-stone” and her “chariot is an empty hazelnut.” It all sounds quite cute. And when Mercutio says that Queen Mab rides through the brains of lovers, courtiers, and lawyers, who dream, respectively, of love, curtsies, and fees, it still seems inoffensive. (Do note, however, that each person dreams of what they already want, not of some transcendent truth.)
Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
Then it starts to get a little weird – Mercutio mentions ladies “who straight on kisses dream.” However, these ladies are “soon with blisters plague[d]” as “their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.” (While I wasn’t able to suss out the significance of “sweetmeats”, it’s clear that these ladies are being punished (with herpes blisters) for some aspect – likely sexual – of their desires.)
Mercutio then manages to rein it in for a moment – he talks about courtiers and parsons – but the weirdness quickly returns. According to Mercutio, Queen Mab makes soldiers dream of “cutting foreign throats” and “plats the manes of horses in the night.” Then, in a particularly weird moment, Mercutio starts talking about how Queen Mab gets maids ready for sex by giving them sex dreams (“presses them, and learns them first to bear / Making them women of good carriage”). Thankfully, Romeo jumps in and stops him from saying any more.
Famous Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
The takeaway is that Mercutio has a decidedly skeptical understanding of dreams. While Romeo might believe that his dream (likely about Rosaline) to be weighted with some external portentousness, Mercutio throws it back on him. Whatever Romeo dreamt, Mercutio holds that it’s merely an expression of Romeo’s own “vain fantasy.” Furthermore, Romeo is a liar if he attributes his dreams to some outside truth rather than his own desires. I can’t help but think that if Romeo and Juliet had had a bit of Mercutio’s skepticism, they might not have ended up dead.
3) Act II, Scene 2 – “Wherefore art thou Romeo?”
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.
[…]
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
Famous Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about what is arguably the most famous scene in Romeo and Juliet. You’re probably familiar with it – Juliet, having just recently met Romeo at the Capulet’s ball, stands on her balcony while Romeo listens in the shadows below. The scene begins with Juliet opining that Romeo is a Montague. (Remember, “wherefore” means “why.”) She wishes that he would renounce his family. If he can’t do that, she asks that he simply swear his love and she’ll renounce her name.
What follows is a complex meditation on the nature of language and identity. Juliet begins by asserting that an individual has no intrinsic connection to their name (“Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.”) She points out that there is nothing in the world that corresponds to the name “Montague.” As an example, she makes her famous declaration that “a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” In other words, names have no intrinsic connection to that which they refer – the reality of the world is unaffected by its naming. (You have to admit, it’s a fairly complex philosophical argument for a 13-year-old.) In conclusion, she asks Romeo once again to remove (“doff”) his name and fashion a new nominative identity with her (“And for thy name, which is no part of thee, / Take all myself.”)
Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
Juliet’s speech is also an assertion of agency against familial and societal expectations. (Recall that her family has promised her to Paris.) Don’t get me wrong – it’s hard not to roll your eyes at the adolescent sturm und drang of the play. Because the reader knows that Romeo and Juliet are going to die, there’s undeniable pathos in Juliet’s dreams of a life with Romeo outside the strictures of their warring families.
4) Act III, Scene 1 – Fortune’s Fool
ROMEO.
O, I am fortune’s fool!
This quote speaks to Romeo’s troubled relationship with fate and fortune. Remember, we know exactly how this misadventure will end. As the chorus told us in the prologue, “[this] pair of star-cross’d lovers [will] take their life.” This inevitability makes it important to pay attention to the way the play situates the characters in relation to this inevitability.
This quote, in which Romeo bemoans that he is “fortune’s fool,” comes just after he has killed Tybalt. At the beginning of this scene, Tybalt is still salty that Romeo showed up at the Capulet’s party. When Romeo walks up (having just married Juliet, Tybalt cousin), Tybalt immediately confronts him. Given that he is now related to Tybalt by marriage, Romeo does all he can to avoid a fight. Mercutio, ignorant of Romeo’s marriage, reads his refusal as cowardice. Not to be dishonored, Mercutio challenges Tybalt to a duel. As the two begin to fight, Romeo tries to step between them and Mercutio is stabbed.
Famous Romeo and Juliet Quotes (Continued)
Bevolio takes Mercutio offstage and Romeo muses on the effect of Juliet’s love on his conduct. He states that “[her] beauty hath made me effeminate / And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel.” When Bevolio returns and tells Romeo that Mercutio is dead, Romeo challenges Tybalt to a duel and slays him. A crowd starts to gather and Benvolio urges Romeo to flee. Romeo then cries, “O, I am fortune’s fool.”
You can understand Romeo’s sentiment. He acted honorably, doing everything he could to avoid a fight with his wife’s cousin. What’s more, Romeo even tries to stop Mercutio from killing Tybalt. With Mercutio slain, Romeo again does the honorable thing and avenges his death. For me, Romeo’s line is interesting because it positions fate and fortune outside the bounds of honor. There are no social mores that guarantee good fortune.
Wrapping Up
When you find out that Juliet is only 13 years old and Romeo not much older, it can be hard to emotionally connect with this play. Then again, perhaps it takes two children to rage against the customs and coercive structures that adults take for granted. Maybe we can see Romeo and Juliet as a thought experiment that shows the necessity of questioning the societal status quo.
If you’ve found this article useful or interesting, you can also check out my summaries and analyses of 1984, Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, The Crucible, Beloved, Brave New World, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Macbeth, Jane Eyre, and Of Mice and Men.
