In the balcony scene, when Juliet expresses her fear for Romeo's safety, Romeo replies that it's ok if her kinsmen find him, because his "life were better ended by their hate, / Than death prorogued [postponed], wanting of [lacking] thy love" (2.2.77-78). In other words, he'd much rather have her love and die on the spot, than not have her love and die later.
At the end of the same scene, after the lovers have agreed to be married, Romeo says that he's willing to stand there forever and forget that he has any other home, but it's almost dawn, and Juliet tells him that she wants him to go. But not too far: "And yet no further than a wanton's [spoiled child's] bird; / Who lets it hop a little from her hand, / Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves [shackles] , / And with a silk thread plucks it back again" (2.2.178-180) . Romeo wishes that he were her bird, and Juliet answers, "Sweet, so would [wish] I: / Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing" (2.2.182-183). "Cherishing" is not only "loving," but the petting and playing Romeo and Juliet Navigator Home
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The Marriage of Love and Death
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When Capulet's party is breaking up, Juliet sends the Nurse to find out Romeo's name. As the Nurse chases after Romeo, Juliet says, "If he be married. / My grave is like to be my wedding bed" (1.5.135) . She means that if Romeo is married, she will die unmarried, because she will never marry another, but she is also unkowningly foreshadowing her fate, in which her grave does become her wedding bed. [Scene Summary]
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In the balcony scene, when Juliet expresses her fear for Romeo's safety, Romeo replies that it's ok if her kinsmen find him, because his "life were better ended by their hate, / Than death prorogued [postponed], wanting of [lacking] thy love" (2.2.77-78). In other words, he'd much rather have her love and die on the spot, than not have her love and die later.
At the end of the same scene, after the lovers have agreed to be married, Romeo says that he's willing to stand there forever and forget that he has any other home, but it's almost dawn, and Juliet tells him that she wants him to go. But not too far: "And yet no further than a wanton's [spoiled child's] bird; / Who lets it hop a little from her hand, / Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves [shackles] , / And with a silk thread plucks it back again" (2.2.178-180) . Romeo wishes that he were her bird, and Juliet answers, "Sweet, so would [wish] I: / Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing" (2.2.182-183). "Cherishing" is not only "loving," but the petting and playing that we lavish on beloved pets. Juliet has so much joy in Romeo that she feels that she might just love him to death. [Scene Summary]
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Gathering medicinal herbs, the Friar says that before the sun gets too high he must fill "this osier cage [willow basket] of ours / With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers" (2.3.7-8). Then, as now, poison can be medicine, and medicine can be poison. This fact leads the Friar to a meditation on the nature of nature and man. He says,"The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb; / What is her burying grave that is her womb" (2.3.9-10). In other words, everything that grows, grows from the earth, and everything that grows dies and returns to the earth, so that the earth is both tomb and womb.
Later in the same scene, after Romeo has told Friar Laurence of his love for Juliet, the Friar chides him for so suddenly switching his affections from Rosaline to Juliet. Romeo protests that the Friar "bad'st me bury love," but the Friar shoots back, "Not in a grave, / To lay one in, another out to have" (2.3.83-84). The Friar is afraid Romeo has merely exchanged one infatuation for another, but the image of love as a corpse is grotesque. [Scene Summary]
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As Friar Laurence and Romeo are waiting for Juliet, so the wedding can be performed, Friar Laurence says that he hopes everything will turn out well. He believes that this marriage could end the feud between the Montagues and Capulets. Romeo, on the other hand, has no thought for anything except being joined to Juliet, and he says so: "Do thou but close our hands with holy words, / Then love-devouring death do what he dare; / It is enough I may but call her mine" (2.6.6-8). [Scene Summary]
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On her wedding night, Juliet impatiently awaits the coming of night and Romeo. She says to the night,
Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun. (3.2.21-25)
Some editors print "when he shall die" instead of "when I shall die," but "I" makes perfectly good sense. Juliet believes that when Romeo comes to her in the night he will be with her forever, even after her death, shining like stars in the night.
Later in the same scene, upon learning that Romeo has been banished, Juliet thinks that
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