The Bill / Shakespeare Project [dot] com

Sorry

2010-07-01T15:06:00Z

We'll need to make this a two- or three-month break.

We've had some health issues here in the household (don't worry, everyone is on the mend), and it curtailed writing for the month.

Will be back soon with King John... I promise.

It's a Wrap for Now, and a Pause for the Future

2010-05-31T14:47:00Z

OK, so today we say goodbye to my favorite play (from before this project, and through this project). Romeo and Juliet is my favorite play and tragedy thus far.

Thus far.

Tomorrow was to begin King John.

Was to.

Tomorrow, however, I will be beginning a month-long break, a sabbatical, if you will. I don't want to take a break, and I don't need to take a break (I'll never need a break from the Bard). But I do need time.

As listeners to the podcasts know, I lost my paying day job at the end of January (no more dodging those bullets in the war against the economy). I still haven't found gainful employment, but my wife Lisa has lit a fire under me. She said early on in this forced vacation, "Bill, you always complain that you never have time to write a novel or a screenplay... well, now you do."

Of course, through February, March, and April, I was as devoid of good ideas as I was of work. That changed in the first half of May, when I finally was struck by an idea worth exploring. And I began to write a novel, a mystery (with the quasi-Shakespearean title of A Bloody Rose by Any Other). This Project has given me the stamina and discipline to write every day, and I'm making good progress. So since mid-May, I've been kind of serving two masters.

Lately, though, I find myself feeling that Shakespeare is encroaching on my novel (thematically and topically, sure, that was intended; temporally, not so much).

So I'm taking a break in this upcoming month of June while I attempt to finish a rough first draft... I figure I can revise and edit and do the Project concurrently, I just can't compose and do the Project at the same time.

Of course, the fear is that, like my teaching career, a short break will turn out to be a permanent one. The only thing I have to fear is THAT fear itself.

I'll still update the Facebook page with Shakespeare news and notes, but the blog entries and podcasts will go into hibernation for a month.

Wish me luck... and see you all in July with King John!

Podcast 47: Romeo and Juliet Wrap-Up

2010-05-30T14:56:00Z

This week's podcast continues our month-long discussion of Romeo and Juliet, including a discussion of one of the most important concepts of the play, a couple of reviews of Romeo and Juliet-related DVDs, a cast, a discussion of production concepts, then do our recap of this week's blog entries.

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com , which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.

Romeo and Juliet: numbers overall

2010-05-29T15:10:00Z

Romeo and Juliet

3004 total lines; longer than average play and tragedy (average play: 2777; average tragedy: 2890)
At 14 lines, the Choruses for both Acts One and Two are the shortest of its kind in the Canon
At 244 lines, Act Three, Scene Five is the longest of its kind in the Canon
Act One: 718 lines; longer than average (average play: 590, average tragedy: 647)
Act Two: 666 lines; longer than average (average play: 568, average tragedy: 573)
Act Three: 794 lines; longer than average (average play: 576, average tragedy: 633)
Act Four: 401 lines; shorter than average (average play: 563, average tragedy: 555)
Act Five: 425 lines; shorter than average (average play: 480, average tragedy: 465)
426 lines of prose (14.18% of total lines [as opposed to The Comedy of Errors: 13.31%, Titus Andronicus: 1.39%, The Taming of the Shrew: 20.82%, 1HenryVI: 0.37%, 2HenryVI: 16.64%, 3HenryVI: 0.14%, Richard III: 2.89%, Love's Labor's Lost: 35.08%, The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 26.81%, and A Midsummer Night's Dream: 19.75%])
499 rhyming lines (16.61% of total lines [as opposed to Comedy: 20.10%, Titus: 2.42%, Taming: 3.93%, 1HenryVI: 9.79%, 2HenryVI: 3.16%, 3HenryVI: 5.37%, Richard III: 7.55%, LLL: 40.86%, 2Gents: 35.08%, and Midsummer: 43.5%])
26 scenes; more than average (average play: 21; average tragedy: 23)
only 33 characters (slightly less than average, less than average for tragedy [average play: 36, average tragedy: 41])

Numbers: Midpoint... Dead Center

2010-05-28T13:13:00Z

Using Professor Rodes' midpoint theory , let's take a look at Romeo and Juliet.

There are 3004 lines in this play, which puts the midpoint at line 1502, which is 118 lines into Act Three, Scene One. And for the first time in the Canon, the crucial line is not within twenty lines in either direction of the midpoint.

It IS the midpoint.

The feud has been raging. The lovers have met. The lovers have married. Tybalt has insulted and challenged Romeo, who has tried to diffuse the situation, only to have his friend Mercutio take up the fight for him. Tybalt has defeated and wounded (mortally) Mercutio, and fled. Benvolio has taken Mercutio off stage, only to return with the news that Mercutio is dead.

At this moment, at this very moment, at this midpoint, Romeo sees the fate that lay ahead,

This day's black fate on more days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.

-- III.i.118-119

This line ties today's, Monday's, "black fate," the death of his friend completely wiping the joy of his wedding just an hour before, to the desolation that the next two and a half days will bring. He knows that today's problems don't end today; they will end only with more sorrow in the days to come.

If you read yesterday's blog entry, you know what I think is the most important concept in the play: Time. And here it is, with "day's" and "days" both stressed in the line ("days" as the first syllable of a trochaic foot).

Consider:

This is the midpoint of the play. It is roughly 30 hours after the play began. If the first half has been at a breakneck pace, then the second half will rocket by even faster, as over 60 more hours will elapse before the close of the play. Time is the key to the play, and this is the point at which that key turns and the fates are locked in place.

The possibility of comedy (in the true, marital not humorous sense of the word) ends. With the death of Mercutio, the bawdy and highflying speeches of the play are gone. Within sixty lines, we will hear the final words of Benvolio, and active goodwill (as his name befits) will go with him. We will be left only with the desperate plans of the Friar and the betrayal of the Nurse.

Fun and love are gone, only to be replaced with black fate and woe.

It is the perfect midpoint.

A Time to Plan

2010-05-27T13:41:00Z

OK, let's take on a major concept of the play. When asked what Romeo and Juliet is about, most will say love, or young love, or youth, or fate, or hate. Ask me, and I'll say: it's about two hours long

[cue rim-shot]

Look, it's right there in the prologue: "two hours' traffic of our stage" (1Chorus, 12). Now, I might sound a little facetious here, but it's to put forth a serious point. I would go so far as to say that this play is about TIME, and what happens when we rush, when we don't have enough time to think.

References to time, both in the abstract ("ancient" and "new" in the third line of the Chorus) and in the specific (the aforementioned "two hours"), fill the play. Nowhere else in the Canon, at least the Canon as I've read it thus far, does Shakespeare take so much care to delineate the time of days throughout the course of the play (not even in those plays that use what some consider to be Aristotle's Unity of Time: The Comedy of Errors and The Tempest).

In the opening scene of action, Benvolio tells Romeo that it is "new struck nine" (I.i.160) in the morning. Now at this point, we don't know what day it is, but we'll be able to work that out before the end of the play. The rest of Act One--Capulet's discussion of Paris' proposal of marriage to Juliet (and remember, he's opposed to the marriage because of Juliet's age, 13... TIME), to Romeo and Benvolio's decision to crash the Capulet party, to Juliet's reaction to the proposal, through Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, to the end of the Capulet party, including the meeting of Romeo and Juliet--all of this occurs before the end of that first day.

The second day of the play takes us from the late night/early morning balcony scene (Act Two, Scene Two) through the marriage, the deaths, the banishment, and the Friar's plan to send Romeo to Mantua, all the way to Paris' renewed--and now accepted--proposal of marriage in Act Three, Scene Four (Capulet says of the time, "'Tis very late" [III.iv.6]). It is in this scene that we learn the current day: "Monday" (III.iv.18). So we now know the play begins around 9am on Sunday.

As I noted last week in my discussion of the Nurse , the next scene (the parting of the lovers) begins near daybreak of (we now know) Tuesday. The threat of Capulet to disown Juliet, her visit to Friar Laurence (and his discussion of the potion... and more on that in a minute), and her return home, all take place on Tuesday; at this point, it is "now near night" (IV.ii.39), and Capulet decides to move the wedding up a day to "tomorrow morning" (IV.ii.24), Wednesday morning. As some point between this "near night" and "three o'clock" (IV.iv.4) Wednesday morning, Juliet takes the potion.

Now, the text (and note my use of "text" and not "the Friar") tells us that the potion will last "two and forty hours" (IV.i.105), but I'm going to make a supposition. Our texts come not from the hand of the playwright, but rather, the recollections of actors and stage managers. And as we know from the "Bad" Quarto (which tells us that Benvolio dies in the play), these recollections are guesses. Well, let's say this guessed recollection of the Friar's line is incorrect, and it is not "two and forty" but rather "four and twenty" hours. The line change doesn't affect the scansion. The concept of 24 hours fits better into the time motif of the play (it is, after all, a unit of time all by its self: a day). But there's another reason for the switch: "two and forty" just doesn't work.

Let's say, for argument’s sake, Juliet takes the potion sometime between 7pm on Tuesday and 2am on Wednesday, as our "near night"/"three o'clock" timeframe allows. If that's the case, here's what the wake-up times for a forty-two hour potion would be:

Take Potion	Wake Up
Tuesday	Thursday
7pm	1pm
8pm	2pm
9pm	3pm
10pm	4pm
11pm	5pm
midnight	6pm
1am	7pm
2am	8pm
Wednesday	Thursday

If Juliet awakens at some short time before "this morning" (V.iii.305), then none of these times work. If, however, we use twenty-four hours for the potion's duration, then we get these times:

Take Potion	Wake Up
Tuesday	Wednesday
7pm	7pm
8pm	8pm
9pm	9pm
10pm	10pm
11pm	11pm
midnight	midnight
1am	1am
2am	2am
Wednesday	Thursday

As we can see, a 2am potion-taking would result in a 2am wake-up, perfectly in line with the events at the end of the play.

[though we do have the pesky use of the Chief Watchman's statement that Juliet "hath lain this two days buried" (V.iii.177)... though those two days could be yesterday and today, I suppose...]

So if we go by my Jack Bauer supposition (24, get it?), we have the ending of the play taking place early Thursday morning, less than 100 hours after the start of our play.

Time.

It's fundamental to the play. Think of all the actions affected by (good or) bad timing:

Romeo barely misses the fray at the beginning of the play
Romeo and Benvolio run into the Capulet servant with the invitation list
Tybalt happens to be next to Romeo when he first sees Juliet at the party
Romeo sees Juliet at the party
Romeo meets Benvolio and Mercutio just as Tybalt is arriving
Capulet's decision to marry Juliet to Paris on Thursday prompts the Friar's potion plan
Friar John seeks help from another friar just as the plague police are searching the house (negating his ability to deliver the note to Romeo)
Balthasar just happens to see Juliet's body laid into the Capulet tomb
Paris is at the tomb when Romeo arrives
Romeo arrives too early ... Juliet is waking (she no longer looks dead, as there "is crimson in [her] lips, and in [her] cheeks" [V.iii.95]), but she is not yet awake
Romeo takes the poison just before Friar Laurence can arrive and stop him (Friar Laurence himself says that he has taken longer than usual to get there: "how oft tonight // Have my old feet stumbled at graves?" [V.iii.121-122])
Juliet awakes after Romeo is dead, thus prompting her suicide

If the play wasn't about time, then these would all seem contrived, as overly written coincidences. But with time as our overall guiding principle, these now seem inevitable, as fated, as "star-crossed" (1Chorus, 6).

Welcome to the Capulet Family (Dys)Function

2010-05-26T12:39:00Z

In Romeo and Juliet, the Capulets are a fascinating family.

Lord Capulet tells Paris that he has had children in the past, but they're all dead now, all save for Juliet:

Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth.
-- I.ii.14-15

Now, since he also tells Lady Capulet that Juliet is their "only child" (III.v.166), we can safely assume that Lady Capulet is not his first wife. She could be his second or even third wife, especially considering her age--or, more importantly, considering their difference in ages.

As we've discussed earlier this month , Lady Capulet is around 28 years old. Her husband, on the other hand. is somewhere in the 45 to 65 year range. The fact they have only the one child can also lead us to believe that Lady Capulet was rendered incapable of having more children (and thus would explain Capulet's statement to Paris that "too soon marred are those (girls) so early made (mothers)" (I.ii.13). Either that, or she no longer gives him access to her bed.

What would this age difference and this inability to conceive (or sexual estrangement) do to a relationship? There doesn't seem to be much affection between husband and wife (though not a little measure of fear, given Lady Capulet's response to Capulet's explosive anger at Juliet in Act Three, Scene Five). Even when Lady Capulet flirtatiously teases him, a dark sexuality rises to the surface; on the eve to Juliet's wedding, in the midst of preparations, she tells him, "Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time; // But I will watch you from such watching now" (IV.iv.11-12). There are two different bawdy definitions to "mouse-hunt." The first is a simple "womanizer" (Partridge, Eric. Shakespeare's Bawdy. New York: Routledge, 2008; page 195); this would mean that he'd chased women before (now whether she means before her or just before tonight is debatable). The second meaning is "whoremonger" (ibid), which would make him more a frequenter of whores, a real concurrent possibility given what we can interpret as their sexual estrangement.

Another member of the Capulet family is "the fiery Tybalt" (I.i.108), the "Prince of Cats" (II.iv.19). Now, though both Lady Capulet and Capulet describe Tybalt as their brother's child (III.i.145 and III.v.128, respectively), whose brother is he? I'd vote Capulet for one reason, and one performance possibility. The textual reason is the feline correlation between Capulet's description as a "mouse-hunt" and Tybalt's as "Prince of Cats."

The possibility in performance takes into account Capulet's "mouse-hunt" and the couple's lack of affection. Could Tybalt and Lady Capulet be lovers? (Baz Luhrmann certainly thinks so, as seen in his 1996 film) I think it's a possibility based on three exchanges:

The heated argument between Capulet and Tybalt at the party, over the younger man's desire to attack Romeo at the party. Capulet uses such phrases as
- "goodman boy" (I.v.78)
- "Am I the master here, or you?" (I.v.79)
- "You will set cock-a-hoop, you'll be the man!" (I.v.82)
- To cast off all restraint, become reckless
- "You are a princox" (I.v.87)
All of these phrases attempt to take away Tybalt’s manhood, a manhood Capulet thinks the younger man's been using with Lady Capulet?
Lady Capulet's ridiculous explanation of his death: "Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, // And all those twenty could but kill one life" (III.i.177-178), the life of Tybalt. Could this hyperbole have at its root a sexual desire and passion?
When Capulet talks to Paris the night of the killings, he tells the county, "Look you, (Juliet) loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly" (III.iv.3); then almost as an afterthought, he continues, "And so did I" (III.iv.4). Might it be that Capulet no longer cares about Tybalt, but a cross look from Lady Capulet forces him to make some kind of concession of affection toward his own nephew? (of course, Luhrmann goes one better, and gives the "And so did I" line to Lady Capulet herself)

Compared to the Capulets, the Montagues are boring enigmas... ah, the Capels... the performance possibilities are incredible...

Bawdy McBawd Bod

2010-05-25T12:50:00Z

[rated NC-17... proceed with caution]

Last month we had almost no bawdiness in Midsummer. The same cannot be said of this month's Romeo and Juliet.

Within lines of the beginning of the first scene, Sampson is discussing "thrust(ing) his maids to the wall" (I.i.16-17). While we could take this to simply mean that women (all of them) will be pushed in and away from the gutter on the sidewalks, his truer meaning comes when he goes on to discuss the maids' "maidenheads" (I.i.24), or virginity. If that wasn't enough, he then tells Gregory, "Me they shall feel while I am able to stand; and 'tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh" (I.i.27-28). Women will feel Sampson when his pretty piece of flesh stands... pretty clear, no? (especially when his next line is "My naked weapon is out!" (I.i.32).

Later in that opening scene, we learn the true cause of Romeo's depression. Romeo is not getting sexual satisfaction: the object of his desire will not "ope her lap to saint-seducing gold" (I.i.213). Sex. Sex. Sex... is what's on the minds of Verona's young men.

But not just them. Juliet's nurse finds comic remembrance in a slightly bawdy tale from her and Juliet's past:

For even the day before, (Juliet) broke her brow,
And then my husband (God be with his soul!
A' was a merry man) took up the child:
'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidam,
The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'

-- I.iii.38-44

What's the point of the Nurse's story? That a toddler Juliet fell on her face, but the Nurse's husband told the toddler that when she's smarter, she'll fall on her back for sex (and that the toddler agreed).

Back to the young men. When Benvolio and Mercutio search for Romeo after the Capulet party, Mercutio attempts to

conjure (Romeo) by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us!

-- II.i.17-21

The key here is the "demesnes" or domains that are adjacent to the quivering thigh: her genitals. When Benvolio says that such statements will anger Romeo, Mercutio disagrees, saying,

This cannot anger him. 'Twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it and conjured it down.

-- II.i.23-26

Mercutio says that words won't anger Romeo. What WOULD anger his is to get an hard-on ("raise a spirit") and put it in Rosaline's pussy ("in his mistress' circle"), and do her ("letting it there stand") until she makes him come and he goes soft again ("she had laid it and conjured it down").

[ah, high school freshman lit will NEVER be the same...]

Benvolio would like to stop Mercutio but he is on a roll:

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
An open arse and thou a poperin pear!

-- II.i.33-38

For those thinking that first line is clean, I will point you to the post-hunt archery scene from Love's Labor's Lost (think, he wants to "hit" that). Then Mercutio pictures Romeo sitting under a medlar tree... Now, the medlar was a type of apple (more on that in just a second), but it was also an Elizabethan slang for the vulva. And what will Romeo do under that tree? Why, wish that Rosaline was a medlar apple... and why do maids laugh when talking about the medlar? Because the medlar had the shape of "an open arse" which is both an open ass, but also another name for the medlar apple. And just to keep the botanical imagery coming (no pun intended), Mercutio wishes, if Rosaline was "an open arse," then Romeo was a "poperin pear," a variety of the fruit that looks like a phallus: he wishes Romeo was a hard cock and Rosaline an open arse.

The next morning, when Romeo approaches and Benvolio says, "Here comes Romeo!" (II.iv.36), Mercutio not only puns on Romeo's name, but also cracks bawdy: "Without his roe, like a dried herring" (II.iv.37); Romeo is without his roe, or seed, because (Mercutio assumes) he found someone to relieve him of his semen. When Mercutio berates Romeo for fleeing them the night before, Romeo responds,

Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
MERCUTIO
That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.

-- II.iv.49-52

Romeo starts off clean-minded: I had important things to do, and in that instance ("case"), a person can be less than courteous. Mercutio takes "case" and runs with it: the word also meant in Shakespeare's day the female genitalia. Thus, he means "In other words, the kind of pussy you've been with can cause a man to bow" and here "bow" means to bend over not only in a sign of courtesy, but also in pain over a venereal disease.

Later in the same scene, Mercutio describes love:

this driveling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
BENVOLIO
Stop there, stop there.
MERCUTIO
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
BENVOLIO
Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
MERCUTIO
O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short: for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.

-- II.iv.90-98

A natural in this case is an idiot, in the guise of a court jester, and he hides his jester's wand in a hole, or his cock in a pussy, take your pick. When Benvolio tries to quiet him, Mercutio asks if Benvolio wants him to stop his story before he wants to ("stop in my tale against the hair") or stuff his penis down into his pubic hair ("stop in my tale against the hair"). When Benvolio says that Mercutio's story will become "large" or indecent, Mercutio takes large to mean big, erect, and corrects Benvolio that he is wrong: instead, Mercutio would go to the full length of his cock ("whole depth of [his] tale") until he came and "made it short" again... and when short, it would "occupy the argument no longer."

After all of this, the whole "prick of noon" statement by Mercutio to the Nurse is tame.

We get a couple more bawdy statements by the Nurse to Juliet ("But you shall bear the burden soon at night" [II.v.76], and "The County Paris hath set up his rest // That you shall rest but little" [IV.v.6-7]), but really, once Mercutio is dead, so is bawdiness in the play.

Momento Mori

2010-05-24T13:35:00Z

From the opening Prologue we know that Romeo and Juliet are going to end up dead, will "take their life" (1Chorus, 6). And the death references abound, but a few are pure foreshadowing:

Romeo: "some vile forfeit of untimely death" (I.iv.111)
Juliet: "My grave is like to be my wedding bed" (I.v.136)
Nurse: "Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?" (II.iv.201-202); rosemary was used in funeral wreaths
Friar Laurence: "These violent delights have violent ends" (II.vi.9)
Juliet: "when I shall die" (III.ii.21)
Juliet: "I'll to my wedding bed; // And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!" (III.ii.136-137)
Capulet: "Well, we are born to die" (III.iv.4)
Juliet to Romeo: "Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, // As one dead in the bottom of a tomb" (III.v.55-56)
Juliet: "Or hide me nightly in a charnel house" (IV.i.81); a charnel house is a "vault in which the bones of the dead are piled up" (Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM [v. 4.0])
Romeo: "I dreamt my lady came and found me dead" (V.i.6)

Podcast 46: Romeo and Juliet DVD Reviews (Part Two)

2010-05-23T14:14:00Z

This week's podcast continues our month-long discussion of Romeo and Juliet, including some reviews of productions available on DVD, and our recap of this week's blog entries.

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com , which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.

Scansion: Textual Clues for Performance

2010-05-22T13:05:00Z

[repurposed from earlier in the Project...]

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene ii (3-26)

ROMEO
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
…
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
JULIET                   Ay me!
ROMEO                 She speaks:

ROMEO
~ \ ~ \ ~ \ ~ \ ~ \
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
\ ~ ~ \ ~ \ ~ \ ~ \
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

That first line is a regular iambic pentameter line. But look at the second line… it begins not with an unaccented (iambic) syllable, but a stressed one-a trochee foot. Then take a look at Juliet's name. For the meter to work, for there to be the right number of syllables, her name must NOT be pronounced "JU-lee-ET" but rather "JUL-yet" with the last two syllables slurred as one... symbolically, just the thought, the mention of his love's name speeds up her heart.

Now, look at the stressed words: they tell the story:
Soft! Light breaks... east, Jul (jewel?) is sun.

Let's continue…

~ \    ~    \    ~   \    ~ \   ~    \
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
\ ~ ~ \ ~ \    ~   \    ~     \
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
~    \   ~   \   ~    \   ~    \     ~   \
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
~ \   ~   \     ~     \ ~ \ ~ \
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
~   \ ~   \ ~ \   ~   \    ~    \
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
~   \    ~   \    ~   \   ~    \   ~ \
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

There's some cool stuff happening here… in the first line, "envious" is slurred from three to two syllables (not "EN-vee-US" but "EN-vyus")… that fits the meter, but in the fourth line Shakespeare to keep out the meter regular stretches out the same word to its usual three syllables. Why? In the first line, Romeo is powering through the verse, but in line four, the word comes at the end of the line, and stretching it out makes the plea fuller, flirtier, sexier. (don't overlook what is happening at the end of line one and the trochee beginning of line two, two consecutive stressed syllables, each with a long vowel U sound…ooooooo, very sexy.)

Except for the three-to-two syllable slurring of "livery" in line five, it's all pretty straight forward iambic pentameter.

------------------------------------------------
UPDATE... After listening to the wonder Playing Shakespeare by the Royal Shakespeare Company's John Barton, I've re-examined the scansion, and thus this change:

~ \ ~ \ ~ ~ \ \ ~ \
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
~ \ ~ \ \ ~ ~ \ ~ \
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

The change in that penultimate line makes it jumpier, unsure, as if he's fighting for words, the right words to convince her... and he's found it (thus, his "oooo, ooooo" repetition of "fools do" ... ooooo, oooo, I've got it!

Now he turns his attention from metaphor to the flesh and blood girl before him:

\ ~   ~ \ ~ \ ~ \   ~ \
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
\    ~   ~    \   ~   \      _      _
O, that she knew she were!
~    \     ~   ~   \    \ ~      \ ~   \
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
~   \   ~ \   ~   \ ~    \ ~ \
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
\ ~ ~   \      \   \   ~ \   ~     \
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:

This first line kicks off with another trochee (two syllable foot, stressed followed by unstressed), it gives the line a bounce to start; but look what happens in the second half of the line. He repeats the "it is my" construction, but look at the stresses: it has gone from an unstressed "is" (my lady) to an emphasized "is" (my love). He's getting a little ahead of himself. Then look at line two.

That's a short line. Only six syllables. That's a two-foot pause. He's supposed to stop talking. Why?

Look at line three: "She speaks yet she says nothing." The actress playing Juliet should sigh in the pause. She has to make some kind of audible sound ("she speaks"), but it cannot carry meaning (there's no dialogue for her, and "she says nothing"). And look at the rhythm of that next line. It's jumbled. Romeo is confused, and his confidence from the first line is shot.

ROMEO
\    \   ~   \     ~    \   ~ \   ~   \
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
\    ~ ~ \   ~   \   ~ \    ~    \
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
~   \ ~     \      ~    \
That I might touch that cheek!
JULIET
\   \
Ay me!
ROMEO
~     \
She speaks:

Is this part of the scene, five lines long?

NO, we're talking three poetic lines here, with that third poetic line encompassing two script lines for Romeo and one for Juliet.

ROMEO
\    \   ~   \     ~    \   ~ \   ~   \
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
\    ~ ~ \   ~   \   ~ \    ~    \
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
~   \ ~     \     ~     \
That I might touch that cheek!
                               \ \
JULIET                         Ay me!
                                      ~    \
ROMEO                               She speaks:

That third poetic line has ten total syllables, ONE iambic pentameter line... to be spoken WITHOUT PAUSES… If iambic pentameter is the sound of the human heart, then Romeo and Juliet are sharing a heartbeat (though Juliet's heart is pounding in a spondee foot)... ain't that sweet….

Crush a Cup

2010-05-21T12:46:00Z

In Act One of Romeo and Juliet, there are a number of speeches, the scansion of which makes it appear that the speakers may well be drunk.

Act One, Scene Three

The Nurse uses such awkward meter that it certainly appears that she is in some altered state:

\ ~ ~   \   ~   \   \    ~ ~   \
Even or odd, of all days in the year,
~    \ ~   \ ~   \      ~    ~   \ ~   \
Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
\ ~   ~   \    ~   \    ~    \   ~    \
Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!)
~    \ ~   \    ~     \ ~ \   ~    \
Were of an age: well, Susan is with God;
\   ~   ~   \    ~   \    ~   \ ~ \
She was too good for me. But, as I said,
~   \ ~   \ ~   \      ~    ~   \ ~   \
On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;
~    \    ~     \ ~ \ ~ \ ~ ~   \
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
~   \     ~   \     \    \ ~ \ ~    \
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
~   \   ~    \     ~ \ ~    \    ~ \ ~
And she was weaned (I never shall forget it)
~   \   ~   \   ~   ~   \    ~ \    ~   \
Of all the days of the year, upon that day,
~ \ ~    \   ~    \   ~    \ ~ \
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
\ ~    -~-    \ \ ~   ~   \   ~     \
Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.
~ \    ~   \   ~     \ ~   \ ~\
My lord and you were then at Mantua.
\   ~ \ \   ~ \      \   ~ ~   \
Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said,
\ ~   ~   \     ~   \   ~   \   ~   \ ~
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
~   ~ \   ~   \   ~   \ ~     \ ~ \
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
~ \ ~   \   ~ ~   \    \   ~    ~   \
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
\     ~    ~   \    ~       \   ~ \    ~ \
Shake quoth the dovehouse! 'Twas no need, I trow,
~ \   ~   \
To bid me trudge.

-- I.iii.16-34

The meter is a mess. Of the nineteen lines, only five have regular iambic rhythm (and one of those has feminine ending, and the last is a half line -- so it's iambic but only bimeter, not pentameter). She pauses at this point, but why? What follows in her repeated telling of the story her late husband and the toddler Juliet:

~   \      ~   \   \ ~ ~ \ ~    \
And since that time it is eleven years,
~    \   ~   \      ~    \    ~     \   ~   -\-
For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood,
~    \    ~    \   ~   \ ~    \ ~ \
She could have run and waddled all about;
~   -\- ~   \   ~ \     ~    \    ~   \
For even the day before, she broke her brow:
~    \   ~ \ ~     \ ~    \   ~   \
And then my husband (God be with his soul!
~   \ ~ \ ~ \    \   ~   ~    \
A' was a merry man) took up the child:
\     ~     ~    \    ~    \   ~ \   ~   \
'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?
~   \    ~    \   ~     \    ~   \    ~    \
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
\    ~    ~    \      ~    \ ~ \ ~ \
Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidame,
~    \ ~   \     ~     \ ~   \   ~    \
The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'
~ \    ~    \ ~ \    ~     \   ~ \
To see, now, how a jest shall come about!
~   -\-    ~ \   ~     \   ~   \ ~    \
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
~ \ ~    \     ~ \ ~     \     ~ \     \      ~     \
I never should forget it: 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he,
~    \   ~ \    ~    \ ~   \   ~    \
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'

-- I.iii.35-48

and then again

~    \ ~    \ ~ \ ~    \     ~   \
Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh
~   \   ~    \     ~      \ ~   \   ~   \
To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'
~   \   ~   -\-    ~   \ ~ \   ~   \
And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow
~ \   ~   \ \ ~ \     \    ~     \
A bump as big as a young cock'rel's stone--
~ \   ~    \     ~ \   \     \ ~   \
A parlous knock; and it cried bitterly.
\     ~     ~ \ ~     \      ~ \   ~   \
'Yea,' quoth my husband,'fall'st upon thy face?
~   \    ~    \   ~     \    ~   -\-    ~ \
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
\    ~    ~    \     ~    \ ~   \   ~    \
Wilt thou not, Jule?' it stinted and said 'Ay.'

-- I.iii.50-57

Yet, when she tells the story, the meter regulates. This is a story she has obviously told, time and time again; in a sense, she's on auto-pilot. Even drunk, she can get through the story normally.

[it should come as no suprise that under stress, like that of having to deliver the news of Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment, she calls for "aqua vitae" (III.ii.88), which is "Any form in which ardent spirits have been drunk, as brandy, whisky, etc." (Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM [v. 4.0])].

Act One, Scene Four

On the way to the Capulet party, Benvolio responds to Romeo's question concerning an apology for crashing the party:

The date is out of such prolixity.
We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance;
But let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure and be gone.

-- I.iv.3-10

Benvolio, for the only time in the play, cuts loose with verbal virtuosity: referencing Cupid and Tartar, playing with consonance (crow-keeper, prologue/prompter), and punning with the word "measure." Nowhere else in the play, does his language take such flight... it's all straightforward reportage or urgings. It would appear by content alone that Benvolio has done a little pre-partying.

[then what to make Mercutio's Queen Mab speech from yesterday ? maybe Luhrmann has it right, making Mab an ecstasy-like drug...]

Act One, Scene Five

At the party itself, check out the meter of our host Capulet:

\ ~     \ ~ \    \ ~    ~   \     ~    \
Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes
~   \      ~    \     ~    \   ~ \    ~    \
Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you.
~   \   ~ \   ~ \     \   ~   ~   \
Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all
~    \   \ ~ ~ \      \    ~   \     \   ~
Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,
\    ~     \     ~    \     ~ \ ~    \    ~ \
She, I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near ye now?
\ ~     \ ~ \   \ ~    \    ~   \
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
~ \ ~    \   ~ \ ~   \   ~     \
That I have worn a visor and could tell
~   \ -~-    \   ~ ~ \    \ ~    \
A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,
\   ~   ~      \       ~   \      ~   \      ~   \
Such as would please. 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone!
\   ~   \ ~     \ ~ \    \    ~ \ ~      \
You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.

-- I.v.16-25

Compare the mess of that meter with his more measured verse with Paris earlier in the day:

~   \   ~    \ ~   \ ~    \   ~   \
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart;
~ \    ~ \   ~ \   ~   \ ~ \
My will to her consent is but a part.
~   \ ~ \    ~ \   ~    \   ~    \
An she agree, within her scope of choice
~    \ ~ \    ~   \   ~ \ ~    \
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
\   ~    ~ \   ~ \   ~ \ ~     \
This night I hold an old accustomed feast,
~   \ ~ \   ~ \ ~   \ -~- \
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
\   ~ ~ \     ~   \   ~ \    ~   \
Such as I love; and you, among the store,
~   \     ~    \ ~     \     ~ \ ~   \
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.

-- I.ii.16-23

The garrulousness and awkward meter of the first passage points to a certain inebriation at the opening of the party.

Why all the drinking?

And once again, what a great play to teach freshmen!

[sarcasm alert!]]

Oh. Then. I See...

2010-05-20T13:19:00Z

In the midst of Act One of Romeo and Juliet, we meet Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince, friend to Romeo, and as either impartial or important a personage to receive an invitation to the Capulet shindig. On his way to said party, with the Montague party-crashers Romeo and Benvolio in tow, in response to Romeo's statement that his new found reason for NOT going to the party is a dream he had tonight, Mercutio cuts loose with one of the most famous speeches in the Canon:

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 forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Over men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spiders' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone, the lash of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is she--

ROMEO
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
Thou talk'st of nothing.

MERCUTIO
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being angered, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

-- I.iv.53-103

The Queen Mab speech begins with a simple statement, told in a conversational manner ("O, then I see..."). But it quickly explodes into a sixteen-line sentence in which he describes the tiny size of Mab: no bigger than the jewel in a ring, spider's legs for wagon wheels' spokes, a cricket's bone for a whip, a hazel nut shell for a chariot. The length of sentence and the repetition of the syntax of description almost makes one forget the first line, the description of Mab herself. She is "the fairies' midwife," a woman who assists others in birth. The use of the term fairy here is interesting; while the most common meaning is "One of a class of supernatural beings of diminutive size, in popular belief supposed to possess magical powers and to have great influence for good or evil over the affairs of man", (Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM [v. 4.0]), another meaning of the time is "Enchantment, magic; a magic contrivance; an illusion, a dream" (OED). Is Mab that which allows dreams to be born?

Mercutio then goes though an eighteen-and-a-half-line sequence outlining the dreams that different kinds of people have when Mab births their dreams. Many of the character types at the beginning of the speech are allowed only one line apiece; then ladies are given three lines, courtiers two, and parsons three again. He concludes with a soldier, to whom he dedicates six and a half lines; and this is the only dreamer that wakes, wakes frightened, wakes and prays, then sleeps again (this time without dreams). Why so many lines for the soldier? Is this what Mercutio was prior to the play? Is this why he is an accomplished swordfighter?

From this point on, the speech moves from dreams to the Puck-like pranks Mab performs, like tangling the manes of horses (and for some reason, UNtangling them foretells misfortune... why?). As the subject matter turns, so too does the tone: Mab is no longer the fairies' midwife, but the "hag" or "a woman supposed to have dealings with Satan and the infernal world; a witch" (OED).

[the (rather misogynistic) linkage of midwifery and witchcraft was so pervasive that during the medieval times, the Catholic church licensed midwifes, and part of their oath was to use no magic in birthing process...]

So the speech has gone from comic (description of fairies) to light (lovers and courtiers) to dark (the longer section on soldiers) to the nightmarish vision of the hag's visitations on women in the night. The maid is on her back (sound familiar? yes, just a scene earlier the Nurse recounts a bawdy tale of Juliet as a toddler and having enough wit to fall on one's back), and the hag "press(es) down (upon the maid) in the sexual act" (Partridge, Eric. Shakespeare's Bawdy. New York: Routledge, 2008; page 215), like some kind of female incubus. And yes, I KNOW that the female counterpart to the incubus is the succubus, but where the succubus drains its victim, the incubus would lie upon women as they sleep to have sex with them... and this hag definitely does that, as she "learns them first to bear" (think of the Nurse's later statement to Juliet that she will "bear the burden soon at night" (II.v.76). Once this pressing is done, the maid is of "good carriage," which has multiple meanings: good bearing or comportment, good at having children, and good at having sex (interesting that the sentence before this references "foul sluttish" hairs...).

And here he breaks off, saying, "This is she--" but nothing follows. Romeo completes the line but it isn't a true antilabe, as scansion shows:

\   ~ \
This is she--

ROMEO
                 ~      \     ~ \-~-    \
               Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Note the awkward meter of Mercutio's final fragment of a line; it seems to be one and a half trochaic feet. Romeo's completion of the line is in regular iambs, however, and there is a missing syllable or beat between their speeches. This is a great clue to the actors. Many productions have Romeo interrupting Mercutio, trying to shut him up, but the scansion directs the actors to a different possibility: Mercutio cannot complete his own line, and Romeo comforts him (compare Zeffirelli’s and Luhrmann's films which take this approach, as opposed to the BBC Complete Works series which takes the more interruptive route).

When Romeo continues, telling Mercutio that he talks of nothing, Mercutio completes Romeo's line is a true antilabe, with both fragments forming a regularly iambic line. Mercutio then, in a rambling and seemingly inconsequential final sentence, goes on to equate dreams to empty thoughts. The purpose of the sentence may not be clear, but look at the words used: "dreams," "idle brain," "nothing," "thin of substance," "air," "wind."

So dreams are nothing, right?

But there's more going on here.

Remember, "nothing" had another connotation, that of referencing the female vagina--a space where there is nothing (Kiernan, Pauline. Filthy Shakespeare. New York: Gotham, 2008; page 296). Besides "nothing," we also have "children" and "begot." Suddenly, the speech takes us back to its midwife roots. In a sense Mercutio has become the midwife of our subconscious thoughts and desires. Or, to get all Freudian on you, Mercutio (from Mercury, the God of Trade) trades in the Id, turning away from what is "north"--the "idle brain" or the "frozen bosom" (or heart)--to something more below the belt... not just "south," but "the dew-dropping south."

It's a tough speech. And it can be a literal show-stopper (and not in a good way). So, how to present it? As improvisation? As remembrance of another's speech? What is Mercutio's state of mind as he moves through it?

I don't know... there are so many different ways to go...

The Mercurial One... Not REALLY

2010-05-19T12:59:00Z

Much has been made of the name Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, with many believing that Shakespeare named the character to link his personality to the word "mercurial," which for us today means "Volatile, sprightly, and ready-witted" (Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM [v. 4.0]). And this would seem to be a great story and completely apt. Except for one thing:

THAT meaning of "mercurial" did not arise until over fifty years after the play was written.

Oh, yeah... that and the fact that Mercutio (as a named character) appeared in Shakespeare's sources for the play, including Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.

If we want to link Mercutio's name to anything, it should be to Mercury, the Greek messenger god, and God of Trade. If that's the case, what does he trade in?

Words.

And if to cement THAT concept, Shakespeare gives him one of the wildest speeches in the Canon, the Queen Mab speech...

[for that, my friends, you will have to wait until tomorrow...]

Angelic(a), My Arse

2010-05-18T13:37:00Z

In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet's Nurse's name is mentioned exactly once. In Act Four, Scene Four, we hear this exchange:

CAPULET
Look to the baked meats, good Angelica:
Spare not for the cost.
NURSE
Go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; faith, You'll be sick to-morrow
For this night's watching.

-- IV.iv.5-8

Capulet uses the name Angelica and the Nurse responds to it.

Angelica. Like an angel.

Right.

Sure, if angels are bawdy:

her repeated joke of her husband, Juliet, and women having wit enough to "fall backward" (I.iii.42)
"Seek happy nights to happy days" (I.iii.105)
referring to Paris as one who would like to "lay knife aboard" (II.iv.190) Juliet; a reference to taking a slice of a dish, with the knife also being a phallic reference
"I am the drudge, and toil in your delight; // But you shall bear the burden soon at night" (II.v.75-76)
"Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man. // For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand! // Why should you fall into so deep an O?" (III.iii.88-90), though granted these are unintentional sexual references
"Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant, // The County Paris hath set up his rest, // That you shall rest but little" (IV.v.5-7)

Do angels betray trust? I would think not, but the Nurse does, on two different levels. The first is the one most notice: her instant advice to Juliet to forget her marriage to Romeo, and be married again to Paris:

I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first; or if it did not,
Your first is dead -- or 'twere as good he were
As living here and you no use of him.

-- III.v.224-227

Juliet wants "comfort" (III.v.214), but the Nurse provides none and counsels Juliet to go against her love, a betrayal of all the help she herself had offered the girl up to this point.

The second betrayal is more insidious and heartbreaking, and rarely discussed. When Lady Capulet begins to tell Juliet of the wedding plans with Paris, she first tells her daughter of their plot for "vengeance" (III.v.88), in which they will "send to one in Mantua, // Where that same banished runagate doth live" (89-90), and they will then poison Romeo. How does Lady Capulet know that Romeo is going to Mantua. The Friar tells Romeo of the plan to have him "sojourn in Mantua" (III.iii.169). But the only other person to hear of this plan is the Nurse who is with them when the Friar first mentions the plan. There is no other way for Lady Capulet to learn of Romeo's destination than by the Nurse.

In defense of the Nurse, was her betrayal of Romeo the lesser of two evils? After Capulet decides that Juliet will marry Paris, he tells his wife, "Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed; // Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day" (III.iv.31-32). This scene takes place "very late" (III.iv.5) on the night of Romeo and Juliet's wedding, but Lady Capulet does not come into Juliet's chamber until after the next "day is broke" (III.v.40). Did the Nurse, in an attempt to keep Juliet's marriage secret, decide to stall Lady Capulet's entrance into Juliet's room with the only information that would give Lady Capulet pause: the location of the man who slew her kinsman? By the time Lady Capulet enters the room, they already have the vengeance plotted; this would take time, the time between "very late" on Monday and daybreak on Tuesday.

Angelic? I don't think so. Incredibly ironic is more like it...

TONIGHT: The Star-Cross'd Lovers-centric Video Conference

2010-05-17T15:19:00Z

Don't forget:

7pm Pacific... (that's 10pm for you right coasters), we're going to get together online. If you've got a microphone and a web cam, we'll get to hear and see you... if not, well, at least you can see and hear us. There will be a text-only component so everyone can participate, but I'm really looking forward to meeting as many as you as possible face-to-disembodied-face.

So tonight, go to www.billwalthall.com/BSPconf/ ...

~~Later today, I'll announce this week's~~ This month's passcode for entry into the room is:

wherefore

The Age of Leo

2010-05-17T12:37:00Z

Unlike almost every play we've read before in the Canon, Romeo and Juliet gives the audience a real sense of time and season. And for a few of the characters, Shakespeare provides ages as well.

While we never learn Romeo's age, the three characters closest to the raising of Juliet--Capulet, his wife, and the Nurse--make five references in four speeches to our heroine's age:

Capulet: "She hath not seen the change of fourteen years" (I.ii.9)
Lady Capulet: "She's not fourteen" (I.iii.12)
Nurse: "She is not fourteen" (I.iii.14 [ironic, no?])
Nurse: "Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen... On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen" (I.iii.17 and 21)

[we'll revisit Lammastide in a few moments...]

Lady Capulet also tells her daughter,

Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers. By my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid.
-- I.iii.70-73

While some critics have argued that this may be an exaggeration on her part (in an attempt to seem younger than she is), I think she's probably speaking the truth.

[I'll 'splain why in a few...]

That would make her about 27 or 28. Why is this important?

Well, we're also given a clue as to Capulet's age. As Capulet greets his guests at the party, we learn that it has been "thirty years" (I.v.34) since he last participated in a masked ball. Let's say for argument's sake that masking is a young man's game and that men over the age of, say, eighteen rarely participate; this would put Capulet's age at around 48, a full twenty years older than his wife. If, however, one masked until he was physically no longer quick-footed enough, then he might have been around 30 or 35 when he stopped masking, thus making his possible age as old as 65. Remember that in the opening scene, the Prince refers to the heads of the feuding families as "OLD Capulet and Montague" (I.i.89, emphasis mine); Capulet is old, Montague is not (as old).

So there is quite a disparity between the ages of Capulet and his wife. Is this the reason that Capulet is reluctant to allow Juliet to marry? When Capulet states his hesitancy over Juliet's youth, Paris responds,

Younger than she are happy mothers made.
CAPULET
And too soon marred are those so early made.
The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth.
-- I.ii.12-15

Juliet is his only surviving child, as he has buried ("earth hath swallowed") all the others. Could it be that Lady Capulet is not his first wife? Infant mortality was high, as was the rate of death in childbirth. It certainly isn't impossible that Lady Capulet is his second or even third wife. At 28, she is still of birthing age, so why is it that there is no other surviving child? Infant mortality is one possible reason, but maybe the clue is in Capulet's statement that "too soon marred are those so early made" mothers: it is distinctly possible that in giving birth to Juliet, Lady Capulet was rendered incapable of having any more children. This would certainly add to Capulet's reluctance for Juliet's youthful marriage, motherhood, and possible suffering of her own mother's fate.

Let's revisit Lady Capulet's age. As I noted earlier, I believe her when she says that she is around 28. The clues certainly are there:

she mocks her husband's age in the first scene when he calls for his sword; she responds, "A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?" (I.i.75)
she shows obvious (and not-so-obvious) discomfort in discussing marriage with her daughter in Act One, Scene Three
- first, she demands that the Nurse leave, then calls her back, "I have remembered me, thou's hear our counsel" (I.iii.9-10); she needs the Nurse's support
- then, she allows the Nurse to ramble for over thirty lines; it's as she doesn't want to broach the subject
- finally, when she does bring up the subject of marriage, the scansion of her lines direct the actress to push forward through the speech, as if trying to get it over as quickly as possible:
  ~ \ ~ \ ~ \ \ ~ ~ \
  Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
  -- I.iii.69
  
  ~ \ ~ \ ~ \ \ ~ ~ \
  That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
  -- I.iii.73
  
  In both these instances, we have mid-line stops. Where we would usually expect either a continuation of the regularly iambic meter, or even a caesura, instead we get a trochee to push forward through the speech, to get past the subject

All these point to possible immaturity, one that is understandable for a 28 year-old trying to give marriage advice to a 13 year-old daughter.

And let's now revisit when this daughter will turn fourteen. Lammastide was the wheat harvest festival held on August 1. Thus, Juliet turns fourteen on July 31.

[Juliet... July... Juliet is Leo woman, hear her roar...]

Since we're some "fortnight and odd days" (I.iii.15) from Lammastide, the play takes place in mid-July. Why is that important? That time of year, according to weather almanacs, is the hottest time of year in Verona. Remember that the afternoon when Mercutio is killed, Tybalt is killed, and Romeo is banished is "hot... And ... (the characters) shall not scape a brawl" (III.i.2-3).

Podcast 45: Romeo and Juliet DVD Reviews (Part One)

2010-05-16T14:32:00Z

This week's podcast continues our month-long discussion of Romeo and Juliet, including some reviews of productions available on DVD, a reminder about an upcoming BSP video conference, and then our recap of this week's blog entries.

Errata:
1:10 -- Text should be "Rankoff" instead of "Rakoff"
4:45 -- Text should be "her impending marriage" instead of "their impending marriage"
15:43 -- Text should be "our intermission" instead of "the intermission"

Link:
Our second video web conference (Office Hours): www.billwalthall.com/BSPconf
Passcode to be announced tomorrow...

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com , which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.

Sound Clips

Die Hard; directed by John McTeirnan; written by Steven E. de Souza and Jeb Stuart; released by 20th Century Fox (1988)

Paging Benvolio

2010-05-15T12:44:00Z

Ah, yes. Benvolio. A key player in Romeo and Juliet.

The name itself is symbolic: "good will" (as opposed to Malvolio in Twelfth Night). And the name fits. His first action in the play is an attempt to stop the brawl in the opening scene, with the statement "Part, fools! // Put up your swords. You know not what you do" (62-63). If the action of stopping violence isn't enough, then his words are, a direct reference to Christ on the cross: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).

He is a good friend to Romeo, attempting to bring him out of his depression in Act One, and protecting him from Mercutio's raw commentary in Act Two, Scene One.

He tries to avoid the brawl in Act Three, Scene One, first by suggesting to Mercutio to leave the streets as "the Capels are abroad" (III.i.2), and then by imploring both Tybalt and Mercutio to take their argument out of the "public haunt of men" (III.i.49).

He gives accurate accounts of the Act One and Act Three brawls to the Prince.

All of this makes him a good guy, right?

Yes. But like the best of Shakespearean characters, he's no one-dimensional saint (instead a perfect representation of Friar Laurence's depiction of man: "Two such opposed kings encamp them still // In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will" [II.iii.27-28]).

Consider:

Mercutio's depiction of him as a hotheaded fighter ("Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood..." [III.i.10]); now this might just be Mercutio spewing verbally, but he spewage often needs a catalyst, and there is none here
Benvolio's quick and easy decision to crash the Capulet party, with seemingly no regard for the feud
Benvolio's questionable grasp of details in his reportage of the Act Three brawl:
- He claims Tybalt "began this bloody fray" (III.i.150), but this is only true from a particular perspective: while Tybalt entered looking to start a fight, it is Mercutio who draws first and challenges, "Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?" (III.i.74)...
- He claims it was Tybalt who first drew first ("tilts // With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast" [III.i.157-158] while Mercutio only then "turns deadly point to point" [III.i.159]), when--as we noted above--it is Mercutio that draws first

It is this dubious reportage that makes Benvolio's oath "This is the truth, or let Benvolio die" (III.i.174) symbolically prophetic. These are the last words he speaks, this is the last we see him or even hear of him. Is his reportage untrue enough that guilt over the lie (and over the betrayal of his own good will) forces him to leave town, rendering him for all intents and purposes dead within the play?

He simply vanishes from the play, with no explanation. Good will, and any chance for a happy ending, disappears, and we're left with a death spiral for the remainder of the play.

I directed the play back in the 90's, and our intermission took place just after the Prince announces Romeo's banishment. We worked on a stage without a curtain, so during intermission, I had the Nurse cleaning up the bloody mess that was Tybalt, while Benvolio could be seen leaving town. Even without spoken dialogue from either character, I felt this moment was crucial to both of them: neither character is the same after that point... Benvolio is gone, and the Nurse forever changed (but more on that later in the month).

It is interesting to note, however, that in the "Bad Quarto" of 1597, Montague announces not only the death of his wife in Act Five, Scene Three, but also the death of Benvolio. But for subsequent printings, his death is removed. Could it be that having Benvolio die would ruin the symmetry of death in Romeo and Juliet, and THAT's why Shakespeare removed it?

Foreshadowing of a Love Cut Short: Sonnet Interruptus

2010-05-14T13:08:00Z

Yesterday, we discussed the lovers' first conversation in Romeo and Juliet, a dialogue that took the form of a sonnet, and that led to their first kiss. That's pretty much where the story ends, or at least where most teaching ends. What most people don't know is that IMMEDIATELY following that sonnet, the lovers begin a second sonnet.

As I noted yesterday, the first sonnet ends with Romeo's statement, "Then move not while my prayer's effect I take" (I.v.107). I believe that this is the point at which the first kiss takes place: it makes sense as a culmination, crescendo, er climax. But let's take a look at what happens next:

ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged.

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.

JULIET
You kiss by the book.

NURSE
Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

-- I.v.107-112

Starting with line 108, we have the beginnings of another sonnet, with an ABAB quatrain. The lovers are conversing in a rhyme scheme more complex than mere couplets. Their scansions match; each of the lines kicks off with a trochee that pushes the pace, the rhythm of the dialog forward. By the fourth line of the quatrain, we even get an antilabe: they are now sharing lines, with no break in the metrical rhythm, no caesura.

Despite what many texts (including the Pelican Shakespeare) say, I don't think there is a kiss between Romeo's "Give me my sin again," and Juliet's "You kiss by the book." First, a kiss would break the rhythm of the line, destroying their growing verbal compatibility. Second, without the kiss, it makes Juliet's response more assertive (as the lack of a pause would force her to nearly interrupt his pentameter line), and one heckuvalot more flirty and coy.

I would love to hear Romeo's response and listen to where this blissfully ignorant conversation goes (remember, they don't know who the other is at this point). I think this going to very fun, verbally dynamic places.

BUT WE NEVER GET TO HEAR IT.

In a case of frustrating Sonnet Interruptus, Shakespeare instead has the Nurse cut off the lovers in mid-conversation, and fully remove Juliet from the dialog. Their sonnet is cut short, just as their love will be. It's a really nice piece of FORMal (rather than content-driven) foreshadowing.

Yes, I know there is another sonnet, by the Chorus at the beginning of Act Two. In comparison with the Chorus' opening sonnet, though, this one pales. It plays more like a TV serial's "Previously on..." than an important piece without which the play would be damaged; as proof, many productions leave it out.

What is more interesting is the number of other partial sonnets, spoken by single speakers and comprising -- surprisingly -- of the sestet (the final SIX lines) rather than an opening quatrain (FOUR) or octet (the first two quatrains, or EIGHT lines):

Paris has one as he mourns at the Capulet tomb in Act Five, Scene Three:

Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,
(O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones)
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew;
Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans.
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

-- V.iii.12-17

This sestet would be a wonderful EFEF GG -rhymed conclusion to a sonnet whose opening octet sets the situation of their young love, with her death taking place somewhere in the second quatrain.
Romeo has one during Benvolio's attempt to soothe his depression over Rosaline in Act One, Scene Two:

When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
And these, who often drowned could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.

-- I.ii.90-95

This sestet would be a great EFEF GG -rhymed resolution to a sonnet whose opening octet makes clear the poet's desire to find a woman to make him forget his love.
And Benvolio has one earlier in the same scene, as he tries to make his case to Romeo:

Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning;
One pain is lessened by another's anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another's languish.
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die

-- I.ii.45-50

This sestet would be a solid EFEF GG -rhymed conclusion to a sonnet whose opening octet sets forth the sonnet's audience's ridiculous amorous self-pity.

All of these are sonnet ENDINGS. All spoken by MEN. Is this an insinuation by Shakespeare that men can only bring actions to their end, in a sense destroying or killing the act. The play’s only complete sonnets are either spoken by the playwright's surrogate (in the case of the Chorus) or by a pair of lovers, male and female, a pair with procreative possibilities. Is this a subtle statement that women are necessary for completion--of words, of relationships, of gestation, of society?

[now wouldn't THAT be a little slap in the face of those who hate the Bard because of their perception of his seeming misogyny!]

oh, yes, one last thing:

There IS one other ABAB quatrain out there. It comes in the first scene, as Tybalt arrives to throw gasoline on the fire that is the opening brawl:

BENVOLIO
I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.

TYBALT
What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.

-- I.i.64-67

Benvolio and Tybalt share a quatrain. What?

Alas, I am at a loss with this one, friends....

Love at First Sight in Sonnet Form

2010-05-13T13:30:00Z

Yesterday, we talked about how Romeo and Juliet begins with a Prologue in sonnet form . It's not the only time Shakespeare uses the sonnet format in the play. He uses it again with the Chorus at the beginning of Act Two, but before that, and even more importantly, he has the titular characters speak their first lines to each other in that particular rhyme scheme:

ROMEO
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin 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.
-- I.v.i94-107

Romeo's opening four-line speech here is the first quatrain [ABAB], a single sentence, putting forth the supposition that he wishes to kiss Juliet's hand (under the pretense of "smoothing the rough touch" of his own hand upon hers. The use of sound here is interesting: Note the repeated short "i" vowel sounds in the second line "sin is this" and the repeated soft "u" vowels in line four--"rough touch".. these back-to-back vowel sounds almost give the impression of stuttering... like that of an unsure young lover. Metrically, the opening "if" could be emphasized to make the foot a spondee, but it's probably a simple iamb, with Romeo assuming that his touch DOES "profane" her "holy shrine" of a hand. The only other metric deviation from iamb comes in the fourth line of is speech, a trochee emphasizing the "TOUCH with..." (and thus further emphasizing that stuttering assonance).

Juliet's initial response, again a quatrain (CDCD), and again a single sentence, is a coy one: she refutes his "profane" supposition, instead putting the touch in a more holy setting--a "palmer's kiss" of palm touching palm. Remember, the setting is a Renaissance dance... could Romeo's touch be that of a male dancer taking his partner's hand in an offer to dance? Then, Juliet's response might be accompanied by a movement into the dance, in which the dancers both hold their hands up vertically, pressed together palm to palm. While Juliet's meter is rock solid iambic pentameter, her diction, too, implies a shy stuttering with the repeated plosive alliteration of "palm to palm is holy palmer's..." in her fourth line. Notice the way, their connection is being built subtly: they share the same words as their even-numbered line-ending rhymes (this, kiss).

The third quatrain (EFEF) is shared between the two lovers-to-be. When Romeo hears Juliet use the word "kiss" herself, he takes the initiative with his next line, a question hinting at more; while Juliet was only talking of hands and touching, Romeo returns the rhetoric to lips--Juliet's "saint"-ly lips, and Romeo's "palmer" lips. Juliet responds that both saints and palmers have lips, but for use in prayer (the coy implication is that kissing is out of the question, but as it's unsaid, it's even more coy that we can imagine); she also goes along with Romeo's original implied analogy: his is the "pilgrim" to her saint. Again, Romeo sees the rhetorical opening she has left for him (her position as saint), and he pounces with a two-line response. Now, if you've been reading the blog for long, you know we've spent quite a bit of time on the concept of rhyme .

[which I did just there... time/rhyme... get it?]

So you know there're quite a few reasons for it , but here I want to focus on the concept of rhyme as answer .
Romeo, by using a two-line response, one that completes his own ninth line as well as Juliet's tenth line, completes his own thought and answers (and tops) hers:

Both the saint and the pilgrim should put their lips together like the palm-to-palm kiss;
His lips have just spoken a prayer and he wants her (as saint) to grant the prayer

This quatrain deepens and complicates the subject matter started eight lines earlier, and its meter mirrors the complication: every line of the four has some deviation from the regular iamb.

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.

Romeo's first line of the quatrain puts a spondee in the second foot, emphasizing both SAINTS and LIPS. Juliet responds with an opening spondee, emphasizing the opening agreement (AY); her line also ends with an elision, a slurring of the two-syllable PRAY-er to a one-syllable PRAY'R. This could be played as her quickening of the pace with Romeo (reaching toward a crescendo or climax?), or even as Romeo cutting off her line with his response. Either way, it pushes the pace. Romeo's next line has two deviations: a trochee in foot four (DO what) and a spondee in the last (HANDS DO). His fourth line has two more deviations, trochees in feet two and four. In this quatrain, the meter breaks down, mirroring the growing (uncontrolled? ungoverned?) passion.

Like the third quatrain, the final resolving couplet (GG) is shared between the two speakers. Juliet says that saints do not take the initiative on their own ("move"), but rather grant the wishes of those who pray. Again, Romeo answers (and tops) her rhyme, saying then that she should not pull back ("move") while he makes his own prayer come true. Metrically, Juliet's line kicks off with a trochee (emphasizing SAINTS), and in contrast to her previous line, she does not elide the word "prayer" thus cementing the connotation of a person who prays (a pray-er), rather than the prayer itself. Romeo's final line is a rock-solid, non-deviating iamb line (with the elision back on "prayer" (sending the connotation back to the wish rather than the wisher). The regular iamb shows that he is calm enough now to do what he has wanted to do for more than a dozen lines now: kiss the girl.

One last note: the Pelican Shakespeare has the lovers’ first kiss coming after the NEXT line in the text: "Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged" (I.v.108). However, I believe the kiss should come at the end of the sonnet, as it is the logical physical conclusion to those fourteen lines; the line's content works after a kiss just as well.

[and as you'll see tomorrow, there's another reason for this disagreement with the Pelican stage direction... ohhh, foreshadowing!]

Prologue in Sonnet Form

2010-05-12T13:05:00Z

Romeo and Juliet, as we noted in last week's plot synopsis , begins with a Chorus that speaks the introduction in fourteen lines of iambic pentameter:

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;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

But it's not just fourteen lines, it's that intricately rhymed 14 lines that we like to call a sonnet. The octet (first eight lines) deal with the story, and the sestet (the final six lines) deal with the play.

The first four-line quatrain [ABAB] sets up the general concept: we're in Verona, and we have two distinguished families who in the past have had a conflict that has recently re-erupted. Metrically, it's standard-issue iambic pentameter save for two feet: the nice spondee to kick off the first line (and thus the play) -- TWO HOUSEholds... -- and the trochee in the midst of line three, to emphasize the BREAK. The last line of the quatrain is of note for its double use "civil," a word with multiple meanings in the contemporary era:

Of or belonging to citizens; consisting of citizens
Of or pertaining to the whole body or community of citizens
Civic, municipal
Having proper public or social order
Civilized
Refined, polished, ‘polite’
Non-religious, non-sacred, secular (all Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM [v. 4.0])

It could be as simple as citizens' blood makes those citizens' hands unclean. However, it could also foreshadow the deaths of Paris and Mercutio, meaning the blood of "municipal" leadership is on the hands of the citizens; or on the other hand, the blood of the citizens is on the hands of the government. It might also mean that the individual citizens' blood is on the hands of the collective community--that we're all responsible. Given that Verona was the setting not only of the play but for Leonardo Da Vinci and Catullus, it could also mean symbolically that non-religious and non-sacred hands has spilled the blood of the refined and civilized (and this could then be a more global religious statement).

The second quatrain (CDCD) takes us from the beginning to the end: the children of these families will not only die, but commit suicide. These children will be not just individuals, but a pair of lovers, and they will be defeated ("overthrows", OED), and this defeat will be both unfortunate ("misadventured", OED) and lamentable ("piteous", OED). Though the defeat their love is lamentable, it does bring forth a positive result: their deaths end the feud. Again, this section is regularly iambic, save for a trochee in that eighth line, emphasizing the BURy-ing of the strife.

The third quatrain (EFEF) takes us out of the story and into the concept of the theatrical production itself. The play ("traffic of our stage") will take two hours. In these two hours, though, we'll see the passage their love--as we noted last week , this idea that their love was "death-marked" could mean either that their relationship was marked for death by the fates, or that their love is marked by death (and not just theirs)--and the families' feud--that only their children's deaths could end. This section is kicked off by the trochee "AND the..." in line nine, and we also get a trochee in line 12 with the emphasized "NAUGHT".

The final regularly iambic couplet (GG) continues this discussion of the production itself. Much like Puck asks for "pardon" (MND: V.i.422) and applause (MND: V.i.429) at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, this Chorus asks for patient listening from the audience. If the audience does listen, he promises that what goes wrong in the plot, the actors’ play will try to set right in the audience's mind and soul.

[that use of "mend" really IS reminiscent of Puck's speech , isn't it? ... yeah, I'm glad I put these plays back-to-back and in this order...]

Death in Symmetry

2010-05-11T13:02:00Z

In Romeo and Juliet, there are "Two households both alike in dignity" (1Chorus.1). Yes, the Capulets and Montagues are alike in "the quality of being worthy or honorable; worthiness, worth, nobleness, excellence" (Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM [v. 4.0]). But there are actually three families. The Prince (with a name in the cast of characters--but never uttered on stage--of Escalus... a homonym to the father of Greek tragedy Aeschylus, perhaps?) has two kinsman in the play, Mercutio and Paris.

As the Prince says near the end of the play, "All are punished" (V.iii.295). How true this is:

The Capulets lose Juliet (V.iii.171) and Tybalt (III.i.130).
The Montagues lose Romeo (V.iii.120) and Lady Montague (Capulet tells the Prince: "Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight! // Grief of my son's exile hath stopped her breath" [V.iii.210-211]).
The Prince loses Mercutio (III..115) and Paris (V.iii.70).

In stating his own culpability in the tragic events, the Prince says, "And I, for winking at your discords, too, // Have lost a brace of kinsman" (V.iii.294-295), here "brace" meaning "a pair, a couple" (OED).

Yes, "All are punished" ... each of the three families loses two members.

It is interesting that in the "Bad Quarto" of 1597, Montague also announces the death of Benvolio. But for the subsequent printings, that death is removed. Could it be that having Benvolio die would ruin the symmetry of death in Romeo and Juliet?

Don't Forget!

2010-05-11T00:21:00Z

Our second video conference is one week from tonight!