Stretching Exercises with Shakespeare - Webflow

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Stretching Exercises with Shakespeare

Exploring minor themes in Romeo and Juliet

C Green

Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1

From Trespass to Contract ............................................................................................. 2

Connoting and Contingency ....................................................................................... 10

Meaning and Mendacity .............................................................................................. 28

Nautical Theme ............................................................................................................. 34

Transtemporal Irony ..................................................................................................... 35

The Final Stretch ........................................................................................................... 43

Introduction O, here's a wit of cheverel, that stretches

from an inch narrow to an ell broad! (2.4.40)1

This essay explores alternative ways to enjoy this well-known story. In doing so we depart from the well-trodden path studded with familiar themes and seek instead hidden motifs, turning stones on the wayside. Shakespeare’s magic with words can be compared to complex orchestration for an opera. Whilst the major themes play the melodic lines to accompany the soloists, minor themes provide harmonic background creating colour, shade, and texture. Of course minor themes cannot be forced where none exist. Telling a story with a non-existent theme ruins interpretation and enjoyment just as the body aches when limbs are stretched where there is no muscle to stretch. However, as long as there is a narrow inch of fabric we have Mercutio’s permission to stretch it. Mercutio invites us to have fun; here is Romeo and Juliet as a participatory word game.2

1 All quotations from Romeo and Juliet are taken from: Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. PlayShakespeare.com,

www.playshakespeare.com/romeo-and-juliet. ©2005-2021 PlayShakespeare.com. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this information under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. Terms at http://www.playshakespeare.com/license. 2 For a similar view, see Levenson, Jill L. “Echoes Inhabit a Garden: The Narratives of Romeo and Juliet.” Shakespeare

Survey, vol. 53, 2000, pp. 39–48, doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521781140.004. The play’s Prologue ‘invites the spectators to participate in making the play…’ (p. 42).

http://www.pushthemoonlitgate.com/

http://www.playshakespeare.com/romeo-and-juliet


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From Trespass to Contract

O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess’d it, and though I am sold,

Not yet enjoy’d. (3.2.26–28)

The themes of trespass and contract permeate the play as Romeo and Juliet interact with each other and with the outside world. The covert nature of the lovers’ relationship requires trespass as a means of ‘access’ (Prologue, Act 2, 9) for Romeo. Each time there is trespass to the forbidden territory, followed by another incidence of trespass, then an encounter with Juliet, and, eventually, a contract. Themes associated with contract, such as exchange, give and take, reciprocity and negotiations, also figure in the play, creating atmosphere and illuminating personal qualities of the individuals in whose speech these themes are detected. Finally, we will see that covert actions result in a distorted contract, then a tragic, albeit figurative, contract which cannot be revoked, terminated, or rescinded. At the beginning of the play Romeo is in love with Rosaline, who does not return his love. His cousin Benvolio encourages Romeo to look for other women. They happen to stumble on a Capulet servant who is going around with a list of guests to be invited to his master’s party. Amongst the guests are Rosaline, Capulet’s niece, and Mercutio, friend of Romeo and Benvolio and kinsman to Prince Escalus of Verona. Benvolio persuades Romeo to join him gatecrashing the Capulet party. There Romeo can compare Rosaline with other women and may find that she is not the only one worth courting: ‘Go thither, and with unattainted eye / Compare her face with some that I shall show, / And I will make thee think thy swan a crow’ (1.2.72–74). On their way to the party Romeo is reluctant, concerned about trespassing into the Capulet household. His concern is brushed aside by Benvolio and Mercutio:

Romeo: What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without apology?

Benvolio: The date is out of such prolixity: (1.4.1–3)

Romeo: Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling; Being but heavy, I will bear the light.

Mercutio: Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. (1.4.11–13)

Romeo: And we mean well in going to this mask,

But 'tis no wit to go. (1.4.48–49)



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In response to Romeo’s worry that a suitable excuse may be in order before entering the Capulet household, Benvolio is flippant: ‘But let them measure us by what they will,/ We'll measure them a measure and be gone’ (1.4.9–10, italics mine). Romeo is in no mood to dance as he feels he is sinking ‘under love’s heavy burden’ (1.4.22). Mercutio advises that Romeo should ‘burden love’ (1.4.23), not the other way round, and if love ‘pricks like thorn’ (1.4.26), retaliate: ‘If love be rough with you, be rough with love;/ Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down’ (1.4.27–28, italics mine). Benvolio and Mercutio use a combative but light-hearted language advocating tit for tat against unfriendly party guests and unresponsive lovers. The use of diacope3 and chiasmus4 emphasises the imagined adversarial relationship. In the end Romeo decides to go with his friends but just as he enters, he has a premonition of misfortune and death (‘some vile forfeit of untimely death’ [1.4.111]) which he fears his attendance at this party might bring about. As he has said himself ‘'tis no wit to go’, but he entrusts his fate to God, who has the steerage of his course (‘He that hath the steerage of my course / Direct my sail!’ [1.4.112–113]). At the party Romeo spots Juliet (not knowing her identity). He immediately falls in love with her, Rosaline quickly forgotten. Romeo’s presence is noted by Tybalt, nephew of Lady Capulet (‘A villain that is hither come in spite / To scorn at our solemnity’ [1.5.54–55]), who is enraged by Romeo’s ‘intrusion’ (1.5.83) and resolves to seek revenge. Romeo walks up to Juliet and speaks to her:

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. (1.5.85-88)

Romeo’s ‘If I profane… / This holy shrine’ echoes Tybalt’s ‘villain … is hither come in spite /To scorn at our solemnity’ although he does not hear Tybalt’s words. Under a cover of a religious sonnet Romeo attempts to trespass into Juliet’s personal space, for which he must offer an apology and a remedy. Juliet is not offended; on the contrary, she is happy to play the game and join in the sonnet:

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this: For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,

3 ‘A repetition of a phrase or word, broken up by other intervening words.’ “Diacope.” Literary Devices,

literarydevices.net/diacope/. Accessed 13 Mar. 2021. 4 ‘A rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures.’

“Chiasmus.” Literary Devices, literarydevices.net/chiasmus/. Accessed 13 Mar. 2021.


https://literarydevices.net/diacope/

https://literarydevices.net/chiasmus/

https://literarydevices.net/chiasmus/


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And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss. (1.5.89–92)

The dialogue proceeds like a tennis match:

Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in pray'r. Romeo: O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do,

They pray—grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake. Romeo: Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg'd. Kissing her.

Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took. Romeo: Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd!

Give me my sin again. Kissing her again.

Juliet: You kiss by th' book. (1.5.93–102)

The analogy with tennis goes like this: Romeo is first to serve (1.5.85-88) followed by Juliet (1.5.89–92) and both keep their service games.5 Then in the third game they go into a rally, where Juliet surges ahead with a drop shot return of Romeo’s serve at ‘lips that they must use in pray'r’ because, by ‘pray'r’, she allows Romeo to ask for a kiss6 and forces him to come up with the right return (with a word rhyming with ‘pray'r’), which he does. Next Juliet lobs into the back of the court: ‘saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake’. She is dictating the rally: not moving much herself (‘saints do not move’), she forces him to ‘move’ (i.e., Juliet tells him to ‘come and get it’)7 as far as the base line to ‘take’ the ball (‘my prayer's effect I take’). The sonnet completed but the game still on, Romeo has Juliet’s permission to kiss her whereby his ‘sin is purg'd’ and his trespass forgiven. This time Juliet executes a volley: ‘Then have my lips the sin that they have took’. Juliet invites him to kiss her again because he must take back his ‘sin’ she has ended up with on her lips. This is no longer trespass: she is making an offer.8 Romeo’s oxymoronic ‘trespass sweetly urg'd’ reveals his awareness of the tone shift from trespass to contract, with a kiss as consideration: that is Juliet’s payment to have the sin removed, Romeo accepting by saying, ‘Give me my sin again’. Juliet concludes by saying ‘you kiss by th' book’. ‘By the book’ means ‘according to the rules’, in

5 A. D. Nuttall also refers to tennis: ‘The metaphor from tennis applied to the initial exchanges of lovers in Love’s Labour’s

Lost (v.ii.29) works here. Juliet plays back the ball served by Romeo, telling him modestly, that he does wrong to join talk of palmers who kiss by touching hands to kissing with the lips.’ Nuttall, A. D. Shakespeare the Thinker. Yale University Press, 2007, p. 111. 6 Weller, Philip. “Detailed Summary of Act 1, Scene 5.” Romeo and Juliet Navigator, Shakespeare Navigators, shakespeare-

navigators.com/romeo/S15.html. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. 7 Weller, Philip. “Detailed Summary of Act 1, Scene 5.” Romeo and Juliet Navigator, Shakespeare Navigators, shakespeare-

navigators.com/romeo/S15.html. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. 8 Italicised (offer, acceptance, consideration) are key elements in a contract.


https://shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/S15.html





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this case, ‘as if following the rules of gallantry’9 because it refers to the act of kissing. However, metaphorically, the phrase could be taken to mean ‘according to the rules of contract law’,10 and Juliet may be interpreted as saying that Romeo performed the contract according to the rules. Furthermore, the analogy with tennis suggests that she is congratulating Romeo for playing fair in accordance with the rules of the game. As he leaves the party, Romeo finds out Juliet’s identity from her Nurse. Bewildered he exclaims: ‘Is she a Capulet? / O dear account! My life is my foe's debt’ (1.5.109–110). Romeo’s relationship with Juliet, which has only just begun with a harmless little contract, would be very costly indeed were it to be sustained. Romeo climbs over the Capulet walls into an orchard, sees Juliet on the balcony and overhears her soliloquy, in which she reveals her love for Romeo and laments his name. Romeo responds: ‘Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd; / Henceforth I never will be Romeo’ (2.2.50–51). Romeo’s intervention prompts a series of ‘security questions’ from Juliet. He, after all, has trespassed into the Capulet orchard, and, more seriously for Juliet, into her private thoughts, as can be seen from her first question:

What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night

So stumblest on my counsel? (2.2.52–53)

The rest of her security questions are as follows:

Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague? (2.2.60)

How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? (2.2.62)

By whose direction foundst thou out this place? (2.2.79)

She is pretty thorough with her interrogation—who, how, why, and with whom—her ability to come up with an exhaustive checklist when she has been so wrong-footed is quite remarkable. Romeo is so over the moon to be speaking to Juliet that he provides no concrete answers to any of these questions. To the last question he answers: ‘By love, that first did prompt me to inquire; / He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes’ (2.2.80–81). This is a cheeky response. It has a transactional flavour with added humour, given love’s blindness, that this mini contract is rather unbalanced in terms of

9 Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet, edited by Evans, G. Blakemore, Cambridge University Press, 2003. p. 100,

footnote 109. 10 Legal intent is another key element in a contract.



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consideration: love gave him precious advice how to gain access but in return Romeo, in love, only gave him blind eyes.11 Note, however, that consideration need not be adequate in English law! 12 Juliet gives up on this line of questioning and returns to her immediate concern, i.e., the embarrassment of having her inner-most thoughts overheard by Romeo. Worried that Romeo might think she is ‘too quickly won’ (2.2.95) and her ‘behavior light’ (2.2.99), she offers to prove ‘more true’ (2.2.100) than those ladies who pretend to be uninterested to attract attention from males. In return she expects him to ‘pronounce [his love] faithfully’ (2.2.94). In what follows in the balcony scene ‘there is a sense of negotiation, exchange and gentle conflict between Romeo and Juliet’.13 Romeo wants to swear his love while Juliet fears his love might turn out ‘variable’ if he swore by the ‘inconstant moon’ (2.2.109); she would rather he did not swear at all:

Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight, It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden … (2.2.116–118)

In her view it is too rash to exchange promises so soon after their first encounter. Romeo protests that parting without the exchange of true promises of love will leave him ‘so unsatisfied’ (2.2.125), to which Juliet replies that she has already pledged her love before Romeo requested it but would take it back so that she can ‘give it thee again’ (2.2.131). In the following four lines Juliet describes the love she feels towards Romeo:

And yet I wish but for the thing I have. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite. (2.2.132–135)

Whereas Romeo craves reciprocity (‘Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine’ [2.2.127]), Juliet goes one step further: she rejoices in the infinity of giving.

11 The conventional reading is: Romeo gave love (i.e., Cupid, who is blind) his seeing eyes. See for example: Weller,

Philip. “Detailed Summary of Act 2, Scene 2.” Romeo and Juliet Navigator, Shakespeare Navigators, shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/S22.html. Accessed 5 May. 2021. 12 Raffield, Paul. “’The Comedy of Errors’ and the Meaning of Contract.” Law and Humanities, vol.3, no. 2, 2009, pp207-

229. ACADEMIA, www.academia.edu/204791/The_Comedy_of_Errors_and_the_Meaning_of_Contract. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. Raffield notes on p. 223, note 63: ‘Provided there was sufficient consideration, its adequacy was never considered by the courts. For example, in 1525, Rastell recorded that a penny was sufficient consideration for the conveyance of land: J Rastell, Expositiones Terminorum in Baker and Milsom (n 15) 483’. 13 Donkor, Michael. “Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet.” Discovering Literature: Shakespeare & Renaissance, British

Library, 19 May 2017, www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/character-analysis-romeo-and-juliet. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021.




http://www.academia.edu/204791/The_Comedy_of_Errors_and_the_Meaning_of_Contract

http://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/character-analysis-romeo-and-juliet


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The infinity theme continues at their wedding the following day when she says: ‘But my true love is grown to such excess / I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth’ (2.6.33–34).

As the Nurse calls her from inside, Juliet offers Romeo two options:

If that thy bent of love be honorable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow, ….

But if thou meanest not well, I do beseech thee—

To cease thy strife, and leave me to my grief. (2.2.143–144, 150–152 )

Juliet, cautious at the outset of their second encounter, is the one now proposing a contract of marriage. Not only that she has excluded the possibility of informal courtship. Juliet already has a suitor, County Paris, who is eager to impress upon her father, Lord Capulet, his wish to marry Juliet in the near future. Lord Capulet is cautious; he thinks Juliet is too young and wishes to ensure she is happy to accept Paris’ proposal: ‘She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;/Let two more summers wither in their pride…’(1.2.9–10); ‘But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, / My will to her consent is but a part…’(1.2.16–17). After leaving the Capulet orchard, Romeo goes straight to Friar Lawrence’s cell and asks: ‘…thou consent to marry us today’ (2.3.64). Romeo is emphatic that Juliet, unlike Rosaline, reciprocates his love, using diacope and chiasmus to stress the point:14

I have been feasting with mine enemy, Where on a sudden one hath wounded me

That's by me wounded; (2.3.49–51, italics mine)

Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.

As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine, (2.3.57–59, italics mine)

I pray thee, chide me not. Her I love now Doth grace for grace and love for love allow; The other did not so. (2.3.85–87, italics mine)

14 A detailed discussion is in: Levin, Harry. “Form and Formality in Romeo and Juliet.” Romeo and Juliet: Critical Essays,

edited by John F. Andrews, Routledge, 2015, pp. 41–53, p. 48.



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Though concerned about Romeo’s haste, the Friar agrees to marry the lovers: ‘For this alliance may so happy prove /To turn your households' rancor to pure love’ (2.3.91–92). Later that day, whilst Romeo and Juliet are secretly getting married, Benvolio and Mercutio are hanging around in the streets of Verona. It’s too hot and Benvolio wants to go home, moreover: ‘…the Capels are abroad, / And if we meet we shall not scape a brawl…’ (3.1.2–3). As Benvolio feared, Tybalt turns up looking for Romeo. Benvolio told Mercutio earlier that Tybalt had written a letter of challenge to Romeo. This is Tybalt’s revenge against Romeo for his intrusion into the Capulet house. Romeo, just married, appears. He refuses to fight, so Mercutio fights in his place and is stabbed to death by Tybalt, who is then slain by Romeo. That night Romeo and Juliet consummate their marriage (3.5). A marriage contract must be performed to be valid, hence it is a ‘love-performing night’ (3.2.5), when the couple ‘learn…to lose a winning match’ (3.2.12). Romeo climbs up into Juliet’s room by means of ‘cords made like a tackled stair’ (2.4.98), ‘untalk'd of and unseen’ (3.2.7). Though he is now a lawful husband to Juliet, his access is again by way of trespass, made even more hazardous by the fact that he has been sentenced to ‘banishment’ from Verona and must leave undetected (‘Let Romeo hence in haste, / Else, when he is found, that hour is his last’ [3.1.152–153]). Meanwhile, Lord Capulet suddenly decides to bring forward Juliet’s marriage to Paris. The wedding is to take place on Thursday, only two days from now. The Nurse, Juliet’s only ally, tells her: ‘I think you are happy in this second match, / For it excels your first; or if it did not, / Your first is dead … ’(3.5.222–224). Betrayed by the Nurse, Juliet seeks advice from the Friar, who gives her a potion which will induce a feigned death for 42 hours. Balthasar, Romeo’s servant, brings news of Juliet’s ‘death’ to Romeo in Mantua. Romeo decides to kill himself to join her in death. He remembers an apothecary’s shop in Mantua; his business is not thriving and he is clearly poor. Romeo decides to buy lethal poison from him, though such a sale is a crime punishable by death (5.1.66–67). He offers forty ducats for a dram of poison. This is the only time in this play when anyone enters into a commercial contract. But this contract is illegal, so the parties recharacterise it to rationalise their respective behaviour:

Apothecary: My poverty, but not my will, consents. Romeo: I pay thy poverty, and not thy will. (5.1. 75–76)

Here they agree to introduce an imaginary party to the contract: instead of the Apothecary himself (‘my will’), Romeo’s counterparty is the Apothecary’s ‘poverty’.



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Romeo, for his part, recharacterises the contract as follows:

There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. Farewell! Buy food, and get thyself in flesh. Exit Apothecary Come, cordial and not poison, go with me To Juliet's grave, for there must I use thee. (5.1.80–86)

Romeo claims that gold is more lethal than the Apothecary’s compounds. If gold is allowed as consideration in a contract, so should be these compounds. He justifies the contract by recharacterising the Apothecary’s consideration as ‘cordial’. Romeo’s avowed denial of the illegality of the sale of these compounds would be even more radical if he told the Apothecary: ‘I sell thee poison, thou sold’st me nothing’, for this would mean that the Apothecary had given him nothing in exchange. Romeo would then be saying he had only given away some gold to the Apothecary. In English law simple contracts (i.e., other than deeds) require consideration. Both parties must give something to each other, otherwise the contract is void and unenforceable.15 Had he said ‘thou sold’st me nothing’ Romeo would have justified his action by pretending that there was no contract. Romeo finally reaches Verona and now stands in front of the Capulet tomb, ready to force open the gate. However, he is blocked by Paris, who has come to offer homage to Juliet. Paris tries to arrest Romeo: ‘Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee. / Obey and go with me, for thou must die’ (5.3.56–57). Romeo resists his arrest, but he also resists a fight with Paris:

For I come hither arm'd against myself. Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say A madman's mercy bid thee run away. (5.3.65–67)

Paris will not listen, insisting on arresting Romeo. Paris is justified in doing so because Romeo’s return to Verona is a criminal trespass punishable by death. Thus provoked, Romeo starts to attack. Romeo kills Paris, but honours his final wish to be laid beside Juliet. On previous occasions Romeo managed to trespass into the Capulet territory without being stopped, but this time he is unlucky: he had to kill Paris or be killed.

15 The requirement of consideration is long-standing: for example, in Dyer’s Case (1414) 2 Hen. V, fol. 5, pl. 26, ‘Dyer had

given a promise to not exercise his trade in the same town as the plaintiff for six months but the plaintiff had promised nothing in return’. The plaintiff’s attempt to enforce the restrain failed and the judge ruled that ‘the obligation is void’. Wikipedia contributors. “Dyer’s Case.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 29 Aug. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dyer%27s_Case&oldid=797850856. Accessed 8 Apr. 2021.



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Romeo meets Juliet for the last time. He speaks to her before drinking his poison:

…Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! (5.3.112–115)

‘[A] righteous kiss’ takes us back to the first time the lovers met and shared a religious sonnet. Romeo is about to conclude a contract with no termination date (‘dateless bargain’); this contract has been in the making for a while, anticipated in his foreboding at the time of his first trespass into the Capulet territory, but is now ready to be bound (engrossed), sealed and delivered to the other party, ‘engrossing death’. The imagery of infinity returns. Romeo’s consideration for this contract is infinite: what he offers to ‘lie with Juliet’ (5.3.289) is, in Juliet’s words, ‘love [which has] grown to such excess’ (2.6.33) that he cannot possibly count half of (‘sum up sum of half my wealth’ [2.6.34]). For he is paying with his own life. And this commitment is forever into the future (‘dateless’).

Connoting and Contingency

His name is Romeo, and a Montague, The only son of your great enemy. (1.5.128–129)

The most famous scene in the world’s most famous love story is known by its most famous line ‘What’s in a name?’. Names have been a subject of much philosophical discussion. The debate revolves around how best to account for the relationships within a triangle of name, object, and description16. According to John Stuart Mill a proper name is a ‘mere mark put upon an individual’.17 It does not connote (i.e., indicate or imply) any attributes belonging to the individual, and is ‘not dependent on the continuance of any attribute of the [individual]’. 18 Definite descriptions (what Mill calls ‘connotative individual names’19), on the other hand, connote as well as denote:20 for example, ‘the author of Iliad’ denotes one object Homer and connotes his attributes.

16 In this essay ‘name’ and ‘proper name’, ‘description’ and ‘definite description’ are used interchangeably. 17 Mill, John Stuart. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, eighth edition, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1882.

Project Gutenberg, Ebook 27942, 31Jan. 2009 (most recently updated 31 Aug. 2021), www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/27942/pg27942-images.html. Accessed 5 Sep. 2021. p. 105. 18 Mill, p. 36. 19 Mill, p. 36. 20 Mill, p. 36.



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Mill’s view of proper names has one obvious problem. If a proper name is just a mark for the object it denotes, there is no meaning, hint, or clue with which to determine the object to which a proper name refers. Mathematicians Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell both thought Mill’s view is wanting.21 Frege was puzzled by the relationship between a name and an object denoted by the name. His concern started with the nature of identity between two names, ‘a’ and ‘b’. If a=b is true, this equation is the same as a=a.22 ‘a’ and ‘b’ both denote the same object, that is to say, a and b are the same object. Then a=b is no different from a=a, both being statements of self-identity. 23 But this conclusion is counterintuitive. Frege introduced the notion of ‘sense’ to explain the difference and stated the relationship between names and objects as follows:

A proper name…expresses its sense, stands for or designates its [referent]. By employing a sign we express its sense and designate its [referent].24

By ‘proper name’ Frege means ‘word, sign, combination of signs, expressions’,25 combination of words,26 ‘any designation figuring as a proper name, which has as its referent a definite object’.27 His examples include ‘the point of intersection of [lines] a and b’,28 ‘Morning Star’, and actual proper names such as ‘Aristotle’.29 Thus Frege’s ‘proper names’ include both conventional proper names and definite descriptions as both, according to Frege, are capable of denoting objects. What does Frege mean by ‘sense’? A proper name has a ‘sense’, which is the ‘mode of presentation of the thing designated’.30 The ‘morning star’ and the ‘evening star’ both denote Venus but they express different senses. Frege does not spell out what the sense of the ‘morning star’ is but, with regard to actual proper names, he provides examples with reference to the name ‘Aristotle’: ‘the pupil of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great’. Opinions may vary regarding the sense of

21 Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity, Revised and enlarged edition first published in 1980, paperback edition 1981,

Blackwell Publishers Ltd, pp. 27–28. 22Frege, Gottlob. “On Sinn and Bedeutung.” The Frege Reader, edited by Michael Beaney, Blackwell, 1997, pp. 151–171. First

published in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, 100, 1892, pp. 25–50. English translation by Max Black. Page numbering in both the original German article and The Frege Reader is given, p. 26, p. 151. 23Frege, p. 26, p. 152. 24Frege, p. 31, p. 156. In Black’s translation the original German word ‘Bedeutung’ is retained, but English-speaking scholars

usually use the word ‘referent’. Similarly, the verb ‘refer’ is more common than ‘designate’ and ‘denote’. 25Frege, p. 31, p. 156. 26Frege, p. 27, p. 153. 27Frege, p. 27, p. 153. 28Frege, p. 27, p. 152. 29Frege, p. 27, p. 153, footnote B. 30Frege, pp. 26–27, p. 152.



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‘Aristotle’ but in Frege’s view such variations do not matter, though they should ‘be avoided in …science and ought not to occur in a perfect language’.31 A proper name always has a sense but this does not mean that there is always a corresponding referent.32 Frege warns us against equating ‘sense’ with ‘idea’. Ideas are subjective but ‘the sign’s sense is a common property of many people’.33 In an ideal linguistic community the sense of a proper name is grasped by everyone who is familiar with the language and all the names; and, furthermore, ‘comprehensive knowledge of the [referent] would require us to be able to say immediately whether any given sense attaches to it’.34 In other words, in an ideal linguistic community everyone knows all the names and their senses and has full knowledge of objects (people and things) and what senses attach to those objects. Although Frege heavily caveats this statement (‘To such knowledge we never attain’35), this has not stopped later commentators criticising him for the a priori nature of this knowledge (knowledge independent of observation and experience). For example, Saul Kripke restates this knowledge as: ‘the statement, “if X exists, then X has most of the properties φ’s” is known a priori by the speaker’.36 Kripke then dismisses it saying that this ‘is usually false’,37 except in cases where the referent is determined with reference to descriptions. The name ‘Jack the Ripper’ is a case in point. The police gave this name to whoever committed a series of murders, and, because of the way the name is created, because the facts about him (descriptions) precede the name, the knowledge that the murderer has these properties/descriptions is a priori.38 According to Russell ‘strictly proper names’ denote objects but ordinary proper names usually do not.39 A proper name is a simple symbol (‘merely a noise or shape’)40 ‘directly designating an individual which is its meaning, and having this meaning in its own right, independently of the meanings of all other words’.41

31Frege, p. 27, p. 153, footnote B. 32Frege, p. 28, p. 153. 33Frege, p. 29, p. 154. 34Frege, p. 28, p. 153. 35Frege, p. 28, p. 153. 36Kripke, p. 71. 37Kripke, p. 78. 38Kripke, pp. 78–79. 39 Russell, Bertrand. “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description.” PAS New Series, vol. 11, 1910–11, pp.

108–128. HIST-ANALYTIC, www.hist-analytic.com/Russellacquaintance.pdf. Accessed 3 Jul. 2021, p. 121. This article is referred to as KAD. 40 Russell, KAD, p. 123. 41 Russell, Bertrand. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, Originally published by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London.

May 1919. Online Corrected Edition version 1.1 (5 Feb. 2010), based on the “second edition” (second printing) of April 1920, incorporating additional corrections, marked in green. Umass, people.umass.edu/klement/imp/imp-ebk.pdf. Accessed 3 Jul. 2021, p. 174. This book is referred to as IMP.



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Strictly proper names are rare—only ‘I’,42 ‘this’,43 ‘that’,44 and a few other words qualify. Ordinary proper names are usually abbreviated and disguised forms of definite description,45 which Russell defines as ‘any phrase of the form “the so-and-so” in the singular’.46 It is the principal tenet of his theory of descriptions that descriptions do not denote or refer to objects. Why can we not use an ordinary proper name to refer directly to an object? Russell explains: we may ‘wish to reach the denotation’ but are ‘hindered by lack of acquaintance’,47 which is a kind of direct awareness.48 One can have acquaintance with sense-data (particular colour, noise, etc), oneself, universals such as concepts (e.g., concept of the colour yellow), and relations, up and down, before and after, and so on, but cannot have acquaintance with physical objects (as opposed to sense-data) and other people’s minds.49 These things are known to us by definite description only, the knowledge that there is one and only one object having a certain property. 50 We can know about someone or something without ever meeting them by means of definite descriptions uniquely applying to them. Russell maintains that proper names are, in practice, frequently used as definite descriptions: for instance, if ‘Scott is Sir Walter’ is a meaningful sentence, we must understand it as ‘the person named “Scott” is the person named “Sir Walter”’. Here ‘the individual, instead of being named, is being described as the person having that name’. Russell then goes on to say: ‘…so long as names are used as names, “Scott is Sir Walter” is the same trivial proposition as “Scott is Scott”’.51 The difficulty understanding Russell here is that we are invariably drawn to the descriptive content of ‘Scott is Sir Walter’—for example, we learn that ‘Scott’ is this person’s surname, that he was knighted, etc. But suppose we were told that in a certain country there are these two names, ‘Ljiteu’ and ‘Uelptca Smsi’, and that the following two statements are true: ‘Ljiteu is Ljiteu’ and ‘Ljiteu is Uelptca Smsi’.52 These, to us, are pure proper names, mere shapes, merely standing for an existing object, with no further meaning arising. We then realise that we hardly use names in this way at all.53

42 Russell, KAD, p. 121. 43 Russell, KAD, p. 121, IMP, p. 178.

44 Russell, IMP, p. 178. 45 Russell, KAD p. 121, IMP, pp. 174, 178. 46 Russell, KAD p. 113. 47 Russell, KAD, p. 127. 48 Russell, KAD, p. 108. 49 Russell, KAD, pp. 109–112.. 50 Russell, KAD p. 113. 51 Russell, IMP, pp. 174–175.. 52 These are anagrams of ‘Juliet’ and ‘Miss Capulet’. 53 In 2010 we were confronted with a proper name which came so very close to what Russell meant by ‘strictly proper

names’—Eyjafjallajökull erupted. But this name was so much a mere ‘shape and noise’ that broadcasters resorted to a definite description— ‘the Icelandic volcano’.



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The question then is: why can we not refer directly with definite descriptions? Russell gives the following example to show how to analyse a statement in which a proper name collapses into a definite description, which then disappears:54

(1) ‘Julius Caesar was assassinated.’ Here, the proper name is a definite description in disguise—we are not acquainted with Julius Caesar. We may, when thinking about Caesar, have in mind a description of him. Description may ‘vary for different people or for the same person at different times’,55 but, at the least, one such as ‘the man whose name was “Julius Caesar”’ will do.56 Therefore we have:

(2) ‘The man whose name was “Julius Caesar” was assassinated.’ Here ‘Julius Caesar’ is ‘a noise or shape with which we are acquainted’.57 We now need to analyse the definite description ‘the man whose name was “Julius Caesar”’:

(3) ‘One and only one man was called “Julius Caesar” and [whoever was so called] was assassinated’.58

‘One and only one’ reflects the role of the definite article in front of a singular noun, a uniqueness marker. This may be further restated as:

(4) One and only one x was called ‘Julius Caesar’ and x was assassinated.

What emerges from this analysis is: i) that the statement is ‘a propositional function’, 59 containing an undetermined variable 60 [x], which ‘become[s] a proposition as soon as this constituent is determined’; 61 ii) that the definite description (‘the man whose name was “Julius Caesar”’) has been ‘broken up’62

54 Russell, KAD, p. 120. 55 Russell, KAD, p. 114. 56 Russell, KAD, p. 120, and on p. 119 he writes: ‘A description which will often serve to express my thought is “the man

whose name was Julius Caesar.” For whatever else I may have forgotten about him, it is plain that when I mention him I have not forgotten that that was his name.’ 57 Russell, KAD, p. 120. 58 Russell, KAD, p. 120. ‘Whoever was so called’ are my words. Russell wrote ‘that one’, but some may object to the use

of ‘that’ since, according to Russell, ‘that’ is a pure proper name capable of denoting an object. 59 Russell, KAD, p. 126. 60 Russell, Bertrand. “On Denoting.” Mind, vol. 14, no. 56, 1905, pp. 479–493, reprinted in Mind, vol. 114, no. 456, 2005, pp.

874–887. (Page numbering in the original article, also in the reprinted version, is given), p. 480. This article is referred to as OD. 61 Russell, KAD, p. 126. 62 Russell, KAD, p. 121.



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and the resultant statement (proposition) contains no words or phrases which could be mistakenly characterised as a denoting or referring term;63 and iii) all the words appearing in the final statement are words with which we are acquainted either as concepts or a noise or shape.64 Russell disagrees with Frege’s notion of ‘sense’. The meaningfulness of ‘the Morning Star is the Evening Star’ is not explained by the difference in ‘sense’.65 According to Russell, what is involved here is not the identity of denotation but ‘that of a variable’. The statement ‘the author of Waverley was the author of Marmion’ can be restated as a propositional function ‘x wrote Waverley and Marmion, and no one else did’, which is made true by some value of x.66 Names and descriptions go together. We may, says Russell, legitimately question the existence of Homer, believed to be the author of Iliad and Odyssey (definite description), and discover that he did not exist, but if ‘Homer’ were just a name, to ask if he ever existed would be meaningless because the name stood for an individual: ‘it must name something’.67 Thus for Russell ordinary proper names, as we use them, are not mere names but abbreviated definite descriptions in disguise. The views of Frege and Russell are known as the ‘description theory of names’. This is despite the fact that Russell disagreed with Frege’s notion of ‘sense’ and did not accept that names and descriptions denote objects. However, their theories seem to be able to explain how a proper name relates to an object and descriptions. They both believed that (ordinary) proper names and definite descriptions belong to the same category though they were not in agreement as to the type of category: for Frege what puts names and descriptions in the same category is their ability to denote objects; for Russell, it is their inability to denote objects and the claim that proper names are usually definite descriptions in disguise. Therefore, proper name and definite description form a set, and together they go and look for a matching object (for Frege as denotation, for Russell as a value x to plug into a function to make truth out of the statement about the object), which may not always be there. On this view, there appears to be distance between the name and descriptions on the one hand and the object on the other. Saul Kripke found a major weakness in the description theory. If a proper name is a disguised definite description, the following will result:

63 Russell, OD, p. 482. 64 Russell, KAD, p. 121. 65 Russell, OD, p. 483, footnote 2. 66 Russell, KAD, pp. 123–126. 67 Russell, IMP, pp. 178–179.



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(1) ‘Aristotle’ means the man who taught Alexander the Great. (2) Aristotle was a teacher of Alexander the Great. (3) Therefore, the man who taught Alexander the Great was a teacher of Alexander the

Great.68

Sentence (3) is a tautology: it merely states the obvious, and the sentence will always be true no matter who taught Alexander the Great. Sentence (2), which is supposed to mean the same as (3), provides information, a historical fact, ‘something we could discover to be false. So, being the teacher of Alexander the Great cannot be part of [the sense of] the name’.69 Kripke proposes a different way to look at the relationships in the triangle of name, object, and description. His view is in many ways a return to that of Mill. According to Kripke proper names ‘rigidly designate’ (Mill would say ‘denote’) objects. Kripke defines ‘rigid designator’ as something which designates the same object in every ‘possible world’70 (defined below). Take Nixon, the U.S. President in 1970. The name ‘Nixon’ rigidly designates the object Nixon. In another possible world, a counterfactual world, a might-have-been world, Nixon the object might not have been the President. When we say Nixon could have lost the election, we are talking about that world. We might also say Nixon might have become a Supreme Court judge. In all these talks, we are talking about the same man, Nixon (the object), in a counterfactual situation.71 In other words, the name and the object form a set, the former rigidly designating the latter, but descriptions (the President, judge etc.) can vary. Of course, the man (object) called ‘Nixon’ might not have been called ‘Nixon’ in another possible world, but we pick out the man (object) with this name in this actual world and think about a possible world where he (the object—whatever his name is in that world) might have had different descriptions.72 If a fact about the world, in this case, Nixon being the U.S. President in 1970, could have been otherwise, that fact is called ‘contingent’.73 If a fact about the world could not have been different, i.e., we cannot conceive of a possible world in which the fact could have been different, then that fact is a ‘necessary’ one.74 On this basis, most descriptions relating to objects are contingent unless ‘we happen to use essential properties in our description’.75 Parentage is an essential property of an individual. It is inconceivable that a person (Kripke mentions the Queen here)

68 Kripke, p. 30. 69 Kripke, p. 30. 70 Kripke, p. 48. 71 Kripke, p. 49. 72 Kripke, pp. 48-49. 73 Kripke, p. 36. 74 Kripke, p. 36. 75 Kripke, p. 57.



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could have ‘originat[ed] from different parents, a totally different sperm and egg’.76 In short, a person’s DNA is one of his essential properties. But how can Kripke overcome the weakness of Mill’s theory? What ensures the ‘rigidity’ of the relationship between the name and the object without recourse to descriptions? Kripke presents a ‘better picture of what is actually going on’.77 There is ‘an initial ‘baptism’… [where] the object may be named by ostension or the reference of the name may be fixed by a description’.78 Thereafter, ‘the name is passed from link to link’79 through what might be called a ‘reference-preserving chain’ (Kripke himself does not appear to use this term but others do. 80 ) as members of the community talk about and interact with the individual. In summary, the world that the description theory postulates is one where a proper name and descriptions associated with it are bound together, forming a set, and the object which satisfies these descriptions is what is referred to by that name. Kripke’s theory postulates a world where an object takes on a proper name by way of an ‘initial baptism’, with the result that the name rigidly designates the object and this bond is maintained through a reference-preserving chain operating in the community; the object’s descriptions are ‘contingent’, accidental, could easily have been different, except for essential properties.

………… But what has the above exposition got to do with Romeo and Juliet? Let us see how names (proper names), descriptions and objects are presented in the play.81 In Act 1 Scene 1 a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets breaks out and we are introduced to Tybalt, Benvolio, Lord and Lady Capulet, Lord and Lady Montague and the Prince. Lady Montague notices that Romeo is missing and asks

76 Kripke, pp. 112–113. 77 Kripke, p. 96. 78 Kripke, p. 96. 79 Kripke, p. 96. 80 For example, Hull, David L. “Exemplars and Scientific Change.” PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of

Science Association, vol. 1982, 1982, pp. 479–503. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/192438. Accessed 10 Apr. 2021. On p. 491 Hull writes: ‘In rigid designation, a name is conferred in an initial baptismal act…and thereafter passed on in a link-to-link reference preserving chain.’ 81 In this essay it is assumed that the description theory of proper names and Kripke’s theory of proper names are not

mutually exclusive. This assumption may be justified when one explores the variety of ways in which proper names are used in Romeo and Juliet. See: Raatikainen, Panu. “Theories of Reference: What Was the Question?” Language and Reality from a Naturalistic Perspective: Themes from Michael Devitt, edited by Bianchi, Andrea, Springer, 2020, pp. 69–103. Philarchive, philarchive.org/archive/RAATOR-2. Accessed 8 Apr. 2021. Raatikainen writes (p. 8 of online version): ‘…it was never claimed – by Kripke, Putnam, or Devitt, for example – that all expressions, or even all names, refer along the lines of the causal theory of reference.* That some expressions really are, in a sense, descriptive was admitted from the beginning: e.g., Kripke gave as an example “Jack the Ripper”… [T]ypical names are referential, but “Jack the Ripper”, for example, is attributive.’ * Kripke’s theory as described in this essay is one example of the causal theory of reference.


http://www.jstor.org/stable/192438.%20Accessed%2010%20Apr.%202021

https://philarchive.org/archive/RAATOR-2


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Benvolio: ‘O, where is Romeo? Saw you him today? / Right glad I am he was not at this fray’ (1.1.193–94). Benvolio tells her that he saw Romeo alone in the woods an hour before dawn (‘So early walking did I see your son’ [1.1.100]), but that, on seeing Benvolio approaching, he hid himself in the woods. He appeared to want to be left alone, so Benvolio walked away. Lord Montague describes how Romeo is these days: he is often seen tearful and sighing first thing in the morning, then as the sun rises, he comes home in a ‘heavy’ mood, shuts himself up in his room with windows closed to keep out the daylight. Lord Montague worries that Romeo’s state of mind might ‘prove’ ‘black and portentous’ but is at a loss as to what to do because Romeo is ‘…to himself so secret and so close, / So far from sounding and discovery…’ (1.1.108–127). Romeo then appears. Benvolio tells Lord Montague that he will try and find the reasons for Romeo’s sadness (1.1.133–134). In this scene, Lord and Lady Montague talk about their son with Benvolio. Romeo is named, described, and discussed in his absence. Romeo himself then turns up. The audience hears his name and descriptions first, then meets the individual (the object). How is Juliet presented to the audience? In Act 1 Scene 2 Lord Capulet and County Paris discuss the latter’s proposal of marriage to the former’s daughter. She is referred to as ‘my child’ by Lord Capulet (1.2.8), neither man, not once, referring to her by her name. Capulet tells us that her daughter is only thirteen and is not ready for marriage. In Act 1 Scene 3 Lady Capulet is with the Nurse. She wants to talk to her daughter about Paris’ proposal, so asks the Nurse to call her. And it is the Nurse who first utters her name:

Now by my maidenhead at twelve year old, I bade her come. What, lamb! What, ladybird! God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet! (1.3.2–4)

Juliet then enters. We see that Juliet is discussed and described by her father in front of her suitor, and is named by her Nurse, all in her absence. Her appearance is kept to the last moment. Here we see a parallel in the way Romeo and Juliet are presented to the audience: they are first named and described in their absence and finally presented as the objects bearing the names and descriptions. How do they meet? As we have seen, they meet at the Capulet party and compose a shared sonnet (Act 1 Scene 5). Romeo sees Juliet and is struck by her beauty; he tries to find out her identity from a ‘servingman’ but he does not know (1.5.33—



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35). Romeo walks up to Juliet and speaks. What is striking about this encounter is that, although they share an intimate moment, the words they employ for the sonnet give no clue as to their respective personal details, not even names. In other words, they meet each other as objects. Their conversation is interrupted by the Nurse, who has come to tell Juliet to go and see her mother, which prompts Romeo to ask the Nurse who the girl’s mother is, and he is told that ‘Her mother is the lady of the house’ (1.5.104–105). At this point Romeo is given the girl’s description (the daughter of the lady of the house) but not her name. Juliet discovers Romeo’s identity from the Nurse too: she points to Romeo as he leaves the party and asks the Nurse to ‘go ask his name’ (1.5.126). The Nurse comes back with: ‘His name is Romeo, and a Montague, / The only son of your great enemy’ (1.5.128–129). On hearing this Juliet exclaims: ‘My only love sprung from my only hate! / Too early seen unknown, and known too late!’ (1.5.130–131). This sums it up: Juliet laments the fact that she met the object, this young man, not knowing his name and descriptions and that she found them out too late—she is already in love with him. The above analysis demonstrates that there is a notable difference between the way Romeo and Juliet are introduced to the audience and the way they meet each other. We the audience find out the names and descriptions first whereas the protagonists meet each other as objects first. However, in both cases the names and descriptions are presented as a set quite separate from the objects, the protagonists themselves. It is as if the author used the description theory of names as a literary device. What is the effect of this? Recall Frege’s idea that names and descriptions express a sense, which is the mode of presentation of the object referred to. By introducing the protagonists’ names and descriptions first, the author prepares us for our encounter with them, giving us time to grasp the names’ senses, whatever these senses may be. In contrast, when they meet for the first time, they meet each other as objects. Russell might say this is a case of knowledge by acquaintance: what they discover about each other is directly through their senses—vision, touch, and, crucially in their case, auditory impressions of each other through joint composition of a sonnet. Let us examine the Nurse’s role at the end of Act 1 Scene 5. She is acting as an agent maintaining and extending the ‘reference-preserving chain’ passing on the names ‘Romeo’ and ‘Juliet’ and ensuring that they designate their respective objects (although the name ‘Juliet’ is somehow separately discovered by Romeo, see below). It is interesting to note that the Nurse’s name is ‘Angelica’. In Act 4 Scene 4 Lord Capulet calls her by her Christian name: ‘Look to the bak'd meats,



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good Angelica’ (4.4.5).82 The name ‘Angelica’ means ‘messenger’, and this is precisely the Nurse’s role here as well as in the rest of the play. In Act 2 Scene 2 Romeo steals into the Capulet orchard and sees light coming out of a window: ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun’ (2.2.2–3). Somehow, Romeo has worked out the name of Capulet’s daughter. He would not have asked Mercutio or Benvolio on their way out of the party: if he had done so, he would have been met with a chorus of ‘I told you so’ as they were both persuading a reluctant Romeo to look for women other than Rosaline. Either he worked out the name from the descriptions (not surprising if he has a priori knowledge of the ‘regular connection’ between a name and its sense83) or asked a stranger. He then overhears Juliet’s discourse on names:

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 word 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. (2.2.33–49)

Juliet has fallen in love with Romeo, the object, (‘that dear perfection’). The way they have fallen in love is mutual: ‘Alike bewitched by the charm of looks’ (Prologue, Act 2, 6). The problem is Romeo’s name. In ‘O Romeo, Romeo’, is Juliet using ‘Romeo’ as a rigid designator, to refer to Romeo the object, or is she expressing a description of him? The answer is tricky. Here it appears to be neither. According to linguists, this type of use of names, vocative, is ‘a poorly understood category’.84 It has not featured prominently in

82. Weller, Philip. “Detailed Summary of Act 4, Scene 4.” Romeo and Juliet Navigator, Shakespeare Navigators, shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/S44.html. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. 83 Frege, p. 27, p. 153. 84 Schaden, Gerhard. "Vocatives: A Note on Addressee-Management." University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: vol. 16, iss. 1, March 2010, Article 20, pp. 174-185. Penn Libraries University of Pennsylvania, repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol16/iss1/20. Accessed 5 Aug. 2021, p. 176.





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philosophical discussions, either.85 In rhetorical terms Juliet’s soliloquy is an apostrophe: she is addressing an imaginary Romeo absent from the scene (so she believes).86 ‘Romeo’ in ‘wherefore art thou Romeo’ is different. This ‘Romeo’ is an abbreviation for ‘the only son of [my] great enemy’, reflecting the Nurse’s words; it is a disguised definite description.87 Romeo is not just a Montague: he is the immediate heir to the Montague patrimony. ‘Romeo’ is the name which was given to him by his family and with which he was baptised. ‘Romeo’ as a disguised definite description connotes these attributes which uniquely identify him, which, in consequence, bring woes to Juliet. Juliet reinforces this point in ‘'Tis but thy name that is my enemy’. ‘Thou art thyself, though not a Montague’ may translate as ‘you are yourself the object, even if you get rid of the name “Montague” (by ceasing to be a member of the Montague family)’. ‘Montague’ could also mean: first, a disguised definite description ‘the great enemy of the Capulets’; second, a disguised definite description—the paternal parentage of the object Romeo, his paternal DNA, ‘the fatal loins’ (Prologue, 5), in other words his ‘essential property’ as a member (object) of his patriarchal clan. Which version does Juliet use? Look at the next lines: ‘What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot, / Nor arm nor face, nor any other part / Belonging to a man.’ Clearly, she is not using ‘Montague’ as Romeo’s paternal parentage because his DNA (paternal or otherwise) is responsible for hand, foot, etc. So it is either a name, i.e., a rigid designator, or a disguised definite description (‘enemy’). Which is it? Next lines provide a key:

O be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title.

Here Juliet contrasts ‘rose’, a name which designates a plant (an object), and its sweet-smelling property and says that its name is irrelevant to its sweet-smelling property. She then extends this logic to Romeo the object and says that Romeo the object would ‘retain that dear perfection’, his beguiling looks and intoxicating voice,88 ‘without that title’ (the designator).

85 Bach, Kent. “The Predicate View of Proper Names.” Philosophy Compass vol. 10, iss. 11, November 2015, pp. 772-784.

ResearchGate, www.researchgate.net/publication/283967428_The_Predicate_View_of_Proper_Names. Accessed 5 Aug. 2021, p. 782, footnote 12. 86 “Apostrophe.” Literary Devices, literarydevices.net/apostrophe/. Accessed 5 Aug. 2021. 87 See Watts, Cedric. Shakespeare Puzzles. Lulu.com, 2014. 7. “Why does Juliet say ‘Romeo’ when she means ‘Mountague’?” pp. 31–35. Watts presents various theories about why Juliet should say ‘Romeo’ in ‘wherefore art thou Romeo?’, none of which are similar to the view expressed here. 88 ‘My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words / Of thy tongue's uttering, yet I know the sound’ (2.2.58–59).


https://literarydevices.net/diacope/


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To summarise, Juliet uses ‘Romeo’ and ‘Montague’ as follows:

(1) ‘Romeo’ as an object (‘So Romeo would’) designated by the name ‘Romeo’; (2) ‘Romeo’ as a name (‘were he not Romeo called’); (3) ‘Romeo’ as a disguised definite description (‘wherefore art thou Romeo’,

the only son of the Montagues, my enemy); (4) ‘Montague’ as an object belonging to the Montague household (‘though not

a Montague’); (5) ‘Montague’ as a name (‘what’s Montague? It is nor hand…’ italics mine) (6) ‘Montague’ as a disguised definite description (the enemy of the Capulets).

What is Juliet’s solution to this conundrum? She entreats her imaginary Romeo:

(a) ‘deny thy father and refuse thy name’; (b) ‘be some other name’; and (c) ‘doff thy name’.

Juliet wants Romeo to take on another name. How is this possible in reality? In the actual world his name, ‘Romeo Montague’, rigidly designates the object Romeo, and this rigidity will persist in every possible world. He could of course change his name, but nothing else would change as a result. If Juliet is allowed one wish to effect a change for the better, ‘be some other name’ is the wrong wish: it is ineffectual. When Romeo hears Juliet’s ‘And for thy name, which is no part of thee / Take all myself’, he can no longer contain himself and cries out: ‘I take thee at thy word. /

Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd…’ (2.2.49–50, italics mine). If you follow Kripke’s theory of rigid designators, this is the saddest moment in the play because we know that there would be no ‘reference-preserving chain’ after Romeo’s baptism: no one would help spread his new name ‘from link to link’. If ‘be some other name’ is ineffectual, what should Juliet wish for? Her problem is that Romeo is the only son of her great enemy. This is a description. The Capulets and Montagues are each other’s enemies and the Prologue makes us believe that the conflict is immutable. However, as we have seen, according to Kripke this fact is ‘contingent’: we could imagine a counterfactual world where the two houses were not enemies. Instead of ‘be some other name’, Juliet should have wished: ‘be a friend, not a foe’. Some are aware of the contingent nature of the feud. Friar Lawrence agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet because he sees in their marriage a possibility of reconciling the two families: ‘For this alliance may so happy prove / To turn your



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households' rancor to pure love’ (2.3.91–92). Romeo, after his marriage to Juliet, treats Tybalt with familial love:

I do protest I never injuried thee, But love thee better than thou canst devise, Till thou shalt know the reason of my love, And so, good Capulet—which name I tender As dearly as mine own—be satisfied. (3.1.38–42)

Even Lord Capulet, if not coming close to reconciliation, can see the benefit of keeping the peace:

But Montague is bound as well as I, In penalty alike, and 'tis not hard, I think, For men so old as we to keep the peace. (1.2.1–3)

And Paris agrees: ‘Of honorable reckoning are you both, / And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long’ (1.2.4–5).89

We also observe at the Capulet party that hatred of the Montagues has not clouded Lord Capulet’s judgement. Overruling Tybalt he says:

Capulet: Young Romeo is it? Tybalt: 'Tis he, that villain Romeo. Capulet: Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,

'A bears him like a portly gentleman; And to say truth, Verona brags of him To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth. (1.5.56–60)

We have seen that ‘be some other name’ alone is ineffectual and that Juliet should have wished instead ‘be a friend, not a foe’. If the two families were reconciled, then the lovers could live happily in Verona. However, the play treats the feud as cast-iron and the majority of Veronesi seem to believe it, including Juliet. There is one route out of the situation; this would, however, entail enormous sacrifices on the part of Romeo and Juliet. They would need to flee Verona to a place where the rigid designators would be less visible, where they could acquire new names and new descriptions. This route is suggested by Juliet herself in her soliloquy:

Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

89 This sentence uses the indicative past tense ‘liv'd’ to serve the iambic pentameter, but the subjunctive mood would grammatically, as well as semantically, better bring out the sense of regretting the reality and wishing for the counterfactual: ‘it is a pity that you should have lived at odds so long’.



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And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

In concrete terms ‘deny thy father’ involves Romeo severing all ties with the Montagues or she would do the same if he swore he loved her (‘I’ll no longer be a Capulet’). Is this idle talk? Listen to her when she later speaks to Romeo:

If that thy bent of love be honorable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow, By one that I'll procure to come to thee, Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite, And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,

And follow thee my lord throughout the world. (2.2.143–148) Here Juliet is making arrangements for their marriage and in the same breath declares: ‘And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, / And follow thee my lord throughout the world’. So she is serious. It would be wrong to claim that she means what she says in the first four lines where she tells Romeo what to do and then does not mean what she says she will do in the last two. In what circumstances would Juliet be able to follow Romeo ‘throughout the world’? Surely it is impossible for a girl whose freedom of movement is severely restricted: the only time she is allowed out alone is when she goes to confession. Well, the opportunity comes when her parents tell Juliet to marry Paris and she refuses. Lord Capulet explodes:

And you be mine, I'll give you to my friend; And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,

For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee… (3.5.191–193) Even her own mother is dismissive: ‘Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee’ (3.5.203). Does she take up this offer? Abandoned by the Nurse too, Juliet runs to Friar Lawrence. She tells him that she would kill herself if he could not help her:

If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help, Do thou but call my resolution wise, And with this knife I'll help it presently. (4.1.52–54)

To this the Friar responds:

If rather than to marry County Paris, Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, Then is it likely thou wilt undertake A thing like death to chide away this shame, That cop'st with Death himself to scape from it; And if thou darest, I'll give thee remedy. (4.1.71–76)



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Prepared to do anything, Juliet enumerates terrible things she would do in order to ‘live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love’ (4.1.88): she would jump from a tower, walk in streets full of thieves, be chained with bears, etc. (4.1.77–87). What is remarkable about Juliet in her dialogue with the Friar in this scene is that she never asks for assistance with immediate safe passage to Mantua to join Romeo. Abandoned by her parents and nurse, she has nothing to lose by running away; surely this is better than killing herself whilst Romeo is still alive. But instead she chooses the ‘remedy’ suggested by the Friar, a feigned death. This is in many ways more tortuous, and will eventually fail. Arguably, though, this choice is rational: ‘death’ will give a finality to the family’s abandonment and they will grieve; therefore, when they discover Juliet is alive, they will rejoice and all will be forgiven. The family would not forgive her if she simply ran away to join Romeo. Did she mean what she said when she said, ‘I will follow thee my lord throughout the world’? Before answering this question, we need to examine other themes. We will then be able to revisit this in the final section ‘The Final Stretch’. As we have seen, Romeo recognises the contingent nature of the feud, and as husband to Juliet, resolves to love Tybalt as a relative, refusing to fight him. However, no one knows that Romeo and Juliet are now married, so Mercutio interprets Romeo’s reluctance as ‘calm, dishonorable, vile submission!’ (3.1.43). He fights in Romeo’s stead and is killed by Tybalt, cursing the two houses (3.1.64–65). Romeo believes that his reputation is stained by letting Mercutio fight on his behalf and blames Juliet: ‘…O sweet Juliet, / Thy beauty hath made me effeminate, / And in my temper soft'ned valor's steel! ’ (3.1.71–73). His valour, as hard as steel before, has been weakened by Juliet; thus Benvolio’s words at the sight of dead Mercutio hurt all the more: ‘O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead! / That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds … ’ (3.1.74–75). Mercutio was brave and gallant, Romeo isn’t. From here on Romeo struggles with his inner character. He is no longer sure what Juliet thinks of him. At Friar Lawrence’s cell, where he now hides, Romeo asks the Nurse: ‘Doth not she think me an old murderer…?’ (3.3.94), to which she replies:

O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps, And now falls on her bed, and then starts up, And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries, And then down falls again. (3.3.99-102)

In desperation, Romeo cries out to the Friar:

As if that name, Shot from the deadly level of a gun,



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Did murder her, as that name's cursed hand Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me, In what vile part of this anatomy Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack The hateful mansion. (3.3.102–108)

What does he mean by ‘name’ here? First of all here ‘name’ means the name ‘Romeo’. Secondly, the phrases ‘as if’ and ‘doth my name lodge’ indicate that he is using ‘name’ figuratively. Earlier, discussing the balcony scene, we have seen possible ways ‘name’ may be interpreted:

(1) ‘Romeo’ as an object (the whole person with essential properties); (2) ‘Romeo’ as a name (rigid designator); (3) ‘Romeo’ as a disguised definite description (the only son of my great

enemy). In addition, in relation to the name ‘Montague’ a further possibility was suggested but discarded as not applying to the balcony scene: ‘Montague’ as a disguised definite description for the paternal parentage of the object Romeo, his paternal DNA, ‘the fatal loins’. If we apply this interpretation to the name ‘Romeo’, it will of course include the maternal side as well. Therefore we have:

(4) ‘Romeo’ as a disguised definite description for the parentage of the object Romeo, his DNA, ‘the fatal loins’.

We have rejected ‘name’ in the sense of (2) ‘rigid designator’ because this is not a figurative use of the name. We can also reject ‘name’ in (1) ‘Romeo as object’ because here he talks about his name being inside his body, therefore it is not the same as the whole body, the object. On this view we also have to reject (3) ‘the only son of the enemy of the Capulets’ because (3) describes the whole person (the object). (4) seems to fit. Romeo’s parentage, represented by what we now call DNA, which the Prologue calls ‘the fatal loins’ (Prologue, 5), and which the Veronesi probably knew as ‘bloodline’, is an essential property, according to Kripke, of Romeo, and can certainly fit somewhere inside his anatomy. But which aspect of his DNA is Romeo talking about and why is it so distressing? It is something ‘vile’, ‘hateful’ and capable of murder, but specifically murder of Capulets (he is not ‘an old murderer’). It is perhaps easy to guess. It is the violent hatred of the Capulets. We have known Romeo as someone who is aloof from the street fights between the two houses and who tried to show familial love towards Tybalt. He must have thought that the enmity between the two families was a feature of the society in Verona and not part of his inner character, an essential property, which lodges inside his body and cannot be removed. He is distressed



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at the thought of this hatred being his essential property, which is totally at odds with his devotion to Juliet. Mercutio ‘loves to hear himself talk’ (2.4.80). His lively imagination and cynicism are evident in his long rants as well as one-liners. On their way to the Capulet party Romeo tells Mercutio that, though they mean no harm going to this party, it is not a good idea. Mercutio asks why, to which Romeo responds: ‘I dreamt a dream tonight’. We never find out what kind of dream because Mercutio, instead of asking this question, talks about his dream ‘That dreamers often lie’. Romeo’s response ‘In bed asleep, while they do dream things true’ leads Mercutio to quip: ‘O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you’ (1.4.48–53). He then goes into a long monologue comprising microscopic descriptions of what she looks like, what she has, what she does, and how this affects the individuals she visits. No one can interrupt Mercutio as he escalates from a fairy tale depiction of Queen Mab to an ever darker exposition of dreams and desires. Romeo finally catches up trying to stop him: ‘Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! / Thou talk'st of nothing’(1.4.95–96). If Mercutio was warning Romeo of a baleful influence of uncontrollable emotions, his warning has fallen on deaf ears; for Romeo thinks Mercutio ‘talk’st of nothing’. Queen Mab has a name and an expansive description but she does not exist. She only exists in Mercutio’s imagination causing havoc and inflicting violence. She has no referent; the name does not designate. This is all that Romeo sees. That Queen Mab has no triangle to sit on, that is, that she lacks the object, may point to the mental world Mercutio inhabits. His wild imagination and visualisation of violence and domination may be a reflection of a desire to keep reality under control, and it may well be the case that, despite his verbal incontinence, he is actually a ‘well-govern'd youth’ like Romeo, a worthy kinsman to the Prince. In Mantua we encounter yet another defective triangle in the person of the Apothecary. This time it is Romeo who gives detailed descriptions of the man and his shop:

In tatt'red weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples; meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff'd, and other skins Of ill-shap'd fishes, and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses Were thinly scattered, to make up a show. (5.1.39–48)



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‘Apothecary’ is the name of his occupation. It is a role he plays in society. It is a description of this man, the object. He must have a name but we are not told what it is. Of course we need not know and we ourselves do not often know the names of our local pharmacists. However, the minute details that Romeo remembers about him and his shop stand in sharp contrast to his anonymity. The fact that Romeo does not know the Apothecary’s name ensures his distance from the man and his own anonymity. The Apothecary’s namelessness also implies that he does not have a name to uphold and is easily corruptible. As you will recall, the Apothecary claims and Romeo agrees that it is his poverty, not his will, that consents to an illegal sale (5.1.75–76). His ‘poverty’ represents his body, the object, which needs feeding. Romeo’s last words to the Apothecary complete the picture: ‘Farewell! Buy food, and get thyself in flesh’ (5.1.84).

Meaning and Mendacity

Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight. Mercutio: And so did I. Romeo: Well, what was yours? Mercutio: That dreamers often lie. Romeo: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true. (1.4.50–52)

The enmity between the two families necessitates concealment of the lovers’ affair. They have to devise means to meet each other:

Being held a foe, he may not have access To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear, And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new-beloved any where. (Prologue, Act 2, 9–12)

Romeo overcomes the access problem by means of trespass; Juliet, ‘her means much less’, has to be creative. It starts off small. After she finds out Romeo’s identity, Juliet is overheard by the Nurse muttering to herself: ‘… Prodigious birth of love it is to me / That I must love a loathed enemy’ (1.5.132–133). The Nurse is quick to detect something untoward but Juliet fobs her off with a fib:

Nurse: What's tis? what's tis? Juliet: A rhyme I learnt even now

Of one I danc'd withal. (1.5.134–135)



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In the balcony scene, Juliet reacts to the embarrassment of having been overheard by Romeo as follows:

Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny What I have spoke, but farewell compliment! … Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo, but else not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, …

… I'll prove more true Than those that have more coying to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou overheardst, ere I was ware, My true-love passion; therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love … (2.2.88–105)

Juliet is so embarrassed that she would deny what she had spoken. If Romeo thinks she is too quickly won, she will frown and pretend to be aloof and say no, so Romeo will woo. She will be more genuine than those ladies who are coy and pretend to be uninterested; admittedly, she should have been more aloof like them. She is frank and honest about her feeling but can also hide her feeling to give a different impression. Here Juliet boasts of her ability to mislead. On the following day, having just married Romeo and waiting to consummate their marriage, Juliet discovers from the Nurse that Romeo has killed Tybalt and been banished. She erupts into an oxymoronic outburst hurling fury at Romeo:

O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! Wolvish ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, A damned saint, an honorable villain! O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh? Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace! (3.2.73–85 italics mine)

Romeo has betrayed her. He has deceived her with his façade of benign sincerity, when in fact he is just the opposite inside: ‘serpent’, ‘dragon’, ‘raven’, ‘wolf’,



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‘villain’, ‘vile matter’. 90 Oxymoron after oxymoron pile on, until the Nurse interjects: ‘There's no trust, / No faith, no honesty in men … / Shame come to Romeo!’ (3.2.85–86, 90). Then Juliet snaps out: ‘Blister'd be thy tongue… / O, what a beast was I to chide at him!’ (3.2.90, 95) The Nurse rebukes her: ‘Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?’ (3.2.96). Juliet retorts:

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? (3.2.97–99)

Juliet has steadied herself. Her loyalty is to her husband, not her cousin. She then finally comes round to asking the question which most women would ask straight away upon hearing that their husband had killed their cousin: why? But Juliet does not seek answers from anyone:

But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband. My husband lives that Tybalt would have slain, And Tybalt's dead that would have slain my husband. (3.2.100–101, 105–106)

The question is answered without recourse to facts. Juliet’s tirade on hearing the news is instinctive. It has only one theme: Romeo’s ‘deceit’. Only when the Nurse joins her in accusing him, does she realise that she has to defend him. As for her lack of interest in ascertaining the reason why Romeo killed Tybalt, the only plausible explanation is that she already knows it: when a Montague kills a Capulet there is only one reason—the feud. And Juliet knows this a priori. Recall what Frege said: anyone familiar with the language and all the names in the community grasps the sense of any name, which is a common property of the community. The sense of ‘Romeo’ in Verona is that he is the Montague heir who hates the Capulets.91 On the morning after the lovers’ wedding night Lady Capulet comes to speak to Juliet. In this scene Lady Capulet observes that Juliet cries too much for Tybalt and consoles Juliet that she has her own plan to have Romeo poisoned. Juliet

90 See Prusko, Rachel. “Youth and Privacy in Romeo and Juliet.” Early Theatre, vol. 19, no. 1, 2016, pp. 113–136,

dx.doi.org/10.12745/et.19.1.2400. Accessed 14 May 2021. Prusko notes: ‘Juliet…is a wildly imaginative storyteller and an accomplished liar’ (p. 126), who recognises in this passage ‘Romeo’s skills in dissimulation’ (p. 127). She argues that the lovers create and protect private space with a private language ‘marked by narrative, evasiveness, dissimulation, and word play’ (p. 114) to ‘counter the entrenched narrative [of feud] that has thus far dictated their lives and identities’ (p. 126). 91 Frege, pp. 28– 29, pp. 153–154. We could say that Romeo is like Jack the Ripper. Even before he was born and named, the people of Verona knew that the first son of Lord Montague would fit the description ‘the Montague heir who hates the Capulets’ and all other descriptions they might have thought of about this unborn baby in the form of Russell’s propositional functions. They were merely waiting for a baby boy x to make these propositions true.



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listens and agrees like a dutiful daughter, echoing her mother’s sentiment, but in so doing, gives vent to her true feeling of loss of Romeo. Throughout, Lady Capulet believes that Juliet is talking about loss of Tybalt and punishment of Romeo, but Juliet uses language to layer true meaning underneath the surface and to embed truthful phrases within sentences which, in their entirety, mean the opposite. She does so because she cannot but vocalise her feelings: she cannot stop it and her facility with language enables her to do so. In the dialogue below, the words that Juliet uses for her true feeling are in italics, while those she does not mean, or means to mislead, are underlined:

Lady Capulet: … Some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

Juliet: Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss. Lady Capulet: So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend

Which you weep for. Juliet: Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

Lady Capulet: Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death, As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.

… Juliet: …

God pardon him! I do with all my heart; And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

Lady Capulet: That is because the traitor murderer lives. Juliet: Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.

Would none but I might venge my cousin's death! Lady Capulet: ... I'll send to one in Mantua,

Where that same banish'd runagate doth live, Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram That he shall soon keep Tybalt company; And then, I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

Juliet: Indeed I never shall be satisfied With Romeo, till I behold him—dead— Is my poor heart, so for a kinsman vex'd. Madam, if you could find out but a man To bear a poison, I would temper it, That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof, Soon sleep in quiet. O how my heart abhors To hear him nam'd, and cannot come to him To wreak the love I bore my cousin Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him! (3.5.71–101)

By ‘friend’ Lady Capulet thinks Tybalt, Juliet Romeo—she called him so only minutes ago (3.5.43). Lady Capulet might think Juliet wished to venge Tybalt’s death by killing Romeo if she could, but Juliet has not specified by what means she might achieve that.



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Juliet comes close to lying when Lady Capulet mentions Juliet’s marriage to Paris:

I will not marry yet, and, when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. These are news indeed! (3.5.120–122)

Did Juliet say she hated Romeo? Her mother might think so, and so might we. But look at the sentence. It is made up of two sentences (‘it shall be Romeo’ and ‘you know I hate Romeo’) joined by a relative pronoun ‘whom’. The use of ‘whom’ avoids repeating ‘Romeo’ after ‘hate’; it is a little device for Juliet to avoid actually saying “I hate Romeo (or him)”—she hasn’t said it. In addition, note the distance between ‘Romeo’ and ‘hate’. And, finally, and most significantly, this is not a statement of fact about Juliet hating Romeo; it is a statement referring to her mother’s knowledge. But how can she know something untrue? Lady Capulet cannot possibly know Juliet hates Romeo because her daughter doesn’t.92 What Juliet is doing here is to appeal to the commonly held a priori knowledge in Verona that the Capulets hate the Montagues. With a vial of a feigned-death inducing potion, Juliet returns home from Friar Lawrence’s cell, to execute her plan as instructed. She begs her father’s pardon and vows to be ruled by him from now on (4.2.14–20). Delighted at this news he proceeds to make arrangements, while Juliet politely declines offers of assistance from the Nurse and Lady Capulet and retires into her bed chamber. Alone in her room, Juliet ponders on the action she is about to take. She considers what might happen as a result of her taking the potion:

a. What if it does not work at all? b. What if it is a poison which the Friar has concocted to have her dead to

bury the truth about her marriage to Romeo? c. What if she wakes up before Romeo comes to redeem her? (4.3.21–32)

We saw in the balcony scene that Juliet’s ‘security questions’ were thorough. Here again she goes through a checklist to calm herself down. Scenario b. is interesting: on the one hand, this is simply one item on an exhaustive list; on the other hand, in doubting the Friar’s honesty, where there is no evidence to the contrary, she may be merely reflecting her own propensity to lie, just as when she learned that Romeo had killed Tybalt and blamed him for deceit. Juliet answers: ‘I fear it is, and yet methinks it should not, / For he hath still been tried a holy man’ (4.3.28–29). So having raised the question she rejects the possibility. Scenario c. is what

92 We are opening a new can of philosophical worms here: verbs such as ‘know’, ‘learn’, ‘realise’ are called ‘factive’ and take a subordinate clause (‘know that …’) where the truth of its content is presupposed; but some philosophers disagree—e.g., Hazlett, Allan. "The Myth of Factive Verbs," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 80, issue 3, 2010, pp. 497-522. RUTGERS, aristotle.rutgers.edu/joomlatools-files/docman-files/Hazlett.pdf. Accessed 17 Jul. 2021.



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worries her most: ‘There's a fearful point!’ (4.3.32). The horrific imagery of being ‘stifled’ and dying ‘strangled’, surrounded by ancestors’ bones, ‘bloody Tybalt’ and ‘loathsome smells’ (4.3.33–57), and so on, so overwhelms Juliet that her list of scenarios ends here. She then drinks her potion and falls down (4.3.58). The possibility of Romeo arriving alone before she wakes up never occurs to her. The plan fails for two reasons: firstly, Friar Lawrence does not give the message of Juliet’s feigned death to Romeo’s servant, Balthasar (as agreed with Romeo before he left Verona [3.3.169–171]), who, seeing Juliet’s funeral himself, rushes to Romeo thinking she really is dead (5.1.18–21); secondly, Friar John, who is tasked to deliver Friar Lawrence’s letter, gets stranded in a house quarantine and is forced to return unable to deliver the letter (5.2). Romeo, on receiving the news of Juliet’s death from Balthasar, instructs him to bring ink and paper and to hire post-horses, so that they can rush to Verona. Romeo’s haste worries Balthasar:

I do beseech you, sir, have patience. Your looks are pale and wild, and do import Some misadventure. (5.1.27–29)

Romeo will have none of that: ‘Tush, thou art deceiv'd. / Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do’ (5.1.29–30). ‘Thou art deceiv'd’ is a massive dramatic irony. We know, but the two men don’t, that Balthasar is indeed ‘deceiv'd’. He has witnessed a fraudulent funeral service. When Romeo is reunited with Juliet in the Capulet tomb, there she lies in a state of feigned death. Romeo can hardly believe she is dead:

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

… Ah, dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? (5.3.92–93, 101–102)

Juliet lies in ’this palace of dim night’ with Romeo, who is about to ‘set up [his] everlasting rest’ (5.3.107, 110). Little did she dream that she would lie in her ancestral vault lying to Romeo.93

93 It must be a coincidence that the word ‘lie’ juts out of the name ‘Juliet’.



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Nautical Theme

A sail, a sail! (2.4.48)

‘On 24 September 1599, while William Shakespeare was pondering a draft of Hamlet…in his house…in Southwark, a motley group of Londoners was gathering … at the Founders’ Hall, off Moorgate Fields’ with a view to setting up the East India Company. The Company received its royal charter on 31 December 1600.94 The 16th century saw the world’s first global maritime trade, European ships reaching far beyond India and the straits of Malacca, as far as Japan. The nautical theme in Romeo and Juliet evokes a variety of images: immensity, profundity, risk-taking, turbulence, vicissitude, fate. The lovers’ story from the beginning to the end is a ‘fearful passage’ (Prologue, 9), and ‘their course of love’ (5.3.286) governed by ‘inauspicious stars’ (5.3.111). Here is a quick perusal of nautical images: Romeo describes his unrequited love for Rosaline: ‘Love is … / Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with loving tears’ (1.1.167–169); Lady Capulet considers that marriage is a natural habitat of a woman, just as ‘The fish lives in the sea’ (1.3.89–90); Romeo, when he has a premonition of a premature death as a result of his gatecrashing the Capulet party, entrusts the steerage of his life to God: ‘But He that hath the steerage of my course / Direct my sail!’ (1.4.112–113); Romeo, in the balcony scene, describes the extent to which he would pursue Juliet: ‘I am no pilot, yet, wert thou as far / As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, / I should adventure for such merchandise’ (2.2.82–84); Juliet, in the balcony scene, compares her love for Romeo to the depth of the sea: ‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea, / My love as deep; the more I give to thee, / The more I have, for both are infinite’ (2.2.133–135); Romeo tells the Nurse that he will have his servant bring a rope ladder to her so that he can climb into Juliet’s chamber: ‘Within this hour my man shall be with thee, / And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair, / Which to the high top-gallant of my joy / Must be my convoy in the secret night’ (2.4.97–100);

94 Dalrymple, William. The Anarchy, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2019, pp. 1, 9.



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Lord Capulet describes how Juliet mourns for Tybalt (that’s what he thinks): she is like a ship (‘bark’), her eyes, like the ‘sea’, ‘ebb and flow with tears’, her body is ‘sailing in this salt flood’, her raging sighs and tears, ‘without a sudden calm’, will overturn her ‘tempest-tossed body’ (3.5.129–136); And finally, Romeo’s poison is his guide to ‘engrossing death’: ‘Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide! / Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on /The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!’ (5.3.116–118). As the lovers navigate through the metaphorical sea, ‘inauspicious stars’ guide their course and bring their journey to an unfortunate end. This is predicted by the Prologue.95 Both we and the lovers are powerless in the face of what the Prologue foretells; the Prologue dictates our reaction as well as the lovers’ action.

Transtemporal Irony

Put up your swords, you know not what you do. (1.1.42)

In this section we will examine the assumptions in the Prologue and ask whether they are borne out by what follows in the play. If these assumptions can be shown not to be entirely supported by facts as they emerge, then we will look to an alternative view of the Prologue, that is, not as a foregone conclusion, but as something which would make a better fit with the facts as we find them. This approach leads us to a notion of ‘transtemporal irony’ as defined later. The Prologue is a sonnet but its content is not about love, which one usually expects.

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. 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,

95 Walts, Robert W. “The Felicity of the Marine Imagery in Romeo and Juliet.” The South Central Bulletin, vol. 22, no. 4,

1962, pp. 16–18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3188446. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. Walts refers to the importance of astrological motivation to the affairs of Romeo and Juliet.



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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.

The Prologue tells us the themes of the play: Symmetry – ‘two’, ‘both’, ‘alike’, ‘pair’; Feud – ‘grudge’, ‘strife’, ‘rage’; Violence – ‘mutiny’, ‘blood’, ‘unclean’; Enemies – ‘households’, ‘foes’, ‘parents’; Link – ‘loins’, ‘ancient’, ‘new’, ‘continuance’; Protagonists – ‘lovers’, ‘children’, ‘love’; Fate – ‘fatal’, ‘take their life’, ‘death’, ‘end’, ‘death-mark'd’, ‘star-cross'd’; Wish – ‘overthrows’, ‘bury’, ‘remove’; Failure – ‘misadventur'd’, ‘piteous’. The Prologue drums these notions into us, forcing us to expect what is to happen. It tells us that the only thing missing here is the detail, which will be provided in the rest of the play. The detail will be in line with the Prologue and there should be no surprises. Is this really the case, and what is the point of this ‘spoiler’? We have already challenged the sense of inevitability represented by the notion of feud. The feud is ‘contingent’. What about symmetry? The play is full of symmetry, contrast, and opposites. For example, day and night, love and hate, young and old, medicine and poison, etc. Take love and hate. Love is variously described: Romeo’s ‘doting’ (2.3.82) on Rosaline, physical love advocated by Mercutio, Benvolio’s pacifist love, and love between Romeo and Juliet. Hate, on the other hand, is presented quite differently. There is only one kind of hate. We first encounter it in Sampson and Gregory, Capulet servants, when they premeditate and carry out an attack on Montagues in Act 1 Scene 1. Tybalt, a Capulet, joins in this fight, mocking Benvolio, who tries to part the two sides: ‘What, drawn and talk of peace? I hate the word / As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee’ (1.1.47–48). Capulet and Montague run to the scene of the fight, both expressing fury:

Capulet: My sword, I say! Old Montague is come, And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

Montague: Thou villain Capulet!—Hold me not, let me go. (1.1.54–56)

But their wives try to stop them: ‘A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?’ (Lady Capulet 1.1.53); ‘Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe’ (Lady Montague



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1.1.57). What stands out in this scene and the rest of the play is that no individual from the Montagues’ younger generation expressly shows hatred of the Capulets. On the Capulets’ side, in contrast, inimical language infects even Juliet, not to mention Tybalt: ‘Prodigious birth of love it is to me / That I must love a loathed enemy’ (1.5.132–133). Hate may be deeply entrenched in society in Verona, but it is still the case that, for the system of hate to persist, it requires individuals with the will to uphold it. There appears to be no one in the Montagues’ younger generation to take on this role. Surely a profound asymmetry. Symmetry appears somewhat forced in the final scene. Lord Montague reports that his wife is dead: ‘Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath’ (5.3.210). This makes the final death toll of six, more than the two predicted by the Prologue: Mercutio and Paris (the Prince’s household), Tybalt and Juliet (Capulet), Romeo and Lady Montague (Montague). The three households are all alike in casualties, but the death of Lady Montague, who speaks three lines in the first scene then disappears, seems like an afterthought.96 Symmetry therefore appears to be not exactly complete, although the author evidently attempts to inculcate this notion in our minds. James Tissot, well known for his attractive portrayals of Victorian society, painted a snapshot of a woman in The window.97 She stands by a window with her right hand against the right side of her head, in a pose which these days can be instantly recognised as ‘talking on a mobile phone’. This effect on the viewer is undoubtedly unintended by the artist because he precedes the viewer and the mobile phone by centuries. Let us call it ‘transtemporal irony’. The irony consists in the fact that the significance of a work of art to us now did not exist at the time of its creation and therefore is unknown to the author, characters (if it is a play) or the then audience. A view of the Prologue is suggested by this idea. On this view the Prologue is like a weather forecast, specifically, that of a hurricane or a typhoon, which engulfs everyone, not to mention Romeo and Juliet. Of course weather forecasting as we know it did not exist when the play was written, so when we say an analogy with a weather forecast helps, it simply means that the Prologue functions as if it were a weather forecast, not that this was intended by the author. The Prologue as a weather forecast and the lovers’ story as a storm resolve certain nagging issues. Firstly, it mitigates the unavoidable sense in the Prologue of

96 Blakemore Evans, p. 205, footnote 210. ‘Spencer* suggests that this additional note of pathos may be explained by the

necessity of using the actor who played Lady Montague for some other role.’ *Romeo and Juliet (New Penguin), edited by Spencer, T. J. B, 1967. 97 Tissot, James. The Window. WIKIART, www.wikiart.org/en/james-tissot/the-window. Last edit 15 Oct. 2012. Accessed

8 Apr.2021.



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predetermination, fatedness, inevitability, and necessity, which deprives the characters of any scope for agency and free will.98 This sense is amplified by numerous instances of foreshadowing throughout the play, coercing us to accept the inevitability of the lovers’ destruction. In contrast, if the Prologue is a forecast, it may or may not turn out to be accurate; the damage may be more or less; and it allows us to expect a range of outcome not limited to what the Prologue predicts. In the modern world a challenge faced by weather forecasters in relation to hurricanes and typhoons is the citizens’ ‘normality bias’. Even when given a dire warning, citizens often fall into a cognitive trap of disbelieving the warning and the consequence of inaction. Similarly, we might view the Prologue with a certain amount of scepticism, not quite believing this all-out spoiler, which keeps us in suspense. Secondly, the analogy fits the time scale. The story from start to finish is only five days long and the characters keep asking and noting the day and time: Sunday

Romeo: Is the day so young? Benvolio: But new struck nine. (1.1.137–138)

Monday Nurse: Is it good den? Mercutio: 'Tis no less, I tell ye, for the bawdy hand of the

dial is now upon the prick of noon. (2.4.56–57)

Juliet: The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse … … and from nine till twelve

Is three long hours, yet she is not come. (2.5.1, 10–11)

Capulet: But soft, what day is this? Paris: Monday, my lord. Capulet: Monday! ha, ha! Well, We'n'sday is too soon,

A' Thursday let it be—a' Thursday, tell her, She shall be married to this noble earl. (3.4.18–21)

Tuesday Capulet: Go, nurse, go with her, we'll to church tomorrow. (4.2.35) Wednesday Capulet: The curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three a'clock. (4.4.4)

98 Jill L. Levenson interprets the Prologue, and its closing couplet in particular, differently. Levenson, Jill L. “Echoes

Inhabit a Garden: The Narratives of Romeo and Juliet.” Shakespeare Survey, vol. 53, 2000, pp. 39–48, doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521781140.004. She argues that the narrative summarised in the Prologue is ‘a collaborative enterprise for audience and actors’ (p. 42), and that the ‘subtleties of the closing couplet—the elusiveness of terms like “attend”, “here”, “miss”, “mend”—encourage more than one reading’ (p. 43).



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A storm typically takes four or five days to run its course, from the time it is near enough to affect the local weather and to the time when it is over at that location. Locals need to react to the forecast, checking the progress of the storm against the timeline predicted by the forecast. The constant checking of the day and time against the forecast timeline is to ensure prompt and timely action. One needs to act decisively within a limited window of opportunity. Capulet’s sudden decision to marry off Juliet, after bemoaning the upset caused by Tybalt’s death, sounds like emergency evacuation:

Capulet: Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily

That we have had no time to move our daughter. …

Paris: These times of woe afford no times to woo. Madam, good night, commend me to your daughter.

Lady Capulet: I will, and know her mind early tomorrow; Tonight she's mewed up to her heaviness.

Capulet: Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender Of my child's love. I think she will be rul'd In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not. (3.4. 1–2, 8–14)

Tybalt’s death earlier that day has denied Capulet time to move his daughter. The word ‘move’ here is a case of transtemporal irony: the intended meaning is to ‘encourage Juliet to consider Paris’ marriage proposal’99 but with reference to the storm analogy the word is taken to mean ‘to physically move, i.e., evacuate’. In this state of confusion, in anticipation of impending destruction (but this is only apparent to the audience, not the characters who are unaware of this metaphoric storm), men and women act strangely, lose judgement and do things which they might not usually do. For example, the Friar’s consent to marry the lovers may be rational considering his purpose, but given the long-standing nature of the feud (‘ancient grudge’) why the urgency? He himself warns Romeo: ‘Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast’ (2.3.94). Thirdly, an analogy with a storm fits with the use of the nautical theme. The lovers’ journey takes place at sea where hot surface temperature and atmospheric instability create a constant upward airflow, which develops into a whirlwind. The storm may be the lovers’ own making, their intense emotion causing lightning and thunder which feed the storm. Juliet herself refers to ‘lightning’ cautioning against rash behaviour (2.2.119).

99Weller, Philip. “Act 3, Scene 4.” Romeo and Juliet Navigator, Shakespeare Navigators, shakespeare-

navigators.com/romeo/T34.html. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021.


https://shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T34.html

https://shakespeare-navigators.com/romeo/T34.html


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Arthur Brooke’s Romeus and Juliet,100 source material for the play, makes extensive references to ‘storm’, ‘wave’, ‘ship’, ‘wind’ and so on throughout. A storm analogy is made, for example, when Romeus waits to climb into Juliet’s chamber, he being a ‘stearles ship’, she ‘long desyred port’ (800–804), when the Friar admonishes Romeus for his lack of strength of character after his murder of Tybalt (vicissitudes of life compared to a hazardous voyage) (1361–1378), and when the author warns of further difficulties after Romeus and Juliet have come to terms with Tybalt’s murder (1521–1524). In Romeo and Juliet, while nautical imagery has its place, an analogy with storm is absent. ‘Storm’ is mentioned twice only; first at the Capulet party:

Capulet: Why, how now, kinsman, wherefore storm you so? Tybalt: Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe … (1.5.52–53)

Second, when Juliet learns from the Nurse that Romeo and Tybalt have been involved in violence: ‘What storm is this that blows so contrary? / Is Romeo slaught'red? And is Tybalt dead?’ (3.2.64–65). That both occasions relate to Tybalt is significant. Lord Capulet and Juliet both associate Tybalt with ‘storm’, which indicates his aggressive nature. At the party Capulet manages to stop Tybalt’s anger escalating into a brawl but the following day Tybalt sends a letter of challenge to Romeo, with or without Capulet’s knowledge. When describing Romeo’s killing of Tybalt to the Prince, Benvolio says he could not intervene because they moved so fast like ‘lightning’:

But by and by [Tybalt] comes back to Romeo, Who had but newly entertain'd revenge, And to't they go like lightning, for, ere I Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain… (3.1.128–131)

Thus we have two ingredients which fuel the storm: the lovers’ passion and Tybalt’s rage. Tybalt’s challenge to Romeo is a direct consequence of the latter’s ‘intrusion’ into the Capulet party. The idea of gatecrashing the party was Benvolio’s, Romeo reluctant from the beginning right up to the moment they entered the Capulet household. On his part, Benvolio simply wanted Romeo to break out of his melancholy, to forget his obsession with Rosaline and look for someone else. Benvolio only ‘thought all for the best’ (3.1.62). These were Romeo’s words to

100 Brooke, Arthur. “The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet.” Romeo and Juliet, edited by Evans, G. Blakemore,

Cambridge University Press, 2003, Appendix: Brooke’s Romeus, pp. 229–263.



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Mercutio when he was dying, asking Romeo: ‘Why the dev'l came you between us? I was hurt under your arm’ (3.1.61). In fact everyone acts ‘all for the best’, Benvolio, Romeo, even Lord and Lady Capulet: Juliet’s parents, though limited by conventional thinking, have her best interest at heart, in deciding to marry Juliet to Paris (‘God's bread, it makes me mad! Day, night, work, play, / Alone, in company, still my care hath been / To have her match'd...’ [3.5.176–178]). The Nurse, the Friar, Paris, and Mercutio, obliquely warning against uncontrolled desires, ‘[b]egot of nothing but vain fantasy’ (1.4.98). Even Tybalt. He believes he has acted all for the best, in the interest of the Capulets’ honour. It is just that they know not what they do.101 That this biblical reference is uttered by Benvolio right at the outset of the play is hugely ironic. Although it is directed to the servants of both houses fighting with each other, it will prove to be self-referential. Benvolio is another ‘well-govern'd youth’ of Verona; it is out of his character to gatecrash a Capulet party, particularly, considering that the Montagues and Capulets fought earlier on the same day. From his conversation with Romeo it is clear that they have never done this before though the Capulets hold this party regularly (‘an old accustom'd feast’ [1.2.20]). Benvolio did not know what he was doing, what the consequence would be, when he persuaded Romeo to gatecrash the Capulet party. He helped to initiate the storm by unwittingly putting in motion an upward air current fueled by the lovers’ passion and Tybalt’s rage. The violence of this storm leads us to reflect on the nature of the feud and how it molds the minds of the characters. The Prologue strongly suggests that the feud is immutable and bloody, but, as the story unfolds, we see that the situation is more nuanced. It has already been suggested that the feud is ‘contingent’. This is a philosophical concept and the contingent nature of the feud is separate from the severity of the feud. Exactly how bad is the violence? Of course the death toll of six makes it pretty bad, but how bad was it before the storm? After the fight in Act 1 Scene 1, the Prince notes that there have been ‘[t]hree civil brawls’ (1.1.66). We do not know how long the Prince has been in office, but three brawls do not make it seem that violence breaks out frequently. Consistent with this assessment is the Prince’s words in the final scene: ‘And I for winking at your discords too / Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish'd’ (5.3.293–294). The fact that the Prince has been able to look the other way and ignore the feud indicates that somehow the situation has been under control, bar sporadic eruptions. This gives us a picture

101 See Evans, Bertrand. “The Brevity of Friar Laurence.” PMLA, vol. 65, no. 5, 1950, pp. 841–865. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/459577. Accessed 8 Apr. 2021. Bertrand Evans argues that ‘Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of unawareness’ (p. 850), in which participants act not knowing the truth of the situation, thereby unwittingly contributing to the chain of causation leading to the lovers’ death. None of the participants are villainous, not even Tybalt—'he acts for the best as he knows the best, and is as blameless in intent as Benvolio or Paris’ (p. 860, footnote 14).



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of the nature of the feud; the hatred may be intense but the citizens have learned to live with it; they have kept it under control; it has never deteriorated to such an extent that the Prince has to take some drastic action. 102 This equilibrium of compromise has kept the feud alive, but contained—until Romeo meets Juliet. The storm analogy creates a poignant moment in Act 3 Scene 5. It is early morning after the lovers’ first night as a married couple. Romeo must leave the Capulet residence without being detected to begin his exile in Mantua. The play’s tightly knit plot means that most scenes have causal links emanating from them. That is to say, most scenes causally relate to some other subsequent scenes. For example, in Act 1 Scene 1 a fight results in the Prince’s ruling of ‘pain of death’ for any further disturbance in streets. This ruling later influences the Prince’s decision to banish Romeo, a lighter sentence which seems to acknowledge the particular circumstances of the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt. In the later part of the same scene, Lord Montague’s concern for Romeo’s mental state leads to Benvolio finding out the reason from Romeo, and this conversation subsequently results in them gatecrashing the Capulet party. Exceptions, i.e., scenes from which no causal links emanate, are: Act 1 Scene 3, where Lady Capulet, the Nurse and Juliet discuss Paris just before the party begins; Act 4 Scene 4, which depicts the busy preparation for Juliet and Paris’ wedding; the second part of Act 4 Scene 5, where Capulet servant Peter talks with musicians who have gathered to perform at the wedding; and the first part of Act 3 Scene 5, just before Romeo takes his leave. As the dawn breaks, Romeo knows he cannot linger any longer. Juliet tries to detain him, Romeo vacillates, but eventually it is time to go. Optimism and pessimism alternate in their last exchange:

Juliet: O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again? Romeo: I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve

For sweet discourses in our times to come. Juliet: O God, I have an ill-divining soul!

Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou lookest pale.

Romeo: And trust me, love, in my eye so do you; Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu! (3.5.50–58)

102 Charlton, H.B. “Romeo and Juliet as an Experimental Tragedy.” Annual Shakespeare Lecture of the British Academy, 1939.

INTERNET ARCHIVE, archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.186042/mode/2up. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. Charlton makes a similar point: ‘…old Capulet is unwilling to let the feud interrupt a dance…A feud like this will not serve as a bribe it was meant to be; it is no atonement for the death of the lovers’ (P. 40).


https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.186042/mode/2up


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Present calm is tinged with anxiety about uncertain future, but for the moment Romeo escapes unseen and unharmed. Nothing that happens later hinges on this scene and indeed on what has happened during the night. Every stage leading up to this moment has been causally linked, from the moment Romeo sets his eyes on Juliet, the shared sonnet, the balcony scene, and their marriage. Consummation is the end point of this process, the goal which their passion is all about. The audience might expect this scene to give rise to yet another twist and turn in the drama, but it doesn’t. Romeo and Juliet’s time together is a space apart as if they were in the eye of a storm, a quiet haven in the midst of chaos.

The Final Stretch

The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, And the place death, considering who thou art… (2.2.63–64)

The death of Mercutio and Tybalt in Act 3 Scene 1 is a turning point in the play. From then on, the cheerful and lyrical mood is replaced by a darker, somber, claustrophobic one. For Romeo, the Prince’s sentence of banishment is nothing but ‘death misterm'd’ (3.3.21) because: ‘There is no world without Verona walls, / But purgatory, torture, hell itself’ (3.3.17–18). But is this moment also a point of no return? Has fate finally overtaken Romeo and Juliet? On the contrary. According to the Friar:

Tybalt would kill thee, But thou slewest Tybalt: there art thou happy. The law that threat'ned death becomes thy friend, And turns it to exile: there art thou happy. A pack of blessings lights upon thy back, Happiness courts thee in her best array … (3.3.137–142)

And the Friar is not saying this just to cheer up Romeo: he has a plan. Romeo will live in exile in Mantua until:

we can find a time To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends, Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back With twenty hundred thousand times more joy Than thou went'st forth in lamentation. (3.3.150–154)

The Friar will act as a peace maker, a negotiator, a PR man, to secure the Prince’s pardon, and then will call Romeo back from Mantua. Until then, Romeo must remain in Mantua, but the Friar will keep him updated ‘from time to time’ through



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Romeo’s manservant (3.3.169–171). Romeo, for his part, assures Juliet: ‘I will omit no opportunity / That may convey my greetings, love, to thee’ (3.5.48–49). It is important that Romeo stay outside Verona because he is banished; his presence in Verona would result in instant death should he be found. The Friar’s plan is overturned when he learns of Juliet’s imminent marriage to Paris. As we have seen already, the Friar comes up with the idea of frustrating this marriage by causing a feigned death to Juliet. He tells his plan to Juliet:

Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift, And hither shall he come, an' he and I Will watch thy waking, and that very night Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua. (4.1.114–117)

The Friar makes an irrevocable error: his new plan is to call Romeo back from Mantua so that both can ‘watch [Juliet] waking’. The Friar won’t have time to do any of the groundwork necessary for Romeo’s happy and safe return. We don’t even know whether the Friar is aware of this cardinal error, or the wisdom of his previous plan. Verona, Romeo’s birthplace, the only world he knows, has become a place of death considering who he is now—an exile. To step onto this side of Verona walls amounts to trespass punishable by death. Of course the Friar’s plan does not materialise: his letter never reaches Romeo; Romeo reaches Verona by another means. Romeo returns to Verona because of the news that Juliet is dead; he would not have returned to Verona if she had not remained in Verona, dead or alive. Here lies the true error: in choosing the feigned-death route, the Friar and Juliet, consciously or unconsciously, rejected another route—Juliet’s immediate escape from Verona. We have already seen that Juliet has vowed to ‘follow thee my lord throughout the world’ (2.2.148). We have also seen that a metaphoric storm is raging in and around Verona. It would have been eminently sensible to remove her from the path of this storm. Juliet’s ‘evacuation’ to Mantua is in effect sanctioned by her parents, who have disowned her, and would have prevented Romeo’s return to Verona. We have previously concluded that the feigned-death route may be more rational because of the relative ease of placating the Capulets after Juliet’s reanimation but the risks it entails, regarding Romeo’s return to Verona, are, in retrospect, too great, though lying may come more naturally to Juliet than fleeing. Her reluctance to flee is not surprising when we cast our minds back to her words: ‘Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake’ (1.5.97). Juliet will not move. Her promise to ‘follow [Romeo] throughout the world’ does not mean she will undertake a solitary journey from Verona to Mantua, only that she will go with Romeo. This is why she agrees to the Friar’s ‘… he and I / Will watch thy waking, and that very night / Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua’; Romeo will



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personally take her to Mantua. In the balcony scene, Juliet likens Romeo to a bird, not once but twice, which she can ‘lure back’ when she wants to:

Hist, Romeo, hist! O, for a falc'ner's voice, To lure this tassel-gentle back again! Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud, Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine, With repetition of my Romeo's name. Romeo!103 (2.2.158–163)

Her feigned death in the Capulet tomb is to lure back Romeo but being in a coma she cannot ‘speak aloud’.

Juliet: 'Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone— And yet no farther than a wanton's bird, That lets it hop a little from his hand,

Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silken thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty.

Romeo: I would I were thy bird. Juliet: Sweet, so would I,

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. (2.2.176–183)

Romeo in Mantua is ‘like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves’, who has to be plucked back to Verona, by Juliet, a spoiled child (‘wanton’), who is ‘lovingly mistrustful’ (‘loving-jealous’) 104 of his liberty. And Juliet ends up ‘kill[ing] [Romeo] with much cherishing’ through her decision to take the Friar’s potion. On this analysis the point of no return is reached when Juliet agrees to a feigned death. Just pause for a moment and consider the death toll at this point. Capulet has lost Tybalt, the Prince Mercutio, and Montague has lost or is about to lose his wife. The three houses have each lost one person. Romeo manages to reach Juliet but in the process kills Paris. This is neither here nor there for Romeo, intent on dying to join Juliet. But supposing Juliet were to wake before Romeo had time to take his poison, what then? Romeo has breached the term of his banishment by his trespass into Verona; he has committed another murder; and the Prince has lost

103 Brown, Carolyn E. “Juliet's Taming of Romeo.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, vol. 36, no. 2, 1996, pp. 333–355.

JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/450952. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. According to Brown the play has a ‘subtext…established by the falconry imagery that appears throughout the play, [which] reaches its prominence in the balcony scene’ (p. 334). On this reading Juliet is like a falconer who trains a falcon (Romeo) to make him do what she herself cannot do, thereby achieving freedom and independence. By the end of the balcony scene she achieves her objective but her power over Romeo wanes following his banishment. ‘Since her only chance to control her life passes with the death of “her Romeo”, Juliet’s suicide may be her last act of defiance, her last act of controlling her own destiny…’ (p. 353). Surprisingly, Brown does not refer to Juliet’s taking of the Friar’s potion, which, on her reading, could be interpreted as Juliet’s last desperate attempt to lure back (i.e., control) Romeo. 104 Blakemore Evans, p. 114, footnote 181. ‘Loving-jealous lovingly mistrustful (with suggestion of excessive love…)’


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another kinsman; in fact, the Prince has suffered the greatest casualties. The Prince could not possibly go back on his word which he spoke when he lost Mercutio:

My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding; But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine That you shall all repent the loss of mine. I will be deaf to pleading and excuses, Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses; Therefore use none. (3.1.147–152)

In other words, Romeo is doomed. When Juliet wakes up to discover Romeo’s dead body, she has no time to recognise that their story ends just as it began: ‘Too early seen unknown, and known too late!’ (1.5.131). At the Capulet ball, Romeo was ‘too early seen’ by Juliet, his identity ‘unknown’, and his name ‘known too late’. Now, in the Capulet vault, Juliet is ‘too early seen’ by Romeo, her true purpose ‘unknown’ to him, and his action ‘known too late’:

What's here? A cup clos'd in my true love's hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop To help me after? (5.3.161–164)

Thus Romeo’s foreboding on his way to the Capulet ball comes true:

Benvolio: Supper is done, and we shall come too late. Romeo: I fear, too early, for my mind misgives… (1.4.105–106, italics mine)

This conversation follows Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech, prompted by Romeo’s ‘In bed asleep, while they [dreamers] do dream things true’ (1.4.52), which is a response to Mercutio’s ‘[I dreamt] That dreamers often lie’ (1.4.51). The pun with the word ‘lie’ already anticipates Juliet lying feigned-dead in her ancestral vault. As if to weather the metaphoric storm with a delay tactic (the storm already initiated by Benvolio’s suggestion to gatecrash the party), Mercutio launches into his digressive Queen Mab speech, at the end of which Benvolio duly complains, ‘we shall come too late’. But, as Romeo rightly fears, it is ‘too early’—to avert lightning that is the encounter with Juliet.105

105 See Pearlman, E. “Shakespeare at Work: Romeo and Juliet.” English Literary Renaissance, vol. 24, no. 2, 1994, pp. 315–342.

JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43447434. Accessed 4 May 2021. Pearlman argues that the Queen Mab speech is ‘irrelevant in content’ and ‘inessential to plot’ (p. 334), and that ‘the [“disorderly” (p. 338)] manner in which it is printed’ and the ‘ungainly’ ‘transition between the body of the play and Mercutio’s excursus’ support the view that the speech is ‘an afterthought or interpolation’ (p. 337). ‘If the long section that begins [after Romeo’s “But 'tis no wit to go” (1.4.49)] and ends with [Romeo’s “I fear, too early” (1.4.106)] had not been inserted, Romeo’s response would have joined two half-lines that are now separated: “And we mean well in going to this Maske, / But ‘tis no wit to go, for my mind misgiues…” … it is only when the separated passages are brought together that the continuity of the conversation may be appreciated’


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Romeo and Juliet were defeated by their chosen ‘means, to meet’ (Prologue, Act 2, 13), his being trespass, hers mendacity, their attempts ‘misadventur'd’ and ‘piteous’ (Prologue, 7). And they failed to see that Mantua represented another possible world. If Verona, this actual world, was so ‘loathsome’ (5.1.81), departing from thence would not have been such bitter sorrow. They had a window of opportunity to ‘defy [the] stars’ (5.1.24) but missed it.

(p.337). It is a curious coincidence that the very section, an ‘afterthought’, according to Pearlman, should give rise to the narrative suggested here revolving round the idea of Romeo’s foreboding coming full circle with reference to the ‘too early’ theme.

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