Rom. [Aside,] She speaks:—*
O, speak again, bright angel!
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned* wondering eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing* clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
Jul. 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.
Rom. [Aside,] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
Jul. ’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 called,
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.
Rom. [Aloud,] I take thee at thy word:*
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptised;*
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
* Romeo’s whispered exclamation is indented, because we are still on the same line as Juliet’s sigh.
* White-upturned eyes: showing the whites of the eyes because the gaze is straining upwards.
* Lazy-pacing clouds: slowly moving, in contrast to the swift angel.
* That is to say, “Why did you have to be Romeo Montague, of all people?” Her parents would have looked kindly on almost any other handsome young gentleman of the city.
* That is, Romeo is who he is in himself, and would always be the same, even if (‘though’) he were not a Montague.
* Doff is a contraction of do off, meaning ‘put off, remove’; likewise, don is a contraction of do on, and means ‘put on’. Neither verb is used much today, except humorously: to doff one’s cap is to show exaggerated respect to someone; to don an overcoat is to put an overcoat on.
* Romeo’s outburst (now speaking out loud) follows on the same line as Juliet’s plea, without any pause or hesitation.
* In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Cecily Cardew shyly confesses that “it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest”, and a besotted Algernon Moncrieff at once engages for Canon Chasuble to christen him Ernest.