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What’s in a Name?
Juliet, by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917).
Juliet, or the Blue Necklace, by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). For all its sentimentality, Romeo and Juliet is an unrelenting tragedy. The Prologue, which describes them so memorably as ‘star-crossed lovers’, does not hide from the audience that the wretched feud between the Montagues and the Capulets will be ended only by the death of their children and the overthrow of all their hopes.
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Juliet, or the Blue Necklace, by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). For all its sentimentality, Romeo and Juliet is an unrelenting tragedy. The Prologue, which describes them so memorably as ‘star-crossed lovers’, does not hide from the audience that the wretched feud between the Montagues and the Capulets will be ended only by the death of their children and the overthrow of all their hopes.
Introduction
One night, Romeo Montague slips into a masked ball at the Capulet residence in Verona — chasing a girl as usual. There he meets Juliet, and Rosaline is forgotten. When he learns that Juliet is the daughter of his father’s sworn enemy, he rushes from the dance, and soon afterwards we find him in the garden, thinking furiously. Suddenly he sees a light at a window above: it seems Juliet has been thinking too.
Capulet’s Orchard.
[Romeo]
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:*
It is my lady; O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing; what of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.*
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars.
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.*
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O! that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Juliet Ay me!*
* The first in a series of absurd and infatuated comparisons dreamt up by Romeo, between Juliet and the heavens. Romeo compares the moon, evidently out on the night of the Capulet ball, unfavourably with Juliet’s sunshine.
* Romeo imagines that two stars of heaven, pursuing some private business of their own, have left the heavens and engaged Juliet’s eyes to shine so that no one will notice they have gone.
* Now Romeo’s wonders what we would see if Juliet’s eyes and two heavenly stars actually exchanged places. The lustre of her cheeks, he declares, would make the stars in her eye-sockets appear dull; meanwhile Juliet’s eyes up in heaven would shine down onto the earth like daylight.
* Juliet’s sigh follows on the same line as Romeo’s extravagant musings, indicating that it should appear to break in on them.
In the famous ‘balcony scene’ from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo Montague is in the garden of the Capulet mansion when his new love Juliet appears at her bedroom window above. As he gazes up, the infatuated young man breathes admiration of Juliet’s beauty, comparing her favourably with the sun, the moon and the stars of heaven. (58 / 60 words)
In the famous ‘balcony scene’ from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo Montague is in the garden of the Capulet mansion when his new love Juliet appears at her bedroom window above. As he gazes up, the infatuated young man breathes admiration of Juliet’s beauty, comparing her favourably with the sun, the moon and the stars of heaven.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: besides, just, may, otherwise, since, unless, whereas, whether.
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