Romeo and Juliet Marriage Quotes Page 2

Before Juliet even knows Romeo's name, she's head over heels in love and worries that he may already be married to someone else, in which case, she says (rather dramatically) that she'll die. Teenage melodrama aside, Shakespeare is foreshadowing the way Juliet will die shortly after her marriage to Romeo. (She will literally kill herself and she will also have sex with Romeo – to "die," means to have an orgasm in Elizabethan slang.) Check out "Symbols" if you're interested in how Shakespeare links sex and death throughout the play.

Juliet sure does know what she wants. Here, she basically proposes to Romeo, which was unheard of in Shakespeare's day. As soon as Juliet knows that she and Romeo love each other, she immediately asks him when they can be married. Love and marriage are inseparable for Juliet.

When Friar Laurence asks Romeo where he's been, Romeo, who has been hanging out with Juliet, uses a familiar metaphor to describe how he and Juliet fell in love. 16th century lovers were always running around saying things like "Oh, I've been wounded" to describe their passion. (You can learn more about this by going to "Quotes" for "Art and Culture, where we talk about the conventions of love poetry.)

What's interesting about this passage is the way Romeo suggests that marriage is the thing that can heal or "remed[y]"a love "wound." When he says that Friar Laurence (who just so happens to dabble in herbal medicine) can use his "holy physic [medicine]" to heal him, he means that he wants Friar Laurence to perform the marriage ceremony.