Page (3 of 3) Quotes:
1 2 3
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Act.Scene.Line). Line numbers correspond to the 2008 Norton edition of the play.
| Quote #7 Here comes the lady: O, so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:
A lover may bestride the gossamer
That idles in the wanton summer air,
And yet not fall; so light is vanity. (2.6.1) |
When Juliet rushes into Friar Laurence's cell to marry Romeo, the Friar makes a big deal about the fragility and fleetingness of worldly pleasure (a young lover's "vanity"). Stephen Greenblatt tells us that, when Friar Laurence says Juliet's "light" foot won't "wear out the everlasting flint," he means that she will never "endure or subdue the hard road of life."
| Quote #8 What's here? a cup, closed 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? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative. (5.3.2) |
Juliet believes that ingesting poison by kissing Romeo's lips would "make [her] die with a restorative." She believes that the kiss and the poison would heal or "restore" her by reuniting her with her husband. But, since poison isn't a viable option for her, she chooses to unsheathe Romeo's sword and then thrusts it into her own body because she believes that suicide will allow her to be with Romeo forever.
| Quote #9 JULIET
Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET
Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.
ROMEO
Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,
'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads:
I have more care to stay than will to go:
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.
How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day.
JULIET
It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us:
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes,
O, now I would they had changed voices too!
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day,
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.
ROMEO
More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!
(3.5.1) |
Juliet denies the passing of time (made evident by the sunrise and the sound of the morning birds twittering) because she knows that the passing of time means that Romeo must leave her.
