Romeo and Juliet Lord Capulet Quotes

Lord Capulet

Quote 13

CAPULET
All things that we ordainèd festival
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
(4.5.90-96)

Lord Capulet describes death as a kind of marriage, and a funeral as a kind of wedding. Like love and hate, these two major life events don't seem so different after all.

Lord Capulet

Quote 14

CAPULET
Ha, let me see her: out, alas! she's cold.
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
(4.4.30-34)

That image of the "frost" killing the "flower" is particularly pertinent when you think about Juliet's birthday—Lammas-Eve, the night before the traditional harvest festival. She dies in bloom, before anyone can "harvest" her. (Well, so Capulet thinks—actually, Romeo's done a pretty good job of bringing the harvest in, if you know what we mean.)

Lord Capulet

Quote 15

CAPULET
[…]
My child is yet a stranger in the world.
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years,
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS
Younger than she are happy mothers made.
(1.2.8-12)

You know what's missing from this friendly little negotiation about marrying off Juliet? Juliet herself. Women (or girls) from wealthy families in Shakespeare's time didn't usually get much say in who they married; marriages were made for the convenience of the families, not the individuals.