Romeo and Juliet Juliet Quotes

Juliet's vision of loving Romeo is so intense that she thinks it will break the boundaries of mortality and convince all the world to be in love with Romeo. (In some versions of the play, it is "and when he shall die," while in others, it is, "when shall die.")

For Juliet, the loss of both Tybalt and Romeo seems like the Apocalypse; she expects to hear the trumpet sounding that marks the Day of Judgment.

For Juliet, being separated from Romeo is the same as being dead.

Juliet does not hesitate to follow Romeo into death. Poison, to her, is like a medicine, a "restorative" that could bring her back together with Romeo. The thing is, there's not enough poison on Romeo's lips so Juliet uses her husband's sword.

Again with the sexual innuendo: Romeo's "dagger" is going to stay in Juliet's "sheath" forever. We're pretty sure you get this, even without knowing that, in Latin, "vagina" translates directly to "sheath." For these kids, there's almost no distinction between dying together and sleeping together.

Juliet foreshadows her own death – her grave does become her wedding bed.

When Juliet says she has "an ill-diving soul," she means that she has a premonition of Romeo's death. This, of course, foreshadows how she will see Romeo for the last time: with her in her tomb (5.3). (Tip: try thinking positive thoughts, Jules!)

Juliet feels pretty helpless when she says goodbye to her new husband, Romeo, after the couple's one and only night together. Fortune (or Dame Fortuna, goddess of fortune and fate) is often portrayed as a "fickle" (unpredictable and unreliable) goddess because she could raise men up to great heights or cast them down at any moment with the spin of her wheel (a.k.a. the wheel of fortune). Juliet begs "fortune" to be kind to Romeo and reasons that since Romeo is so "faith[ful]" (as in not fickle or unreliable), then "fickle" fortune should want nothing to do with him. Sure—seems like sound logic to us.

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 tells Romeo to put a ring on it, 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. We have to ask: would Romeo have brought it up if Juliet hadn't?

When Juliet rushes into Friar Laurence's cell (room) to get hitched to Romeo, she says that her love is so great that she "cannot sum up" (express or count) even "half" of her love for Romeo. What's with the money metaphor? Well, It seems like Juliet's use of an economic metaphor (her love=wealth) is Shakespeare's way of drawing our attention to the fact that Romeo and Juliet are NOT marrying for money. While many of the play's characters (the Nurse, the Capulets, Paris) see marriage as a means of securing wealth and status, Romeo and Juliet marry because they're madly in love.

Juliet tries to justify her suicide (which she thinks will reunite her with her dead husband) by pointing out that her marriage to Romeo is a holy bond sanctioned by God—and she conveniently overlooks the fact that suicide is a big Christian no-no.

Juliet struggles with the conflict between her feelings for Romeo and her knowledge that he is an enemy of her family. She tries to separate Romeo from his identity as a Montague, and contemplates deserting her family for him. She does not imagine that their love and their families' opposition can be reconciled.

Pro tip: When Juliet asks "wherefore art thou Romeo," she's not wondering about Romeo's physical location. "Wherefore" means "why" so, Juliet is basically asking why the love of her life has to be Romeo Montague, the son of her family's enemy.

When Juliet learns that Romeo has climbed the orchard walls to see her, she worries that her "kinsmen" will break Romeo's legs for sneaking onto the property. Now, we know that this is probably true of Tybalt, Juliet's testosterone-driven cousin who has already threatened to beat up Romeo for showing up at the Capulet ball. But we have to wonder if Juliet's dad would be as angry as Juliet seems to think. (Except that we're pretty sure he wouldn't want a boy sneaking into his daughter's bedroom no matter what.) Earlier, when Tybalt wanted to fight Romeo (1.5), Lord Capulet stopped him and pointed out that Romeo is a pretty good kid. In fact, "Verona brags of him / To be a virtuous and well-governed youth" (1.5.67-68).

After (briefly) rejecting Romeo for killing her cousin, Juliet is caught between her loyalty to her family and her loyalty to her new husband. She eventually chooses Romeo and confesses that she's relieved her husband wasn't killed in the duel. (Well, duh. She can't have her wedding night with Tybalt, after all.)

Juliet's initial response to the news that Romeo has been banished for killing Tybalt (Juliet's cousin) is pretty intense, don't you think? Clearly, Juliet is experiencing some mixed emotions – she wonders how the love of her life, the guy she thought was so wonderful, could be a killer. On the one hand, she seems to recoil in disgust at Romeo's heinous act. Yet, at the same time, it's also pretty clear that Juliet still adores Romeo. Her use of oxymoron here gives expression to her turmoil. An "oxymoron," by the way, is the combination of two terms ordinarily seen as opposites. As in, Romeo is a "beautiful tyrant," a "fiend angelical," a "dove-feather'd raven," wolvish-ravening lamb," a "damned saint," and an "honourable villain."

There are also some great examples of paradox in this passage. A "paradox" is a statement that contradicts itself and nonetheless seems true. Example: Juliet asks "Was ever a book containing such vile matter so fairly bound?" We know what you're wondering – how the heck do you tell the difference between an "oxymoron" and a "paradox"? Well, a paradox is different from an oxymoron because it contains contradictory words that are separated by one or more intervening words.

Juliet's anger at Romeo and horror over Tybalt's death (see previous passage) quickly turns to horror over Romeo's banishment. Juliet feels guilty about "mangl[ing]" Romeo's name (nope, she's not a serial killer—she's talking about speaking ill of him) and she's also not too pleased with the Nurse, who criticizes her new husband. What interests us most about this passage, however, is the way Juliet says that Romeo's exile from Verona is "ten thousand" times worse than her cousin's death. She also suggests that, if she had heard "some word" that Romeo had been killed, it would have "murder'd" her. Teenage melodrama? Or just an accurate representation of her intense emotions?

After her parents threaten to turn her out on the streets for refusing to marry Paris, Juliet turns to her Nurse for guidance. The Nurse's advice to Juliet (who is already married to and in love with Romeo) is pretty callous – she recommends that Juliet forget about Romeo, who has been banished from Verona, and go ahead with a marriage to Paris. After all, the Nurse reasons, Romeo can't exactly come back to Verona to challenge the wedding. But, Juliet, as we know, has no intension of getting hitched to Paris.

Juliet's initial response to the news that Romeo has been banished for killing Tybalt (Juliet's cousin) is pretty intense. Clearly, Juliet is experiencing some mixed emotions—she wonders how the love of her life, the guy she thought was so wonderful, could be a killer. On the one hand, she seems to recoil in disgust at Romeo's heinous act. On the other hand, it's also pretty clear that Juliet still adores Romeo. Her use of oxymoron here gives expression to her turmoil. An "oxymoron" is the combination of two terms ordinarily seen as opposites. As in, Romeo is a "beautiful tyrant," a "fiend angelical," a "dove-feather'd raven," wolvish-ravening lamb," a "damned saint," and an "honourable villain." Want to know more? Check out our discussion in "Symbols."