ACT 2 Romeo and Juliet Chorus Chorus says

ACT 2 Romeo and Juliet

Chorus • Chorus says: • Affection for Rosaline is dead. • Romeo is in love with his “foe supposed” • She is meant to be his enemy but not anymore because he loves her • However, his love is dangerous. She is stealing love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks like a fish taking bait from a hook without being detected. • Passion is so grand that any risk is worth taking!

Benvolio and Mercurtio • Romeo is alone on stage and proclaims that “…[I] can’t turn back, I must find my center. ” Juliet is his center. • Soliloquy • Mercurtio is getting annoyed that they’re still looking for Romeo because he’s such a Debbie downer. He starts to get mean saying “Rhyme love with dove” because that’s all your good for.

Benevolent Benvolio • You’re being Mean Mercurtio!! • Mercurtio is attacking his manliness now! • Romeo is so blind he’ll do anything. He shouldn’t be angry with me, what he should be angry about is that he fancies Rosaline, gets really excited around her and she doesn’t even notice him. • Sexual illusions to Romeo having an erection and loosing it because of Rosaline’s coldness towards him

Mercurtio • Very creud jokes. • Shakespeare needs a pat on the back for this because he can write the most beautiful poetry and have a romantic encounter with Romeo and Juliet, but at the same time has characters like Mercurtio and the Nurse to get the audience laughing and roaring!

Groundlings

Romeo in the orchard • He says “he jests at scars that never felt a wound. ” • He begins speaking in blank verse instead of rhyme (ABABCDCDEFEFGG) • The change represents maturity. Flighty youth into a serious man. • He compares Juliet to the sun and a maid of the moon. • Images of light • Maid of the moon -> pure virgin envious moons main. • She’s been stealthily creeping up to the balcony as he’s been watching.

Juliet • “Romeo, Where fore art thou Romeo” • What does that mean again? • Not saying where are you Romeo. Why are you called Romeo? A member of the wrong family. • Eavesdropping… • My name is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee. ”

Balcony Scene

• Love gave me the ability to leap over the walls and protect me from your family. • I would rather die before you than waste away with love-sick longing for you. -> Premonition of what will happen. • She wishes that he hadn’t heard her thoughts because he knows now how strong her feelings are for him… awkward! • I can’t hide how I feel. Tell me if you love or If you think I’m too easy. • Don’t think I fall in love like this everyday. Take my feelings seriously.

• Moon is too fickle to swear by… do not swear at anything at all! • Swear by yourself -> you are my object of worship not God. She worships him not the lord! (make note of that) • Good night… • Wait! Tell me you love me! –Romeo • I did before I knew you were there! Its too late now for me to give it. – Juliet

Bed time… but wait • “Three words, dear Romeo and then its good night for real. If your intentions as a lover are truly honorable and you want to marry me, send me word tomorrow. I’ll send a messenger to you, and you can pass on a message telling me where and when we’ll be married. I’ll lay all my fortunes at your feet and follow you, my lord, all over the world. ”

Juliet’s demands • Juliet - will not begin a relationship unless the aim is to be married… “if you’re honorable, then what are we waiting for? Lets get married. ” • If you’re not sure tell me now! • Familiar story to Elizabethans, “Echo” was a mythical woman who was scorned by narcissus, withered with sadness repeating his name and after her death, her voice still reverberated in caves. Which is why we have the word ‘echo’.

• Romeo has a wedding to plan! He has no time to sleep he must go arrange it! • Romeo leaves with urgency to go to the “ghostly Friar”. Friar Lawrence who looks after his ghost or his soul. • He needs to go tell the Friar of his fortune and ask him to marry them! • This scene has lasted from early evening until dawn. Yet we have a sense that it has been less time. • Shakespeare uses grand imagery to make the audience feel as though time has passed! Hours even days can pass in the space of 20 lines.

Friar • Objective: To work the same for Romeo as the Nurse does for Juliet. • Confessor, go-between and confiding friend. • Speaks in simple rhyming couplets. Fits a solid and considerate man. Makes his words sound fair and balanced.

ACT 2 Scene 3 • Man with great knowledge and interest in plants and their medicinal properties. • Both Nurse and Friar are close with nature and in touch with the elements. • Friars homestead represents a place of calm in contrast to the vibrancy of the city. • Good can be bad and bad can be good – foreshadowing. Romeo will have to kill later in the book.

Where were you last night? • Immortal question of good and bad in his head he continues to pick flowers. • Have you been doing something you shouldn’t… I get it! It’s not because you got up early that you’re here so soon, but that you haven’t been to bed at all. • He has wounded Juliet with love and been wounded in return. It is up to you to heal us both. • Marry them today? ! What happened to Rosaline?

• Friar Lawrence had reprimanded Romeo for being excessively moody while obsessing over Rosaline and now after all that fuss he’s just gone off her. No wonder women have no strength if there’s no strength in their men! • Romeo said he did not get any love returned from Rosaline. It’s a more mature relationship because Juliet loves me back! • Friar Lawrence gives his blessing but only for the political implications and the chance for peace that would come with such an alliance.

Friar’s scene • The whole scene was about balance, moderation and cure. He spoke about balance and about how good and evil can live together in the same entity. These two will end the feud but at the cost of many lives. • He is bent on ending the feud and will go to many lengths to get the goal.

Scene 4 • Mercutio and Benvolio – Still looking for Romeo. • Mercutio thinks he’s going to go mad! • Tybalt sent a challenge for a duel to Montague’s house. Romeo will answer it. • Tybalt is a murderer and a top class swordsman, accurate and skilled like a musician. • Most of the scene is in prose. Not attractive or balanced. Emptiness of what the men were up to. Contrast the balance of the Friar. • “bones” Français = “bonne” Mercutio is mimicking fantastical ways of fighting.

• Mercutio assumes that Romeo has been having sex all night and that he has very little energy left and is tormenting him about it. • Women are Fromps and Kitchen wenches compared to Rosaline. • Pun fest… poor puns trading with Mercutio. • Mercutio makes the point. Isn’t this stupid punning more exciting than moping about love? • Bauble. – penis reference.

Enter the Nurse with Peter

Nurse and boys • A sail, she is as big as a sail! • He can’t help but makes jokes at her telling her it is a “good evening” instead of good morning and she questions herself. • He then says the “prick” of noon. Another penis reference. She’s insulted.

Lets tease the Nurse • “I desire some ‘confidence’ with you” But she meant that she wanted a conference with him. • Malapropism – The right word is replaced by a similar sounding word with a completely different meaning. • Benvolio makes fun of her saying “indite” instead of invite. • Benvolio and Mercutio think that she is a female pimp here to pimp off Romeo after his “sex-scapades” last night. • Sarcastically -> Making fun of her in a romantic sing song voice and calling her Lady when she is only a servant.

• One heck of a talker! • Juliet sent her, but she won’t deliver the message because he and his friends are not good enough for her! • “Sir I tell her that you ‘protest’ to her, which, I take…” Protest = Propose • Get her to come to confession this afternoon and then we shall be married! <3 • In less than an hour now Romeo’s servant will meet with the Nurse in the Orchard so that I may have a rope ladder to climb over the wall. • Nurse wants to make sure Romeo’s servant can keep his word. Knife – Elizabethan phrase for penis.

Thank you Nurse! • Women in Shakespearean time were regarded. • Verona is a male dominated place. • Servants talk of slamming maids up against a wall, Cauplet assumes Juliet will marry who he wants her too and Lady Capulet assumes daughters obedience. • Nurse also, because of her age, deserves a bit more respect. ->

Scene 5 • Juliet alone in Capulet’s garden. She is tense because the nurse is taking too long. First Soliloquy! • “Solos” meaning alone and gives the audience a chance to hear Juliet’s inner thoughts. • Her Soliloquy explains how in love she is with Romeo. • Reference to Sun and Light. Juliet is distraught. She sees herself as a dove in the sunlight while dark clouds roll over hills – very interesting – images of light contrast dark. • Juliet is worried because the nurse looks sad. “I am weary!” • Nurse is teasing Juliet about Romeo but she doesn’t like him that much. • Pop a crude joke about Romeo at night being a burden weight on her.

Scene 6 • At the Friar’s – He is concerned about the haste of the wedding. • Friar Lawrence hopes that the wedding will be blessed but has a nagging fear that only sorrow will come of it. • Romeo would risk all the trouble if he could have just a minute with Juliet. • Fatherly advice to the groom, If you want love to last, love moderately don’t go all craze! Bride enters. Friar: “Oh so light a foot will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint. A lover may bestride the gossamers that idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall. So light is vanity. ” • Lover is so light with love. Light with vanity. Walk on cobwebs. Something self-regarding in Romeo’s love for Juliet and something Haste in hers for him. They’re pushed forward by fate and hormones.

• All three head off to Church…