As Peter walks down the street, coming
from the other direction are Benvolio and Romeo. Benvolio is still trying to convince Romeo to forget Rosaline, the woman with whom Romeo is in love. Benvolio uses a number of metaphors to explain how Romeo can forget her. He explains that one fire can burn another out, and one greater pain can make the anguish of an earlier pain disappear (lines 43-44). Similarly, a stronger love will make one’s lesser feelings of love disappear. Romeo responds to Benvolio’s metaphors as if the friend were speaking literally. Romeo is implying that the metaphors do not really apply to him, that they are meaningless to him. In other words, Romeo does not believe that he can ever love anyone else and that his love for Rosaline will never disappear.
Seeing Peter approach them interrupts the conversation. Peter, who apparently does not know that Romeo and Benvolio belong to the house of the Montagues, asks them to read the list of names of people invited to Capulet’s feast. Among those listed is Rosaline.
After Peter exits, Benvolio tells Romeo that they should attend Capulet’s feast. Benvolio contends, “I will make thee think thy swan a crow” (87). Benvolio means that although Romeo believes Rosaline to be the most beautiful of women – just as a swan is the most beautiful of birds – Romeo needs to compare Rosaline to other beautiful ladies. Benvolio firmly believes that standing alongside other beautiful women, Rosaline will not look like a swan. Rather, he thinks Romeo will then see a crow, a plain and unattractive bird.
Romeo does not think he would ever disparage Rosaline in such a way, and the young lover responds with metaphorical language of his own. Romeo tells Benvolio that his eyes would then have to be burned as heretics (line 91). A heretic was a person who spoke against Christianity and the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. Such people were considered enemies to the Church and were punished by being burned to death. Romeo truly believes that Rosaline is the most beautiful of all women. That is his Truth, just as Christians believed that Christianity was the True religion. Romeo is thus asserting that his eyes have shown him this Truth. If his eyes have lied to him, then his eyes must be punished by fire just as must be the heretic who has told lies against the true faith, Christianity. Romeo’s strong poetic language thus declares that he will never believe any other woman to be as beautiful as Rosaline.
Nevertheless, Romeo agrees to join Benvolio and go to Capulet’s feast so that he can gaze at Rosaline’s beauty.
The reader should again note the role of fate. Romeo and Benvolio’s encountering Peter at that moment was not just chance or happenstance. Rather, it was destiny. If they had not met Peter, they would not then have attended the feast; and Romeo would then, perhaps, never have met Juliet.