Capulet explains to Paris that he has not yet had time to discuss the topic of marriage to Juliet because of the recent death of his nephew, Tybalt. But Capulet and his wife promise that they will discuss the proposal early next morning. Capulet – not knowing that his daughter is already married to Romeo – is convinced that Juliet will be an obedient child and will marry Paris out of respect for him. Capulet, like many authoritarian fathers of that time, does not believe that his daughter could even possibly have a different opinion on the subject. Capulet then assures Paris that Juliet will be ready to marry him in three days time. He feels that three days is more than a sufficient amount of time to mourn the death of Tybalt. Juliet’s father is anxious to unite his house with the prestigious family of Paris (which includes the Prince). Pride and prestige are uppermost in his mind, not love or sadness.
JUL: 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.
ROM: 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. JUL: Yon light is not daylight; I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhaled To be to thee this night a torchbearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore stay yet. Thou need’st not to be gone.
(1-16)
Romeo and Juliet have spent the night together as husband and wife, but Romeo fears that Capulet’s guards will find him in the morning; and, so, he prepares to make an early exit.
Juliet is overcome with love and cannot bear to see Romeo depart. She cannot believe that the morning could come so quickly (bringing up once again the issue of time and lovers). Juliet tells Romeo that the bird that they heard singing is the nightingale (a songbird of the night) and not a lark (a songbird that sings early in the morning). She is telling Romeo that the morning has not arrived yet. Juliet is not attempting to deceive Romeo. Rather, she is saying what her love-filled heart wishes to be true. Likewise, Juliet wishes that the streaks of light just beginning to appear on the mountain tops are streaks of light from meteors or stars. Juliet hopes the sun will never come up and that she can spend eternity with Romeo.
Romeo is the more practical of the two lovers at this point. He knows that it is morning and that his being in the Capulet household brings great danger. But he also wishes to stay with Juliet forever, and he tells her that he will do so even if it means his own death.
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death.
I am content, so thou wilt have it so. (17-18)
And, being an agreeable husband, Romeo then pretends that Juliet is correct: the early rays of sunlight, he tells are, are just the rays of moonlight coming from Cynthia’s brow. Cynthia, or Diana, is the Roman goddess of the moon.
When Juliet hears Romeo talk about welcoming his death for her sake, she awakens from her lover’s reverie and realizes the danger that Romeo’s staying with her will bring. Thus, she warns Romeo to hurry away. The poetic dialogue is both sweet and comic.
The dialogue between Romeo and Juliet in this scene is a poetic form of lyric poetry similar to the alba or aubade. Both of these terms refer to morning love songs. The aubade, though, is generally defined as one lover speaking from outside to awake another sleeping lover indoors. In the alba the lovers awaken together (as do Romeo and Juliet here), but in some of these types of poems the two lovers are married to other spouses and fear that their spouses may find them together. The lines spoken by Romeo and Juliet do, however, share three distinguishing features of the alba: (1) a theme of separation, (2) a dialogue between the two lovers, and (3) the inclusion of a watchman figure to warn the lovers to depart. In this “alba” by Shakespeare, the role of the watchman is played by Juliet’s Nurse. She warns Juliet that it is dawn and that Juliet’s mother is approaching (at lines 39-40).
After Romeo descends the balcony, Juliet stares down at him and imagines that she sees him “as one dead in the bottom of a tomb” (56). Juliet claims that she has an “ill-divining soul”: in her heart she foresees great misfortune coming. The lines, quite directly, foreshadow the conclusion of the play.
The morning love song ends with Romeo’s departure (at line 58), and Juliet then pauses to scorn fate (referred to as fortune). Since Fortune is fickle (since good luck can quickly change to bad or vice versa), Juliet admonishes Fortune to leave Romeo alone since he is faithful (the opposite of being fickle). However, as readers and audience members know quite well, Fate will not leave the two star-crossed lovers in peace.
Shortly after Romeo exits, Juliet’s mother arrives to announce the news that Paris wishes to marry her. Juliet, however, is in tears over Romeo’s departure; and her mother thinks that Juliet is still mourning due to the death of Tybalt.
The mother criticizes Juliet for being overly emotional: “But much of grief shows still some want of wit” (73). The word still means always, and the word want means lack. The mother is complaining that Juliet is being stupid or foolish for always being so emotional. The mother judges Juliet’s grief by her own, and Lady Capulet is obviously not grieving very much or at all over the death of Tybalt. The same idea appears in a later Shakespeare tragedy: Hamlet. In that play Prince Hamlet is in deep mourning over the death of his father, and neither his uncle nor his mother can grasp the extent of his grief. People whose own emotions are cool or cold can never fully understand the feelings of an individual whose own emotions are deep and intense.
In speaking with Juliet, the mother then criticizes the “villain” who killed Tybalt: namely, Romeo. Juliet, not wanting to reveal to her mother her own true feelings regarding Romeo, pretends that she hates Romeo and even speaks cryptically about him. For example, she tells her mother that she hopes …
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughtered him!
(101-02)
Although the word wreak primarily means (1) to avenge or to get vengeance for an act, the word can also mean (2) to cause or to gratify one’s emotions. Although the mother understands only the first of these meanings, in her heart Juliet is actually thinking that she really wishes to express her feelings of love for Romeo.
Eventually Juliet’s mother announces what she believes will be good news – joyful tidings – for Juliet. She tells her daughter that Paris wishes to marry her. Of course, this news is anything but joyful for Juliet, and she boldly refuses. As an excuse, Juliet explains that the request is too sudden. After all, Paris never even wooed her (the word woo means to seek the affection of a woman with the intention to marry her). The mother is shocked over Juliet’s response and informs Juliet that she will have to tell her father this upsetting news herself.
Capulet himself then enters and sees Juliet in tears. Using a metaphor, he tells his daughter that she is like a barque or ship at sea (line 131): her sighs are winds and her salt tears are the storming ocean. But Capulet’s happy and poetic mood quickly alters when his wife informs him that Juliet refuses to marry Paris. Capulet becomes angry (which is one of the Seven Deadly Sins), and he demands that Juliet should marry Paris. If she does not get married, then he will shame her and disown her. Juliet’s Nurse attempts to speak in Juliet’s behalf, but Capulet angrily tells her to be quiet, to hold her “tongue” (170). Capulet, like too many fathers in that time, thinks more about himself than his daughter. He worries over how this refusal will affect him and his hopes to raise the status of his family by marrying his daughter to the close relative of the Prince. The emotions of his daughter are inconsequential to him. Juliet’s mother, likewise, cares not about Juliet’s thoughts or emotions on the matter; and she refuses to assist Juliet in getting her father to change his mind.
After the parents exit her room, the griefstricken Juliet asks her Nurse for “a word of joy” (211). Although Juliet apparently has a distant and cool relationship with her parents, she has always confided and trusted in her Nurse, who is both her friend and confidant. Unfortunately, even the Nurse does not understand the feelings of the young girl. Juliet is shocked when the Nurse advises her to forget Romeo and marry Paris. The Nurse even criticizes Romeo as being inferior to Paris, and she tells Juliet that she is indeed fortunate to be given an even better husband than the one she has just married.
At that moment Juliet realizes that she can no longer trust and confide in her Nurse. She has lost a friend. So, Juliet requests that the Nurse bring a message to her mother that she is going to see Friar Laurence and confess her sin of being disobedient to her parents. “Honor thy father and mother” is one of the Ten Commandments. In the Catholic Church, breaking a commandment is considered a mortal sin. Such a sin means that a person risks eternal damnation: his soul will go to burn in hell for all eternity. Only by being truly sorry and by going to a priest to confess a sin can an individual then obtain God’s forgiveness and once again gain the hope of living in Heaven in the afterlife.
Juliet, however, is not really going to confess her sin to Friar Laurence. She has told a lie to her Nurse so that she can seek advice from the Friar. Juliet is actually in a religious dilemma or conflict: she has already married Romeo. A marriage in the Catholic Church is also considered a vow or promise before God: “my faith in heaven” (205). God blesses the union between husband and wife, and to betray or break up that union is also an offense to God (it is also a sin). That is why the Catholic Church maintains such a strong stance against divorce. So, even if Juliet were to obey her parents, she would still be committing a grievous offense and a mortal sin in marrying Paris.
Juliet is miserable by her parents’ demands, and she is shocked that her one and true trusted friend, the Nurse, has betrayed her. After the Nurse exits, Juliet delivers a soliloquy in which she says farewell to her former friend:
Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath praised him with above compare So many thousand times? Go, counselor!
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
(235-40)
The word forsworn in this passage means that Juliet would be breaking her promise both to Romeo and to God if she were to marry Paris. Juliet cannot understand how the Nurse would want her to sin in such a serious fashion. Juliet thus calls the Nurse “ancient damnation” or old devil. Only a devil, after all, would wish to direct a person to commit an act of evil. Moreover, Juliet cannot understand how the Nurse can so rashly criticize Romeo when she had praised him so many times before. And, most importantly of all, Juliet cannot understand how the Nurse can be so oblivious to and exhibit such a lack of understanding of Juliet’s own emotions. Thus, Juliet vows that her heart and her feelings will no longer be revealed to the Nurse. The word twain means two. In the past the Nurse always knew Juliet’s thoughts and secrets. But now they will be separated. Juliet will never again tell the Nurse about her thoughts or feelings. Juliet will never again trust her Nurse.