BENVOLIO      Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun

Peered forth the golden window of the east,

A troubled mind drive me to walk abroad,

Where underneath the grove of sycamore,

That westward rooteth from this city side,

So early walking did I see your son;

Towards him I made, but he was ware of me,

And stole into the covert of the wood;

I, measuring his affections by my own,

Which then most sought where most might not be found,

Being one too many by my weary self,

Pursued my humour, not pursuing his,

And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me (1.1.109-21)

Benvolio is one of the most under-rated characters in the play; he’s never going to be cast in the same breath as Romeo and Mercutio, or even Tybalt. Yet this is one of the play’s first moments of real lyrical beauty, and it’s beautifully balanced, particularly in its patterns of repetition (then most sought where most might not be found; pursued / not pursuing; gladly shunned / gladly fled). Benvolio here is as melancholy as his friend; he is also psychologically astute, measuring his affections by my own; he too is up early with his troubled mind, although he never reveals the cause. The scene imagined here is of solitary walking on the edges of the city, in the grey half-light before dawn. There’s a blurriness to it: the sycamore is specific, but it’s a specificity that only accentuates the occluded nature of the rest of the imagined scene. Romeo himself can’t quite be seen; he conceals himself from his friend, his parents, and the audience. And it’s a syntactical tease: Benvolio’s delay withholds the key information, and the passage’s main clause, did I see your son (despite the teasing worshipped sun of the first line) for half a dozen lines. Romeo is first introduced into the play on the cusp, on the edge, in both temporal and spatial terms, seeking not only solitude but a place of origin and transformation, the woods, at dawn. Something is about to happen to him. (Incidentally, both Zeffirelli and Luhrmann find brilliant cinematographic equivalents for this soft-focus, slow-motion introduction of their – beautiful – hero.)