ROMEO                                               O me! what fray was here?                         Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all:                         Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love… (1.1.164-166) How Romeo finally notices that there’s been a fray is unclear (and there is comic potential in the length of time it takes him to […]

BENVOLIO      Alas that Love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! ROMEO           Alas that Love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will! Where shall we dine? (1.1.160-164)   Benvolio is gently mocking of both his friend and the kind of love, its language […]

BENVOLIO      Good morrow, cousin. ROMEO                                               Is the day so young? BENVOLIO      But new struck nine. ROMEO                                               Ay me, sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast? BENVOLIO      It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours? ROMEO           Not having that, which, having, makes them short. BENVOLIO      In love? ROMEO           Out— BENVOLIO      Of […]

Enter ROMEO BENVOLIO      See where he comes. So please you step aside, I’ll know his grievance or be much denied. MONTAGUE   I would thou wert so happy by thy stay To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away. Exeunt [Montague and Lady Montague] (1.1.147-150SD)   It seems a sign of Benvolio’s essential niceness, and his […]

BENVOLIO      My noble uncle, do you know the cause? MONTAGUE   I neither know it, nor can learn of him. BENVOLIO      Have you importuned him by any means? MONTAGUE   Both by myself and many other friends,                         But he, his own affections’ counsellor,                         Is to himself (I will not say how true)                         But to […]

MONTAGUE   Many a morning hath he there been seen,                         With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,                         Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs,                         But all so soon as the all-cheering sun                         Should in the farthest east begin to draw                         The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,                         Away from […]

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, […]

LADY MONTAGUE     O where is Romeo? saw you him today?                                     Right glad I am he was not at this fray. (1.1.107-8) Finally, one of the protagonists is named, and it’s a nice anticipation – to a knowing audience – of one of the most misremembered and misquoted phrases in the play, Juliet’s ‘Wherefore art […]

MONTAGUE   Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?                         Speak, nephew, were you by when it began? BENVOLIO      Here were the servants of your adversary,                         And yours, close fighting ere I did approach:                         I drew to part them; in the instant came                         The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,                         Which, […]

PRINCE           For this time all the rest depart away:                         You, Capulet, shall go along with me,                         And, Montague, come you this afternoon,                         To know our farther pleasure in this case,                         To old Free-town, our common judgement-place.                         Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. Exeunt [all but Montague, Lady […]