JULIET                        Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,                         When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?                         But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?                         That villain cousin would have killed my husband.                         Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,                         Your tributary drops belong to woe,                         […]

JULIET                                                he was not born to shame:                         Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;                         For ’tis a throne where honour may be crowned                         Sole monarch of the universal earth.                         O what a beast was I to chide at him! NURSE            Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin? […]

NURSE                                                There’s no trust,                         No faith, no honesty in men, all perjured,                         All foresworn, all naught, all dissemblers.                         Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua-vitae;                         These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.                         Shame come to Romeo! JULIET                                                            Blistered be thy tongue           […]

JULIET                        O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell                         When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend                         In mortal paradise of so sweet flesh?                         Was ever book containing such vile matter                         So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell                         In such a gorgeous palace? (3.2.80-85) The oxymorons continue, […]

JULIET                        O serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face!                         Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?                         Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical!                         Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!                         Despisèd substance of divinest show!                         Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,                         A damnèd saint, an honourable villain! (3.2.73-79) Oxymorons! (The plural is oxymora […]

NURSE            Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banishéd. Romeo that killed him, he is banishéd. JULIET                        O God, did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood? NURSE            It did, it did, alas the day it did! (3.2.69-72) And the Nurse continues to clarify, finally. That word banishéd is going to resonate through the rest of the scene (including, probably, […]

NURSE            O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!                         O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman,                         That ever I should live to see thee dead! JULIET                        What storm is this that blows so contrary?                         Is Romeo slaughtered? and is Tybalt dead?                         My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?                         Then, dreadful trumpet, sound […]

JULIET                        O break, my heart, poor bankrout, break at once!                         To prison, eyes, ne’er look on liberty!                         Vile earth, to earth resign, end motion here,                         And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier! (3.2.57-60) Juliet is not going to faint – she’s going to die, if Romeo’s dead. (And, actually, she is […]

NURSE            I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes                         (God save the mark!), here on his manly breast:                         A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse,                         Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,                         All in gore blood; I sounded at the sight. (3.2.52-56) I’ve written a bit about this […]

JULIET                        What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?                         This torture should be roared in dismal hell.                         Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ‘ay’,                         And that bare vowel ‘I’ shall poison more                         Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.                         I am not I, if there be such an ‘ay’, […]