FRIAR Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste!
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans yet ringing in mine ancient ears;
Lo here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not washed off yet.
If e’er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.
And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence then:
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men. (2.3.65-80)
Oh I do love Friar Lawrence and regret that his speeches are so often trimmed. But I can see why: this is, I think, the longest passage I’ve treated as a single unit, because he is incredibly long winded. And not in a Polonius way: what the Friar does is more than serviceable, but it’s textbook copiousness, the way of writing that would be familiar to anyone with training in rhetoric (so, grammar school education). He says something, and then he restates it, each time slightly modifying the conceit; it’s a kind of riff. This does potentially make him comic, but it also makes him familiar, recognisable, as a teacher; he’s doing it very well. There are two more examples of what editors like to call ‘mild oaths’ (he’s a priest, he’s not going to come out swinging with a Zounds or a ’Sblood), but he’s a Franciscan, evidently, so this is him bringing out the big guns in swearing terms: Holy Saint Francis! And he’s entirely justified: we’ve heard enough of Romeo’s Rosaline infatuation in the scenes with Benvolio, but the Friar has clearly been mopping him up (and having his ear bent) on a regular basis.
To take the beginning and the end: the Friar is rebuking Romeo above all for his inconstancy, for having changed, and this is a quality which is more usually associated with women, hence the Friar’s final line: if men become weak and inconstant then there’s no hope for women (and no justification in censuring them for their supposed inconstancy). (Remember that Juliet asked Romeo not to swear by the moon, because of its changeability.) The final line is a sentence because it’s proverbial or aphoristic (hence ‘sententious’; the Friar is very self-aware about his tendency to moralise and go on a bit…) We know, too, that Romeo has fallen for Juliet, at first, upon seeing her, and the connection between love and sight is a rich and dense one in early modern thought – but we might also remember that the balcony scene has taken place at night (imagined darkness), with the lovers periodically reminding us that they can’t see each other. Eyes take the Friar, logically, to tears, salt water, brine: Romeo’s cheeks are sallow (jaundiced) because he’s sickly, lovesick; we might also hear shallow (hollow, losing weight because he’s pining) and hear an echo of callow, a rather pejorative way of saying unsophisticated, naïve.
Tears are salty, and therefore they season love, but Romeo’s love for Rosaline has apparently lost its flavour (and there might be a glance here at the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ tells his hearers ‘Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing…’, Matthew 5.13). And it’s not just the tears, it’s the sighs, great gusty clouds which the sun still hasn’t burnt off (recalling the beginning of the scene, where the Friar has spoken of both the morning clouds and the need to pick his herbs before the sun has dried the dew) and the groans which he says are still reverberating. And, while you’re at it, wash your face, lad. I think it’s affectionate, if exasperated. The Friar’s tendency to copiousness, as well as sententiousness, means there’s an immediate and stark contrast when, a few lines later, he decides to act, and act fast.
