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SCMP Reporter

Romeo at the beginning of the play

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,

Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this. - Act I, Scene I, Line 185

Shakespeare often tells the audience about a character before we actually see him on stage. This is a technique to whet the audience's appetite, to build suspense by increasing the anticipation.

In this scene, Romeo's friend, Benvolio, tells us that Romeo is behaving strangely before we see him on stage.

He has fallen in love with Rosaline. It was a common literary convention that love was seen as a sickness. Someone in love spent time on their own, sighing and inactive. This is how Romeo is behaving because his love is unrequited, meaning that although he loves Rosaline, she does not love him. This cannot ever be true love, as it is one-way; healthy love is returned and reciprocated.

That is why Shakespeare uses oxymorons to describe his love in the above quotation. An oxymoron is when two opposites are brought together in a single image: 'cold' and 'fire' are opposites; a 'feather' and 'lead' are completely different  in solidity, texture and weight.

These images show us the nature of Romeo's unrequited love; it should make him feel happy, but instead he feels only sadness.

Romeo meets Juliet

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. - Act I, Scene V, Line 92

The shallowness of Romeo's love for Rosaline is seen in the speed with which he forgets her when he sees Juliet. The imagery in speech is suddenly very different. It is gentle and flowing. He uses metaphors (an image which makes a direct comparison) of holiness which show the nature of his love. 'To profane' means to insult something of religious status.

He sees her hand as a shrine which he insults just by touching her.

Juliet replies using the same extended metaphor: Then have my lips the sin that they have took. Unlike Rosaline, Juliet returns his love. But this imagery also conjures the idea of a pure, innocent, religious love. The problem is that it is difficult for such a love to survive in the real world. Love in the real world has to be tough and robust; it has to be tough enough to survive the enmity of the two families - Capulets and Montagues.

A tragic love

This play is called a tragedy because Romeo and Juliet die so young. A tragedy is a form of play that always has a sense of waste and loss in it.

Also,  the characters have been in the grip  of fate that has been working against them. Whatever the lovers did, there was a sense that outside powers were greater and were controlling their lives.

The messenger might have reached Padua in time to tell Romeo what Juliet had done: it was fate that he arrived too late. Juliet might have woken up in the tomb to see Romeo before he drank the poison: it was fate that she did not awaken until it was too late.

Yet tragedy also has a sense of uplifting feeling to it. Although they die, we are still uplifted by the thought and experience of such a powerful  love. We are uplifted that this love brings reconciliation between the  Capulets and Montagues.

Romeo and Juliet might have died,  but we are still glad that there was true love between them.

Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (HKAL)



The Bard's doomed lovers