Romeo und Julia

Part 1

The volume opens with the bold declaration of its title — “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare — followed by a Dramatis Personæ that introduces the principal players in this doomed Veronese drama. Prince Escalus rules the city. Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince, and Paris, a young nobleman, both circle the action. On one side stands the house of Montague: Lord and Lady Montague, their troubled son Romeo, his cousin Benvolio, and various servants including Abram and Balthasar. On the opposing side stands the house of Capulet: Lord and Lady Capulet, their young daughter Juliet, the fiery Tybalt, the chattering Nurse, and a retinue of servants led by Sampson and Gregory. Friar Lawrence and Friar John of the Franciscan order will move behind the scenes, while three musicians, an apothecary, an officer, and the citizens of Verona fill out the world. The stage is set: most of the play unfolds in Verona, with a single departure to Mantua in the final act.

Before a single actor speaks, the Chorus strides forth to frame what is to come. In fourteen measured lines, the audience is told the entire shape of the tragedy. Two households of equal dignity, in fair Verona, have nursed an ancient grudge that constantly erupts into fresh violence, staining the civil hands of citizens with civil blood. From the fatal loins of these two enemies shall spring a pair of star-crossed lovers whose ill-fated and piteous overthrow will bury their parents’ strife only through their own deaths. The fearful passage of this death-marked love, and the continuance of the parents’ rage, which nothing but the children’s end could remove — this is now the two hours’ traffic of the stage. The Chorus begs patient ears, promising that the players’ toil shall strive to mend whatever the prologue misses.

The curtain rises on a public place in Verona, where two Capulet servants — Sampson and Gregory — march armed with swords and bucklers, spoiling for trouble. Their banter is bawdy and pointed. Sampson declares they will not “carry coals,” meaning they will not endure insults; Gregory turns every word into a sexual pun, drawing out quibbles about collars and choler. When Sampson admits he is “quickly moved” to strike, Gregory reminds him he is not quickly moved — and so they spar with words as much as steel. The cause is the Montagues. Sampson vows to push Montague’s men from the wall and thrust their maids to the wall, and when Gregory asks whether he means their heads or their maidenheads, Sampson grins that they shall take it in what sense they feel it.

Into this charged air step Abram and Balthasar, servants of the Montagues. Sampson bites his thumb at them — a gesture of calculated insult. Abram demands to know if he bites his thumb at them, and the Capulet servants wriggle out of the confrontation with lawyerly evasion. But the spark catches regardless, and as Sampson draws, Benvolio, nephew to Montague, appears and bids them put up their swords. They will not listen to him long. Tybalt, fiery kinsman of Lady Capulet, storms in, calling Benvolio a coward and demanding a fight. What, drawn and talk of peace? He hates the word as he hates hell, all Montagues, and Benvolio himself. Steel flashes.

The street fills with citizens wielding clubs and partisans, shouting “Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!” Capulet arrives in his gown, calling for his long sword, only to be mocked by his wife, who demands a crutch instead. Montague likewise tries to throw himself into the fray, held back by his lady. Then Prince Escalus strides in with his attendants, wrathful and weary of these “rebellious subjects, enemies to peace.” Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, have thrice disturbed Verona’s quiet and made the ancient citizens cast aside their grave-beseeming ornaments to wield rusted partisans. If the families disturb his streets again, their lives shall pay the forfeit. The Prince then orders Capulet to come with him and summons Montague to old Free-town for further judgment. All disperse.

Left alone, Montague turns to Benvolio and asks who set this ancient quarrel new abroach. Benvolio recounts the fray: the servants fighting, then Tybalt lunging at him, swords hissing harmlessly at the wind until more and more joined in. Lady Montague, more worried than wrathful, asks after Romeo, glad he was not at this brawl. Benvolio tells her he saw Romeo that very morning beneath the sycamore grove west of the city. He approached, but Romeo, ware of him, stole into the covert of the wood. Benvolio, measuring his own affections by his mood, pursued his humour rather than his friend.

Montague confirms that many a morning Romeo has been seen there, with tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew, adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs. As soon as the all-cheering sun begins to draw the shady curtains from Aurora’s bed, Romeo steals home, shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out, and makes himself an artificial night. This humour must prove black and portentous unless good counsel can remove the cause. Benvolio asks if his uncle knows the cause; Montague replies he has importuned Romeo by himself and many friends, but the boy is his own affections’ counsellor, so secret and close that, like a bud bit by an envious worm before it can spread its leaves, he cannot be sounded. They step aside as Romeo enters.

Good morrow, cousin, says Benvolio. Romeo, melancholy and distracted, asks if the day is so young. It has but new struck nine. “Ay me, sad hours seem long.” He wonders at his father’s haste, and when Benvolio asks what sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours, the young man answers that not having that which, having, would make them short. In love? Out. Of love? Out of her favour where I am in love. Benvolio sighs that love, so gentle in view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof. Romeo erupts in a torrent of oxymorons — “O brawling love! O loving hate! O anything, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! serious vanity! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!” This love he feels, yet feels no love in it. He describes love as a smoke made with the fume of sighs, purged into a sparkling fire, vexed into a sea nourished with lovers’ tears — a madness most discreet, a choking gall, a preserving sweet.