This is Romeo, with his heart melting, complementing the beauty of her eyes. These metaphors he has used are both associated with vitality and beauty, which sticks in my own mind, and makes the reader want to read on.
Romeo continues to watch Juliet, now noticing her cheek, he comments, ‘She leans her cheek upon her hand…Oh that I were a glove… that I might touch that cheek! These images of love are so powerful and dramatic that by this stage, the audience is compelled to keep reading.
By this stage, one already knows of Romeo’s infatuation with Juliet. However, it is not yet certain as to whether Romeo’s love is unrequited. Shakespeare reaffirms the audience’s anxieties. Juliet yearns for Romeo not to be a Montague, but then considers that she could change her name, just to suit Romeo. Shakespeare again emphasises that Juliet loves Romeo by writing ‘Romeo would, were he not called Romeo, retain that dear perfection which he owes, without that title.’
At this juncture, it has been established that Romeo and Juliet are truly in love. Having said this, there is something else that Shakespeare establishes with his language – that they are in danger, which in itself will heighten an audience’s anticipation.
In a lot of Romeo’s early comparisons of Juliet, he likens her to things that exist in the sky, ‘The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,’ and ‘It is the east and Juliet is the sun’. In Elizabethan times it was believed, as to an extent it is now, that our fates and destinies are ‘written in the stars’ as it were. This constant imagery of the sky and the night does, to myself at least, stand out as a hint that something untoward will happen
What’s more, in Juliet’s mind it seems that she may have some qualms as to whether Romeo does actually love her, as in line 92, ‘Thou prove false: at lovers perjuries, they say Jove laughs’. This statement implies to me that they are rushing into this relationship without properly knowing each other.
Another part of the scene where it is hinted that danger lurks is where Romeo is trying to swear his love for Juliet and he promises,
‘Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow, that tips with silver all these fruit tree tops,’
Shakespeare uses a vision of the moon again in Macbeth, where it is said that a drop of the silver’d moon will be used to bring him to his peril. This struck me immediately that there is a hint of danger afoot.
Even more intriguing, Juliet seemingly has some more convictions about Romeo’s love for her, when in line one hundred and fifty she says
‘I come anon, but if thou meanest not well, I beseech thee…cease thy strife and leave me to my grief.’
I think that this was put in the play by Shakespeare to warn the audience, if you will, that all may not be as it seems, and after all of these expressions of love and submission to one another, Juliet still has this underlying feeling that Romeo may be playing with her heart.
I think that one of the things that caps off the brilliance of this scene however, is its structure.
The scene begins very slowly, as if the lovers are timid. The language represents this, as there are a lot longer dialogues between the two, and their parts are long compared to those later in the scene. Progressively, there is more interaction between, as if they are becoming close to each other, until at the end of the scene, there is only ever two or three sentences said before the other speaks. This also represents the increasing excitement that both are experiencing as they fear that they will be caught by the nurse.
In conclusion, I think that the things that make the balcony scene so memorable are Shakespeare’s use of language to portray the inhibitions of the couple, but also to portray their love, and his usage of metaphors, to illustrate the different feelings felt by Romeo and Juliet.