In the first meeting at the Capulet’s ball everyone is happy and lively, telling jokes and laughing. The Montague’s are wearing masks to hide their identity. The hall is full of music and dancing and everyone is jolly and careless.
Romeo is walking around hoping to get a glimpse of Roselyn. When he does she is not interested, mainly because she is a Montague and he is a Capulet. Then the dancing stars and Romeo’s eye falls on Juliet. He is instantly astounded by her beauty and falls madly in love. He then talks about her to himself. Throughout his description he is constantly comparing her to something bright and giving off light that makes the person she is dancing with look enriched, ‘What lady’s that which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?’ This makes them look like a knight and lady holding hands like people of high status. She is described as being brighter than a torch and teaching it how to burn. ‘O she doth teach the torched to burn bright’, this also links in with a torch as spreading light and she is spreading her beauty and making her partner look good as well. He thinks the earth is not good enough for her ‘Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear’. This links with the end when Juliet kills herself, she leaves the earth. She described as standing out in every way, ‘as a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear-’. This means she shines like a jewel and everyone else look black. The contrast of a shining jewel and a black background emphasises how much she is special from everyone else. This is exaggerated even more when Romeo says ‘…a snowy dove trooped with crows’. The other women around her are described as crows because they are black and ugly and crows are known for being a nuisance, they are a nuisance for Romeo because they are obstructing his view of Juliet. She is described as a dove because she is white and pure. Romeo regards her in a high status like you would regard a saint by saying ‘And touch her, make blessed my rude hand’.
When the dancing is over Juliet moves back into the crowd and everyone gathers round a man who is telling a story. Romeo and Juliet finally meet when they both look for each other amongst the crowds, and Romeo holds her hand. They then share a sonnet, which in the 1590’s was the most important form of love poetry. Romeo starts by saying ‘If I profane with my unworthy hand’, if I have insulted you with my unworthy hand, ‘This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this’ this is presumably when he has taken her hand in his and is referring to her hand as a holy shrine and confesses the ‘gentle’, forgivable, sin he will commit. Romeo then describes his lips as ‘…pilgrims’. He is making an excuse for his actions by portraying that like a pilgrim goes to shrine is hoe he has come to Juliet. Then he says ‘to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.’ He means to say if he has offended her he will make it better with a kiss. Juliet plays along with him and reassures him by saying ‘Good pilgrim you do wrong your hand too much’, meaning it doesn’t matter, ’for saints have hands that pilgrims hand do touch’, saints and pilgrims do meet. ‘And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss’, the word palm is being used as a pun because palmers were pilgrims who carried a palm leaf as well as meaning the palm of someone’s hand. Romeo then says ‘have not saints lips, and holy palmer too?’ meaning don’t we both have lips, he says this to indicate that he want to kiss her. Juliet turns this around by saying yes they have ‘lips that they must use in prayer’. Romeo cleverly says ‘let lips do what hands do’ meaning lets kiss. Juliet neither refuses nor agrees; she just says ‘saints do not move, though grant for prayers sake’. As pilgrims come to saints, she is saying you can kiss me I won’t back away. They then kiss and the sonnet ends. Then it starts again when Romeo says ‘…my sin is purged’. Meaning my sin has been cleared away. I have sinned by offending you but made amends for it with a kiss. Juliet then says ‘… have my lips the sin that they have took’. She wants him to kiss her again. Romeo picks up on this, he says ‘Give me my sin again’ and kisses her for the second time. The nurse who tells Juliet that her mother would like to speak with her interrupts their conversation after the kiss. At this point Romeo finds out that the lady of the house is Juliet’s mother which means Juliet is a Capulet. He them realises he is in trouble ‘… My life is my foe’s dept’ meaning my love, which I would give my life for is in my enemies hands so my life is in my enemies hands. Juliet also finds out that she has fallen in love with an enemy ‘Prodigious birth it is of me That I must love a loathed enemy’. This shows the intensity of their love and this does not deter them. The use of religion to express how they feel in this meeting shows how innocent they both are.
The poetry used in this extract would have had a great effect on an Elizabethan audience but nowadays with the female parts being played by women and the use of physical contact and sound effects used in films their love can be expressed more passionately. The language used is romantic but hard to understand nowadays however an Elizabethan audience would have felt more emotion and feeling from the language than today’s audience.
Their second meeting is in contrast to their first. Romeo is in the dark gloomy tomb of the Capulet’s. There is no sound of laughing and joking but of silence. The feeling is sad and lonely. In the first meeting the hall is full of light and colour but in the second the tomb is dark and unwelcoming.
When Romeo reaches the tomb Paris is there and refuses to leave. Romeo is saying I am not well don’t make me angry and put someone else’s death on my conscience, ‘Put not another sin upon my head By urging me to fury’. He threatens Paris by saying don’t make me hurt you ‘For I have come hither armed against myself’; he is referring to the poison he has brought with him. This show how desperate a man he is and how madly he is in love with Juliet. He calls himself a ‘mad man’ and tells Paris to leave but he does not and is killed by Romeo. The atmosphere language in this meeting is harsh in comparison to first meeting.
When Romeo sees Juliet he is overwhelmed that she looks so beautiful even though she is dead. ‘Is crimson in thy lip and in thy cheeks, And deaths pale flag is not advanced there.’ This creates irony because the audience knows she is not really dead. Their love affaire was started with a kiss and now it will finish with a kiss ‘Thus with a kiss I die’.
In each of the meeting the atmosphere and setting are completely the opposite. I think this links with the extremes of the story in which there is love on one hand and hate and death on the other and the gap between them is very close. In such a short space of time Romeo and Juliet have fallen in love, been separated and them have taken their own lives. This effect of love and death captures the audience and makes this play more exciting and appealing. It also brings the Montague’s and Capulet’s together by showing them the tragic results of their ignorance.
