The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself;
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night:
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
His love is almost hateful, he doesn’t speak of love a wonderful tender thing but as a rose that “pricks like thorn”, and he is self absorbed as we can see when he compares the brawl between the two families caused by hate and the brawl inside him caused cause by his supposed love for Rosaline:
Romeo: Here's much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
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.
Romeo’s friends attempted at many occasion to bring back the old Romeo, who was more fun to be around, but it is almost as if Romeo enjoys being in this situation, he claims that in order for him to forget about Rosaline he needs to learn how to stop thinking:
Benvolio: Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her.
Romeo: O, teach me how I should forget to think.
Upon his arrival to the party at the capulet’s house, Romeo notices Juliet and immediately Rosaline is forgotten, proving to us how foolish and immature his infatuation for her was:
Romeo: So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
Juliet has now become the subject of Romeo’s poetry; she is now the angel in his eyes:
Romeo: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
Romeo then realizes how silly and unreal his infatuation for Rosaline was:
Romeo: Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
The only noticeable resemblance between Romeo’s love for Juliet and his infatuation for Rosaline, is the fact that the love causes the person to rebel and disconnect himself from the world, Romeo runs away from his friends in order to see Juliet at the end of the party:
Romeo: Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.
He than climb into Juliet’s garden knowing that he should not be there and that his life is probably in danger if the guards find him, but his love is so strong that he ignores this fact:
Romeo: With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out:
And what love can do, that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.
When he is at Juliet’s balcony Romeo recites one of the most famous soliloquies in the history of theater, describing Juliet as the sun that brightens the night:
Romeo: It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!—
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.—
It is my lady; O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!—
She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.—
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.—
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
This demonstrates Romeo’s ability as a poet and his true self when he is in love, at this point we cannot question him, because now he is truly in love with Juliet.
In conclusion, Romeo as proven to be a complex character, that after learning what true love is admits that he has never been actually in love with Rosaline, he has matured and so his love, his self-pity and grievance are eventually wiped out by his pure love for Juliet.
