The lovers are doomed from their first meeting in Act 1 Scene v. Romeo spots Juliet across a crowded room and it is love at first sight: “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! /For ne’er saw true beauty till this night!” It is only after the two have met, and Juliet is equally smitten, that Romeo discovers that Juliet is a Capulet and therefore automatically an enemy of his own family, the Montagues: “Is she a Capulet? O dear account! /My life is my foe’s debt.” Romeo realises at this early stage that his life is no longer his own, and is entirely owned by the enemy of his family. He uses the language of finance to make his point.
When Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time in Act 1 Scene v, they both use a Christian religious metaphor. Romeo convinces Juliet to allow him to kiss her by using this metaphor. The effect of their words is that the audience sees their love as a divine passion– their love is defined from the first in religious terms and is something that has to be, and cannot be denied, like the love of God. This is dangerous ground in Elizabethan England, where such words would have been blasphemous, considered as overreaching the human condition. Romeo says to 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.” Romeo compares Juliet to an image of a saint who should be worshipped. Juliet commits an even more profound blasphemy in the next scene when she calls Romeo the “god of her idolatry,” effectively installing Romeo in God’s place in her religious faith (Scene 2, Act i). This first meeting foreshadows their tragic fall at the end of the play. Elizabethans would have recognised the hubris, or inappropriate overreaching passion of the lovers in Scene 1 Act v, and would have expected some sort of tragedy to follow.
Later towards the end of the first Act, Juliet asks her nurse if she knows who Romeo is, and she (Juliet) foreshadows the fate of the lovers as Romeo did earlier: “Go ask his name – If he be married. /My grave is like to be my wedding bed.” As Juliet’s nurse has told Romeo earlier that Juliet is a Capulet; she likewise tells Juliet that Romeo is a Montague: “His name is Romeo, and a Montague; /The only son of your great enemy.”
Juliet is not discouraged from her new love, but she does recognise the danger in which the lovers are placed: “My only love sprang from my only hate! /Too early seen unknown, and known too late!”
Act 3 scene I is passionate in its violence and aggression. This scene is in sharp contrast to the gentle backdrop and the passionate first encounter of the lovers in Act 1, scene v. Shakespeare contrasts the romantic love between Romeo and Juliet to the aggressive masculine world of Verona portrayed in Act 3 scene i, where family vendettas are conducted with viciousness and no apparent reason. (The hatred between the families is never explained: perhaps it is irrelevant to the action of the play, or perhaps Shakespeare meant the absence of a reason to show the pointlessness of the vendetta).
The world of Verona at this time as portrayed by Shakespeare is dangerous and unpredictable, masculine and aggressive. Shakespeare uses this contrast to emphasise the beauty and fragility of the love between Romeo and Juliet. The relationship between the lovers is the only relief provided to counter the brutal reality of the world of Verona.
The fights between Mercutio and Tybalt and then between Romeo and Tybalt happen with little warning; Tybalt kills Mercutio, flees, and then suddenly, and inexplicably, returns to fight Romeo, who kills him in self defence. This is passion, but unlike the earlier passion of love that is almost divine in its intensity, it is the passion of anger, that has overcome reason. (As the passion of love overcomes reason in the earlier scene and throughout the play).
When Tybalt returns to avenge the death of his kinsman, Romeo tried to persuade him not to fight because Mercutio, being so recently dead, is hovering close to his body in spirit form to keep it company, and either he, Romeo, or Tybalt will accompany Mercutio’s spirit when it goes to heaven. But Tybalt is determined to fight Romeo, and tells him, “Thou, wretched boy, that did’st consort him here, /Shalt with him hence.” Significantly, Romeo then says, “This shall determine that,” showing that he has some awareness that actions cause other events and lead to inescapable conclusions.
Later in the scene, Romeo says, “O, I am fortune’s fool!” referring to his unluckiness in being forced to kill his new wife’s cousin, thereby getting himself banished (III.i.131). Romeo feels himself to be a helpless victim of fortune and fate, unable to direct his own actions in any way, despite his earlier comment that one action determines another. On the other hand, Mercutio’s response is to curse the Montagues and Capulets as the agents of his fate. He sees people as the cause of his death, and gives no credit to any larger force.
The larger world of Verona arrives with the Prince and angry citizens in Act 3 scene i. Romeo’s killing of Tybalt is rash, although it could be seen as self defence. The Prince banishes Romeo from Verona as a result of the killing. This action has compounded the lovers’ problems. Not only is their love prohibited by their families, it is also thwarted by the actions of the Prince of Verona.
It can be seen from a comparison of Act 1 scene v and Act 3 scene I, that Romeo and Juliet is an example of a Shakepearean tragedy in terms of its movement towards an inescapable and tragic conclusion with the death of the two protagonists. Act 1 scene 5 sets the scene and establishes the relationship between the lovers; it also foreshadows the fate of the lovers at the end of the play. Act 3 scene 1 serves as a contrast to Act 1 scene 5 by thrusting the brutal world of Verona at the audience, which emphasizes the futility of the fragile relationship between the lovers and demands that we recognise the role of fate and the wider world in the lives of individuals.
