Romeo and Juliet Quotes

All things that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 5. Capulet’s speech contains situational irony, as wedding celebrations turn into a funeral and all things meant to make it a happy day will be used to mourn. "Melancholy bells" is an example of personification.

If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 1. We have an example of dramatic irony as happy-in-love Romeo talks about his dreams and expectation of joyful news while in the streets of Mantua. Romeo believes Juliet to be well, but Balthasar is about to tell him of Juliet’s "death" – she lies in the Capulet tomb having taken a sleeping potion that makes her appear dead, an event that will push Romeo to suicide.

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let’s see for means: O mischief, thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary, –

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 1. Mistakingly informed by Balthasar that Juliet is dead, Romeo impulsively decides to return to Verona to kill himself with poison and join her in death. He feels that he has nothing left to live for. Romeo’s impulsive nature leads him to make hasty and rash decisions which can have tragic and fatal consequences.

Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;
The world is not thy friend nor the world’s law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 1. Romeo persuades the Apothecary to ignore the law forbidding the sale of poisons and to sell some to him. He tells him that he lives in destitution and starvation, the law is not his friend, and Romeo’s money can help lift him out of poverty. Words personified in this passage are "need and oppression" (said to be starving) and "world" and "law" (described as no friend of the Apothecary).

There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 1. As Romeo pays the poor Apothecary for the poison, he says that money and greed are a worse poison to men and their souls. Romeo sees money as a kind of evil that causes more murders that any amount of poison sold. Comparing gold to poison is an example of a metaphor.

I could not send it, – here it is again, –
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 2. Friar John tells Friar Laurence that he was unable to deliver Laurence’s letter to Romeo because he was quarantined due to a plague outbreak. This crucially important letter was meant to inform Romeo of Juliet’s intention to fake her death with a sleeping potion. As a result of not receiving it, Romeo will be led to believe that Juliet is truly dead, leading to his decision to take his life followed by Juliet’s suicide also. Friar John’s failure and Laurence’s recklessness in giving Juliet the sleeping potion will lead to the young lovers’ tragic fate.

Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice but full of charge
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence;
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight
Unto my cell.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 2. Friar Laurence uses an oxymoron to blame fate and bad luck on hearing that Friar John was unable to deliver his letter to Romeo explaining about Juliet’s faked death. He calls for a crowbar so that he can break into Juliet’s tomb before Romeo discovers her there.

Now must I to the monument alone;
Within three hours will fair Juliet wake:
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 2. A worried Friar Laurence has learned that Friar John was unable to deliver Laurence’s letter to Romeo explaining about Juliet’s faked death. So Laurence must dash to the sleeping Juliet in the Capulet tomb, because she will awaken in three hours from the effects of the potion. He believes that Juliet will be angry with him because Romeo wasn’t given the message of their plan.

Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew, –
O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones; –
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or, wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Paris visits the Capulet tomb where Juliet is lying, presumed dead, and he uses metaphors to compare his bride-to-be Juliet to a "Sweet flower" and her grave to a "bridal bed." He places flowers on her grave and promises to sprinkle water and tears on it each night. While Juliet appears to be dead, appearances are deceiving. Juliet faked her death to avoid her father’s arranged marriage to Paris. Paris believes she is dead, but the audience is aware that she is not, an example of dramatic irony. The quote also demonstrates Paris’s love for Juliet.

Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
And, in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food!

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Romeo delivers this speech when he visits Juliet’s resting place in the Capulet tomb. Using personification, he likens her tomb to the jaws of a voracious beast hungry for more bodies to consume. Juliet is the "dearest morsel of the earth" on which the beast has gorged. Romeo, who wishes to join Juliet in death, plans to open the jaws of the beast and metaphorically offer himself to it as "more food." But Romeo is mistaking Juliet’s death-like appearance for real death. The audience knows that she has taken a sleeping potion, making this an example of dramatic irony.

Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Paris mistakingly thinks that Romeo is at Juliet and Tybalt’s graves in order to desecrate them. As Romeo has already killed Tybalt, Paris believes that he has "come to do some villanous shame To the dead bodies." Paris questions how anyone could be so evil that they would take revenge on the dead. Here we have one of the many examples of dramatic irony in the play, since the audience knows that Romeo is there to kill himself and join Juliet in death.

I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury: O, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm’d against myself:
Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,
A madman’s mercy bade thee run away.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Romeo pleads with Paris not to fight him, after Paris threatens to arrest him and have him killed because he has defied the Prince’s banishment order. Romeo tells Paris that he loves him better than himself and calls himself a madman. He begs Paris not to draw his weapon, because Romeo doesn’t want another sin on his conscience after killing Tybalt. Romeo clearly wants no further violence but is prepared for it if Paris attacks him.
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