Quotations in Act 2 about Love, Violence and reflecting on Elizabethan times

Love:

Lines 13-14, Act 2, Prologue (CHORUS)

“But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,

Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.”

-          Love gives them power to be together, to keep going through the hard love.

Lines 10-11, Act 2, Scene 2 (ROMEO)

“It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.

Oh, that she knew she were here!”

-          Oh, there’s my lady! Oh, it is my love. Oh, I wish she knew how much I love her.

 

23-25 (ROMEO)

“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.

Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand

That I might touch that cheek!”

-           Longing for Juliet.

33-36 (JULIET)

“O, Romeo, Romeo! Where fore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name.

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And ill no longer be a Capulet.”

-          Juliet is willing to give up her name, life, reputation and family for Romeo.

38-42 (JULIET)

“’Tis but thy name that is my enemy.

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

Whats Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man.”

-          Its only your name that’s my enemy, you’d still be yourself even if you stopped being a Montague. What’s a Montague anyway? It isn’t a hand, a foot, an arm, a face, or any other part belonging to a man.

49-51 (ROMEO)

“I take thee thy word.

Call me but love, and ill be new baptized.

Henceforth I never be Romeo”.

-          Willing to give up anything for her.

78-79 (ROMEO)

“My life were better ended by their hate

Than death be prorogued, wanting of thy love.”

-          I’d rather they (the Capulet’s) killed me than have to live without your love.

82-84 (ROMEO)

“I am no pilot. Yet, wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,

I would adventure for such merchandise”

-          im not a sailor but if you were across the farthest sea, I would risk anything to gain you.

113-115 (JULIET)

“My loves true passion, therefore pardon me,

And not impute this yielding to light love,

Which the dark night hath so discovered.”

-          So excuse me, and do not assume that because you made me love you so easily my love isn’t serious.

 

120 (JULIET)

“It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.”

-          It is too sudden. We haven’t done much thinking. It is too crazy.

 

159-161 (ROMEO)

“A thousand times the worse to want thy light.

Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,

But love from love, toward school with heavy books.”

-          Leaving you is thousand times worse than being near you. A lover goes toward his beloved as enthusiastically as school boys leaving their books. But when he leaves his girlfriend, he feels as miserable as the school boy on his way to school.

Violence:

Line 70, act 2 scene 2 (JULIET)

“If they (the Capulet’s) do see thee (Romeo) they will murder you”

 

Elizabethan times/setting:

Lines 8-11, Act 2, Scene 2 (ROMEO)

“Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!

It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.

Oh, that she knew she were here!”

-          Virginity makes her look sick and green. Only fools hold on to their virginity. Let it go. Oh, there’s my lady! Oh, it is my love. Oh, I wish she knew how much I love her.

-          Talking about a lady’s virginity and how he would want her in that way and he loves her, it reflects on the times the play is set as it was socially unacceptable to lose your virginity.