Whilepossesses
the tragic impulsiveness ofin Shakespeares play, she has the sterling traits of caution and
loyalty. In addition, she is of a passionate nature, which while good, does at times work to her
detriment.
CAUTIOUS
In the first act when herasks Juliet to
consideras a husband, Juliet wisely exerts, caution; she merely promises to look at the
man:
I'll look to like, if looking liking
move;
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength
to make it fly.
She also urges Romeo to not to swear his
love by something so fickle as the moon:
O, swear not by
the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. (2.2.113-115)
Do not swear at all;
Or if thou wilt, swear by thy
gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I'll believe thee.
(2.2.118-120
Then, in last scene of this act, Juliet asks
Romeo not to kiss her, but exert more restraint and merely touch hands; she is seemingly wary of
rushing into a relationship with him:
Good pilgrim, you do
wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints
have hands that pilgrims hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers kiss.
(105)
LOYALTY
After the Nurse returns from the
streets of Verona where she has learned of the death of , she cries out both Tybalts and Romeos
names, confusing Juliet. Finally when Juliet learns the truth, she chides the Nurse for saying
Shame come to Romeo":
Blister'd be thy tongue (95)
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is asham'd to
sit;
For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd
Sole monarch of the
universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him! (100)
When Lady Capulet calls Romeo a villain, Juliet says in an
aside,
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
God
pardon him! I do, with all my heart;
And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
(3.2.84-86)
Finally in this scene, the Nurse urges Juliet
to marry Paris even though she knows that Juliet is already married. Juliet retorts,
Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to
wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she
hath prais'd him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go,
counsellor!
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar to
know his remedy.
If all else fail, myself have power to die. (3.5.246-253)
PASSIONATE
Juliet displays her passionate nature in these
passages:
My bounty is as boundless as the
sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are
infinite.
I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu! (2.2.139-142)
O, bid me leap, rather than marry
Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower,
Or walk in thievish ways, or
bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears,
Or shut me
nightly in a charnel house,
O'ercover'd quite with dead men's rattling
bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a
new-made grave (85)
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud
Things that, to
hear them told, have made me tremble
And I will do it without fear or
doubt,
To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love. (4.1.78-89)
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