Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene V – Analysis

The text is extracted from the first act of William Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet".

The act started with a general atmosphere of humour and happiness, because the Capulets are giving a feast and Romeo, from the Montecchi family, attended it disguised by a mask.

The characters appeared here are Romeo, a servingman (to who Romeo asked about Juliet) and Juliet.

The extract can be divided into two sequences:

1. Romeo sees, for the first time, Juliet;

2. The ball and the meeting between Romeo and Juliet.

The first part of the play deals about first Romeo's sight of Juliet: Romeo was already in love with a certain Rosalina, who doesn't love him, but things are about to change.

In the first dialogue, Romeo describes immediately the magnificent vision given by Juliet (41 What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand): Romeo uses "enrich" to highlight Juliet's beauty and sense of joy and wellness that Romeo felt. In addition, the intelligent reader can feel the distance between the two young lovers by the use of the term "yonder", that means

over there, and the fact that they did not know each other and they never met before that night.

In the second cue of Romeo, he compares Juliet to a divine and wonderful entity (44 O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! / 45 It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night), like an angel on earth (51 And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.).

At the first sight, Romeo starts to doubt about his love to Rosalina and tries to convince himself and to remain loyal to Rosalina, but it is not convinced at all (52 Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! / 53 For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.).

The second part of the play deals about the first meeting between Romeo, who is disguised, and Juliet, who doesn't know that behind that mask there is a person who belongs to the Montecchi family.

The metaphor of "holy shrine" indicates Juliet purity and devotion to religious values and Romeo shows shyness and doubt.

Romeo, to impress Juliet, uses words that belong to religious semantic field and uses a metaphor to compare himself to a pilgrim who needs to purify his sin, and in this case the sin is his love to Juliet (106 Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. [Kisses her.] / 107 Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.). After Romeo's first kiss, Juliet feel the sin just took by him: this means that Juliet fall in love with Romeo, but he is still disguised by a mask and she does not know who is hiding behind that mask. There's a ironic cue from Romeo, when he asks to take his sin back: he wants to kiss again Juliet without being spotted by her and give an atmosphere of humor, according to the feast that was going on that night.