Romeo concludes his musings upon Juliet's chastity with a line that echoes his earlier call for Juliet to "kill the envious moon." However, here Shakespeare creates a parallelism that makes the metaphor more graphic. / - / - / - /Īnd none but fools do wear it cast it off. Obviously, medical theory of the day was dominated by men. Although the condition had virtually nothing to do with virginity, the "cure" was, of course, the healthy lovemaking a woman could expect within the bonds of matrimony. Romeo's mention of sick and green in this line owes to the Renaissance belief that women who protractedly maintained their virginity were subject to green-sickness, so named because of a form of anemia that could affect young women (known medically as chlorosis, in which the skin actually takes on a greenish cast due to a significant hemoglobin deficiency). "Vestal livery" here refers to Juliet's virginity by referring to the garments of the Vestal virgins Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth, had temples staffed by women who were bound by 30-year vows of chastity. Unless you want to stress "is" unnaturally, the most logical scansion seems to be iamb/ iamb/ pyrrhic/ anapest/ iamb. Metrically, this 11-syllable line would probably scan better if written as "liv'ry." In both quarto editions and the First Folio, however, the word is spelled as if the three syllables are to be pronounced. Anyone who's ever read anything about Greek and Roman mythology knows that one didn't trifle with the vanity of goddesses. It's interesting here, too, in using classic mythology as the underpinning of his metaphor, that Romeo speaks of the "envious" moon. This time, he reasons that Juliet need not serve the moon goddess since the moon goddess is jealous of her. Much like "kill the envious moon" above, Romeo again calls Juliet to action. The interwoven imagery and subtext of this passage is quite remarkable under close examination. The reason that the moon is sad is that Juliet's beauty outshines hers, much as the sun's light outshines the moon. Maid alludes to Juliet's virginity both in its traditional denotation as a young, unmarried woman and as a servant of the moon (implying that Juliet is in the service of Diana, which would reinforce the concept). Romeo employs a double entendre on the word "maid" in this line. That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Romeo here continues the moon metaphor by alluding to the normally wan appearance of the moon in the sky and imbuing the moon (as the goddess Diana) with sadness as the reason for its pallor. You may draw your own conclusions, therefore, as to what Romeo means by "kill the envious moon." - / - / - / - /Īfter beginning with a pyrrhic, this line starts a stretch of regular iambic pentameter. Second, the reference begins an extended-and occasionally risqué-metaphor that plays upon the association of the moon goddess, Diana, (or Artemis, if you prefer), with virginity. First, of course the rising sun of day signifies the end of night, "killing" the moon. The reference to the "envious moon" is a double entendre. Romeo asks Juliet to appear ("Arise, fair sun") at her window. Like the line before, this one also contains 11 total syllables and is arguably ended by an anapest. / - / - / - /Īrise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Anyway, Romeo romantically compares the window to the eastern horizon at dawn he hasn't seen Juliet appear yet (at least in most interpretations of the script), but, like the dim light appearing before sunrise, the light heralds her arrival. It begins with a pyrrhic, which isn't such an oddity in itself, but the scansion following the mid-line caesura causes some consternation unless A) Shakespeare intended Juliet to be pronounced more like "JOOL-yet" instead of "JOOL-i-ET," or B) "is the sun" is intended as an anapest to end the line. The second line is more eccentric in its meter. "But soft! what light breaks through yonder window" would have a decidedly different rhythm. The line also shows how a slight shift in the syntactic order, shifting the word "breaks" to the end of the phrase rather than directly following the subject of "light," is used to make the line better fit the meter. As light appears at Juliet's window above, Romeo begins his metaphoric comparison of Juliet to the sunrise. Romeo begins in straightforward iambic pentameter, with stresses regularly punctuating every other syllable. Overview | Readings Page | Home - / - / - / - / - /īut, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks."
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