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O she doth teach the torches to burn bright.
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear
Juliet’s immediate impact on Romeo is expressed in these lines from Act 1, Scene 5, which he speaks shortly after he sees her for the first time at the Capulets’ ball. You can read more about this quote and how it marks a distinct departure from the language he used to describe his erstwhile and less authentic love for Rosaline in Quotes by Character: Romeo (the third quote).
Patience perforce with willful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitterest gall.
Tybalt uses these words in Act 1, Scene 5, as he reluctantly complies with Capulet’s request that he not confront Romeo when Romeo is spotted interloping at the Capulet ball. Tybalt says that the combination of being forced to withdraw without fighting (patience perforce) and intense rage (willful choler) will eventually come back to haunt Romeo later when he gets his revenge for Romeo’s disrespectful act.
ROMEO: (taking JULIET ’s hand) If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.JULIET: 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.
In the title characters’ first meeting in Act 1, Scene 5, Romeo begins by immediately demonstrating how his name has become a synonym for a man who turns on his charm to an intense degree to try to attract a woman he desires. In essence, he’s saying that if Juliet is offended by his taking of her hand without being asked to, his lips are—like blushing pilgrims—ready to make things better with a kiss. Fortunately for Romeo, rather than being put off by this “rico suave” display, Juliet responds in kind by saying that she interprets his holding her hand as a display of polite devotion. Showing that she is at the very least Romeo’s equal in terms of turning on the charm, she adds (in language that many would have viewed as impious or even blasphemous) that pilgrims touch the hands of saints in statues and that holding one palm against another is like a kiss.
Note that these 14 lines that Romeo and Juliet speak together in their first encounter together form a love sonnet. This could be seen as Shakespeare letting us know that from the moment they meet and from that point forward, Romeo and Juliet have come together as one. Despite the deep enmity between the two houses from which they have sprung, from the moment they meet they speak alike, think alike, and behave alike.
You kiss by th’book
Juliet’s subsequent comment to Romeo, “You kiss by th’ book,” can be taken in two very different ways—as is explained in more depth in the final paragraph of our Summary & Analysis for Act 1, Scene 5. While it can be read as emphasizing Juliet’s lack of experience, it is also possible to interpret Juliet’s comment as wryly noting that Romeo kisses as if he has learned how to do so by reading an instruction manual.
My only love sprung from my only hate,
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love is it to me
That I must love a loathed enemy.
These lines are spoken by the crestfallen Juliet at the end of Act 1, Scene 5 after she has learned that the man she has just fallen in love with is a member of the rival Montague clan. Read more about this quote and the significance of the phrase “too early” in Quotes by Theme: The Forcefulness of Love (the second quote) and in Quotes by Character: Juliet (the first quote).
