Summary: Act 1, scene 5
In the great hall of the Capulets, all is a-bustle. The
servants work feverishly to make sure all runs smoothly, and set
aside some food to make sure they have some enjoyment of the feast
as well. Capulet makes his rounds through groups of guests, joking
with them and encouraging all to dance.
From across the room, Romeo sees Juliet, and asks a servingman who
she is. The servingman does not know. Romeo is transfixed; Rosaline
vanishes from his mind and he declares that he has never been in
love until this moment. Moving through the crowd, Tybalt hears and
recognizes Romeo’s voice. Realizing that there is a Montague present,
Tybalt sends a servant to fetch his rapier. Capulet overhears Tybalt
and reprimands him, telling him that Romeo is well regarded in Verona,
and that he will not have the youth harmed at his feast. Tybalt
protests, but Capulet scolds him until he agrees to keep the peace.
As Capulet moves on, Tybalt vows that he will not let this indignity
pass.
Meanwhile, Romeo has approached Juliet and touched
her hand. In a dialogue laced with religious metaphors that figure
Juliet as a saint and Romeo as a pilgrim who wishes to erase his
sin, he tries to convince her to kiss him, since it is only through
her kiss that he might be absolved. Juliet agrees to remain still
as Romeo kisses her. Thus, in the terms of their conversation, she
takes his sin from him. Juliet then makes the logical leap that
if she has taken Romeo’s sin from him, his sin must now reside in
her lips, and so they must kiss again.
Just as their second kiss ends, the Nurse arrives and
tells Juliet that her mother wants to speak with her. Romeo asks
the Nurse who Juliet’s mother is. The Nurse replies that Lady Capulet
is her mother. Romeo is devastated. As the crowd begins to disperse,
Benvolio shows up and leads Romeo from the feast. Juliet is just
as struck with the mysterious man she has kissed as Romeo is with
her. She comments to herself that if he is already married, she
feels she will die (1.5.131). In order to
find out Romeo’s identity without raising any suspicions, she asks
the Nurse to identify a series of young men. The Nurse goes off
and returns with the news that the man’s name is Romeo, and that
he is a Montague. Overcome with anguish that she loves a Montague,
Juliet follows her nurse from the hall.
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Act 1, scene 5 →
Analysis
This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Romeo sees Juliet and forgets Rosaline entirely; Juliet meets Romeo
and falls just as deeply in love. The meeting of Romeo and Juliet
dominates the scene, and, with extraordinary language that captures
both the excitement and wonder that the two protagonists feel, Shakespeare
proves equal to the expectations he has set up by delaying the meeting
for an entire act.
The first conversation between Romeo and Juliet is an
extended Christian metaphor. Using this metaphor, Romeo ingeniously
manages to convince Juliet to let him kiss her. But the metaphor
holds many further functions. The religious overtones of the conversation clearly
imply that their love can be described only through the vocabulary
of religion, that pure association with God. In this way, their
love becomes associated with the purity and passion of the divine.
But there is another side to this association of personal love and
religion. In using religious language to describe their burgeoning
feelings for each other, Romeo and Juliet tiptoe on the edge of blasphemy.
Romeo compares Juliet to an image of a saint that should be revered,
a role that Juliet is willing to play. Whereas the Catholic church
held that reverence for saint’s images was acceptable, the Anglican
church of Elizabethan times saw it as blasphemy, a kind of idol
worship. Romeo’s statements about Juliet border on the heretical.
Juliet commits an even more profound blasphemy in the next scene
when she calls Romeo the “god of her idolatry,” effectively installing
Romeo in God’s place in her personal religion (2.1.156).
We have discussed already how Romeo and Juliet’s love seems always
to be opposed by the social structures of family, honor, and the
civil desire for order. Here it is also shown to have some conflict,
at least theologically, with religion.
