While Juliet possesses the tragic impulsiveness of Romeo
in Shakespeare’s 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 her
Lady Capulet asks Juliet to consider Paris as a husband, Juliet wisely exerts, caution;
she merely promises to look at the man:
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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)
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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
Tybalt, she cries out both Tybalt’s and Romeo’s names, confusing Juliet. Finally when
Juliet learns the truth, she chides the Nurse for saying “Shame come to
Romeo":
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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,
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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,
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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:
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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)
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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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