Romeo and Juliet: Lovers, Families and Guides
Explore how Juliet and Romeo make choices within relationships that can offer care, exert control and create danger.
Agency within dependence
Study all five acts of Romeo and Juliet in sequence. The extracts below support close reading; whole-play responses draw on your study of the complete play.
Text
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Act II, SCENE II. Capulet’s Garden.
JULIET.
[1] Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,
[2] I have no joy of this contract tonight;
[3] It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden,
[4] Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
[5] Ere one can say “It lightens.” Sweet, good night.
[6] This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
[7] May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
[8] Good night, good night. As sweet repose and rest
[9] Come to thy heart as that within my breast.
ROMEO.
[10] O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
JULIET.
[11] What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?
ROMEO.
[12] Th’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.
JULIET.
[13] I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;
[14] And yet I would it were to give again.
ROMEO.
[15] Would’st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?
JULIET.
[16] But to be frank and give it thee again.
[17] And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
[18] My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
[19] My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
[20] The more I have, for both are infinite.
[21] I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu.
[22] [Nurse calls within.]
[23] Anon, good Nurse!—Sweet Montague be true.
[24] Stay but a little, I will come again.
[Exit.]
ROMEO.
[25] O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard,
[26] Being in night, all this is but a dream,
[27] Too flattering sweet to be substantial.
Enter Juliet above.
JULIET.
[28] Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
[29] If that thy bent of love be honourable,
[30] Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,
[31] By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
[32] Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,
[33] And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
[34] And follow thee my lord throughout the world.
Notes
Act and scene are the edition locators; numbered rows identify only this displayed passage.
Read the supplied passages alongside the complete play in the reading collection.
Agency is the capacity to choose and act. It does not mean having unlimited freedom, making a morally perfect choice or controlling the result. Shakespeare presents both lovers as active decision-makers, but he places their decisions inside families and institutions that control movement, marriage, information and protection.
Juliet is especially useful for testing this distinction. In 2.2, she calls the new relationship "too rash, too unadvised, too sudden", refuses to rely on grand vows and sets a practical condition: if Romeo's purpose is marriage, he must send word through a messenger. Romeo then seeks Friar Lawrence. Their shared decision is real, but carrying it out depends on the Nurse and the Friar.
| Relationship | What makes choice possible | What limits choice |
|---|---|---|
| Romeo and Juliet | They answer each other, agree to marry and take practical action. | The feud prevents open courtship, so secrecy replaces family support. |
| Juliet and the Capulets | Her parents can offer status, shelter and an authorised marriage. | They can also control her household place and threaten to withdraw support. |
| Juliet and the Nurse | The Nurse provides intimacy, information and physical access between the lovers. | Juliet depends on what the Nurse carries, delays or advises. |
| The lovers and Friar Lawrence | He can solemnise the marriage and devise a route through danger. | His plans serve his own peace-making aim and require the lovers to trust his judgement. |
This is why "the lovers choose" and "the lovers are constrained" are not competing answers. The play can make both true at once.
The Capulets' conditional authority
Source A
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Act I, SCENE II. A Street.
Enter Capulet, Paris and Servant.
CAPULET.
[1] But Montague is bound as well as I,
[2] In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,
[3] For men so old as we to keep the peace.
PARIS.
[4] Of honourable reckoning are you both,
[5] And pity ’tis you liv’d at odds so long.
[6] But now my lord, what say you to my suit?
CAPULET.
[7] But saying o’er what I have said before.
[8] My child is yet a stranger in the world,
[9] She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
[10] Let two more summers wither in their pride
[11] Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.
PARIS.
[12] Younger than she are happy mothers made.
CAPULET.
[13] And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
[14] The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
[15] She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
[16] But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
[17] My will to her consent is but a part;
[18] And she agree, within her scope of choice
[19] Lies my consent and fair according voice.
Notes
Act and scene are the edition locators; numbered rows identify only this displayed passage.
Source B
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Act III, SCENE V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.
JULIET.
[1] Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.
[2] Proud can I never be of what I hate;
[3] But thankful even for hate that is meant love.
CAPULET.
[4] How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this?
[5] Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not;
[6] And yet not proud. Mistress minion you,
[7] Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
[8] But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next
[9] To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
[10] Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
[11] Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
[12] You tallow-face!
LADY CAPULET.
[13] Fie, fie! What, are you mad?
JULIET.
[14] Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
[15] Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
CAPULET.
[16] Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch!
[17] I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday,
[18] Or never after look me in the face.
[19] Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
[20] My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
[21] That God had lent us but this only child;
[22] But now I see this one is one too much,
[23] And that we have a curse in having her.
[24] Out on her, hilding.
NURSE.
[25] God in heaven bless her.
[26] You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
CAPULET.
[27] And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue,
[28] Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
NURSE.
[29] I speak no treason.
CAPULET.
[30] O God ye good-en!
NURSE.
[31] May not one speak?
CAPULET.
[32] Peace, you mumbling fool!
[33] Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,
[34] For here we need it not.
LADY CAPULET.
[35] You are too hot.
CAPULET.
[36] God’s bread, it makes me mad!
[37] Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play,
[38] Alone, in company, still my care hath been
[39] To have her match’d, and having now provided
[40] A gentleman of noble parentage,
[41] Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied,
[42] Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
[43] Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man,
[44] And then to have a wretched puling fool,
[45] A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
[46] To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love,
[47] I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’
[48] But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you.
[49] Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.
[50] Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
[51] Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise.
[52] And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
[53] And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
[54] For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
[55] Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
[56] Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.
Notes
Act and scene are the edition locators; numbered rows identify only this displayed passage.
Lord Capulet's change is more revealing than either an entirely caring or entirely tyrannical portrait. In 1.2, he tells Paris that Juliet is still young and says his own will is only part of her consent. The brief phrase "scope of choice" appears to leave room for Juliet's decision. Yet the scene also keeps Juliet offstage while two men discuss her future. His language grants choice inside a process he still manages.
In 3.5, that conditional authority hardens into command. After Lady Capulet announces the Paris match, Lord Capulet treats it as "our decree". When Juliet resists, the list "hang, beg, starve, die in the streets" makes parental rejection materially specific: refusal could cost her home, food and family identity. A production might place Juliet low or kneeling while Capulet dominates the space, but the exact blocking is a directorial choice. What the text securely provides is her pleading voice against his much longer, escalating speech.
Lady Capulet also matters. In 1.3, she needs the Nurse's intimate knowledge to speak with Juliet about Paris. In 3.5, she delivers the proposed marriage and then refuses Juliet's plea for help. Her later grief prevents a flat claim that she feels no love, but grief does not undo her failure to intervene when Juliet is threatened.
Early modern marriage could involve affection and individual consent alongside family, property and status interests. Upper-status daughters could face particularly strong parental pressure. This context sharpens the contradiction in Capulet: he first speaks the language of consent within family negotiation, then replaces it with coercion when Juliet's choice opposes his own.
A complete reasoning chain
For a question about adult power, pairing 1.2 with 3.5 is stronger than using the threat alone. The earlier scene establishes apparent caution and conditional consent; the later scene reverses both. Shakespeare therefore makes Capulet's care look dependent on obedience, while the changing stage relationship turns a family disagreement into a crisis of shelter and belonging. One defensible alternative is that grief and a wish to secure Juliet's future drive his urgency, but that motive cannot erase the coercive method he chooses.
The Nurse's intimacy and reversal
Text
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Act III, SCENE V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.
JULIET.
[1] Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
[2] That sees into the bottom of my grief?
[3] O sweet my mother, cast me not away,
[4] Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
[5] Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
[6] In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
LADY CAPULET.
[7] Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
[8] Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
[Exit.]
JULIET.
[9] O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented?
[10] My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.
[11] How shall that faith return again to earth,
[12] Unless that husband send it me from heaven
[13] By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.
[14] Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
[15] Upon so soft a subject as myself.
[16] What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?
[17] Some comfort, Nurse.
NURSE.
[18] Faith, here it is.
[19] Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing
[20] That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you.
[21] Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
[22] Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
[23] I think it best you married with the County.
[24] O, he’s a lovely gentleman.
[25] Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
[26] Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
[27] As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
[28] I think you are happy in this second match,
[29] For it excels your first: or if it did not,
[30] Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were,
[31] As living here and you no use of him.
JULIET.
[32] Speakest thou from thy heart?
NURSE.
[33] And from my soul too,
[34] Or else beshrew them both.
JULIET.
[35] Amen.
NURSE.
[36] What?
JULIET.
[37] Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
[38] Go in, and tell my lady I am gone,
[39] Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell,
[40] To make confession and to be absolv’d.
NURSE.
[41] Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
[Exit.]
JULIET.
[42] Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
[43] Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
[44] Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
[45] Which she hath prais’d him with above compare
[46] So many thousand times? Go, counsellor.
[47] Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
[48] I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy.
[49] If all else fail, myself have power to die.
[Exit.]
Notes
Act and scene are the edition locators; numbered rows identify only this displayed passage.
The Nurse's loyalty is first established through physical memory rather than an abstract claim that she is "like a mother". In 1.3, Lady Capulet sends her away, then immediately calls her back. The Nurse can recall Juliet's age almost to the hour, her weaning and the Nurse's own daughter Susan. Her long, bodily story contrasts with Lady Capulet's more formal conversation about Paris, suggesting everyday intimacy across the difference between servant and child.
The Nurse does more than comfort Juliet. In 2.4 and 2.5, she acts as a go-between, checks Romeo's intentions and carries the marriage arrangements. When she delays giving Juliet the news, the scene can feel teasing and affectionate, but it also shows that she controls information on which Juliet depends.
Her conduct in 3.5 is deliberately difficult to judge. She challenges Capulet's attack with "I speak no treason", briefly using her servant's voice to defend Juliet. Soon afterwards, however, she advises that it is "best you married with the County".
Two readings remain defensible:
- Betrayal: the Nurse helped create Juliet's valid marriage, praised Romeo and received
Juliet's trust. Recommending Paris abandons both the marriage and that trust. - Pragmatic protection: Romeo is banished, Capulet has threatened destitution, and Paris
offers public status and immediate safety. The Nurse reasons from the material world she
knows, even though Juliet cannot accept that compromise.
The exit matters. Juliet pretends to accept the advice, sends the Nurse away and only then rejects her as a counsellor. A relationship rupture becomes stage action: Juliet loses her closest household confidante before she turns to the Friar.
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