Act 3 Scene 1: Interview with Mercutio

Act 3 Scene 1

Host: So, Mercutio, your thoughts on Tybalt?

Mercutio: He’s quite cocky and loves to fight.  If you let him get too full of himself things can turn bad.

Host: Why do you think Romeo refused to fight Tybalt?

Mercutio: Romeo's never been one for fighting, he always preferred poetry and art.  He’s probably just lovesick... and still obsessing over Rosaline.

Host: Tell me, why did you volunteer to duel Tybalt?

Mercutio: It would have been an embarrassment.  Romeo wouldn’t even fight for his own name!  I fought Tybalt to defend Romeo’s honor.  And Tybalt, how could I let the cocky cousin wallow in his pride? 

Act 2 Scene 3: The Friar's Plan

Act 2 scene  3 Friar Lawrence

“Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.

But come, young waverer, come go with me.

In one respect I’ll thy assistant be,

For their alliance may so happy prove

To turn your households’ rancor to pure love.”

Romeo comes to Friar Lawrence and asks him to marry him to Juliet.  At first the Friar is hesitant.  He tells Romeo off for being impulsive and quick to fall in love.  However, the he eventually agrees to set up the marriage.  While the Friar Lawrence doubts that what Romeo feels is really true love, he sees marriage as an opportunity to turn “rancor to pure love”, or to end the violence between the households.   

Act 1 Scene 1: Quote From Romeo

Scene 1.1

"Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,

Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!

Where shall we dine?—O me! What fray was here?

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

Here’s much to do with hate but more with love.

Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first created!O heavy lightness, serious vanity,Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!This love feel I, that feel no love in this.Dost thou not laugh?"  


Romeo arrives after the fight between the Montagues and Capulets.  The line, "Here's much to do with hate but more to do with love" shows that Romeo prefers to believe that the fight between the two families was done out of devotion/love instead of out of hate.  This alludes to Romeo's personality; he is a romantic with uncontrolled emotions who prefers not to fight.  Later, he explains to Benvolio that he is the subject of unreciprocated love.  Shakespeare uses oxymorons like "brawling love" and "loving hate" to describe Romeo's internal conflict and maybe to suggest that he does not understand his own emotions. 

The Things We Take for Granted

The Things We Take for Granted

A man lays in bed,

sleeping soundly

There is,

a log cabin that stands in a clearing

surrounded by mountains

with chiseled faces

Far over to the east,

the sun peeks over

a sea of rolling hills

the first glimpse

of golden morning light reflects off

of jagged mountains

light floods

the sacred valley,

casting away

the spell of night

A river flows to the west

crystal clear water

once frozen and hardened

high in the mountains

brings life to the valley

through veins carved in the earth

There is a tree

in the corner of this clearing

whose deep seeded roots

stretch downward into the rich brown soil

and whose tired twisted branches

have been called

home many times before

Harsh winds

that strike the backs of the mountains

are lulled into a quiet zephyr as they float down into the valley

the gentle breeze playfully tousles the leaves

And the man,

lays in bed,

sleeping soundly