Romeo and Juliet Review
"Being but heavy, I will bear the light."(1.4.12)
Early in the play, Romeo is depressed and very poetically angsty.
"Is she a Capulet?/ O dear account! My life is my foe's debt."(1.5.117-118)
Romeo is the only character who could die from being in love with a Capulet.
"Two households, both alike in dignity/ (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),/ From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,/ Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean"(1.Prologue.1-4)
The Chorus is the only one who would have said this, because they are the only character with lines in the prologues of the play.
"Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me."(1.3.1)
The only nurse in the play is Juliet's, so this is Lady Capulet.
"Younger than she are happy mothers made."(1.2.12)
Count Paris is trying to convince Lord Capulet to let him marry Juliet now, not when she's older.
"My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow."(3.4.30)
Count Paris shows his excitement towards his marriage with Juliet, which was moved up to Thursday.
"Romeo, my cousin Romeo! Romeo!"(2.1.3)
Benevolio is the only cousin of Romeo with lines in the play.
"Sealed up the doors and would not let us forth./ So that my speed to Mantua there was stayed."(5.2.11-12)
Friar John was Friar Lawrence's messenger to Romeo in Mantua, and he got stuck in quarantine and could not go to Mantua, so these must be his lines.
"God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?"(2.3.44)
Friar Lawrence is the only character who often speaks of sin.
"I'll give thee armor to keep off that word—/ Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy—/ To comfort thee though thou art banishèd."(3.3.54-56)
Friar Lawrence tries to comfort Romeo using his typical philosophical means.
"It is an honor that I dream not of."(1.3.68)
Juliet is the only character reluctant about her marriage to Paris.
"Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical!/ Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!/ Despisèd substance of divinest show,/ Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st./ A damnèd saint, an honorable villain!"(3.2.74-80)
Juliet is the only one who refers to their lover with contradictory terms, as she does after learning he killed Tybalt.
"Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!/ It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night/ Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear,/ Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear."(1.5.42-45)
Romeo is often poetic about the women he loves.
"Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed."(1.3.62)
Juliet's nurse is the only character in the play who nursed her as a baby.
"Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe."(1.1.70)
Lady Montague doesn't want her husband to fight his enemy and holds him back.
"My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,/ And flourishes his blade in spite of me."(1.1.67-68)
Lord Capulet is Lord Montague's main enemy.
"Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not. Let me go"(1.1.69)
Lord Montague is the only character who refers to Capulet as a villain.
"She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes/ In shape no bigger than an agate stone/ On the forefinger of an alderman,"(1.4.55-58)
Mercutio is longwinded and fanciful in the way he speaks.
"That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams."(2.4.22)
Mercutio often makes jokes that are sexual in nature towards Romeo, but also in general.
"Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground,/ And hear the sentence of your movèd prince."(1.1.77-78)
Prince Escalus is the one who tries to break up all of the Capulet/Montague fights, and he also refers to himself as 'your moved prince' in this line.
"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?/ It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."(2.2.2-3)
Romeo is the only character to truly wax poetic about Juliet, so it is his lines.
"What's here? A cup, closed in my true love's hand?/ Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.—/ O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop/ To help me after? I will kiss thy lips./ Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,/ To make me die with a restorative."(5.3.173-178)
Romeo is Juliet's 'true love' who just committed suicide via poison in front of her tomb.
"I brought my master news of Juliet's death"(5.3.287)
Romeo's servant Balthasar is the only person who tells him about Juliet's "death", so these lines belong to him.
No, sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.(1.1.44)
Samson, a servant of the house of Capulet, is the one who says this, and is the only character who ever something about biting his thumb.
"He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not./ The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.—/ I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,/ By her high forehead and her scarlet lip/, By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,/ And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,"(2.1.15-20)
The playful and sexual nature of this is a good clue that Mercutio is the one speaking.
"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?/ Deny thy father and refuse thy name./ Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,/ And I'll no longer be a Capulet."(Shakespeare 2.2.33-35)
The speaker calls themself a Capulet, and is in love with Romeo. Juliet is the only Capulet in love with Romeo.
"Her mother is the lady of the house,/ And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous./ I nursed her daughter that you talked withal."(1.5.113-115)
They're talking about Juliet, and her nurse is the one who nursed her as baby.
"This, by his voice, should be a Montague.—/ (to his PAGE) Fetch me my rapier, boy.—"(1.5.52-53)
Tybalt is the only Capulet with a 'fight on sight' attitude towards the Montagues.
"What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word,/ As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee./ Have at thee, coward!"(1.1.60-62)
Tybalt is the only character that regularly and vocally expresses his hatred for the Montagues.
"'Tis he, that villain Romeo."(1.5.63)
Tybalt's the only character to regularly refer to Romeo as a villian.