Romeo and Juliet Group
Question:
ltsutton
Student
High School - 9th Grade
What six desperate things is Juliet prepared to do rather than marry Paris in Act IV, Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet?
Also what would these six things be in the present day?
Answers:
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Posted by dymatsuoka on Monday March 31, 2008 at 8:13 PM
In lines 77 - 85, Juliet describes dramatically what she is prepared to do rather than marry Paris. She says,
1. "...bid me leap...from off the battlements of any tower" (in present day, she would be willing to leap off a tall building)
2. "or walk in thievish ways" (she would walk on dangerous roads where thieves are known to accost passersby, like walking in a dangerous, crime-ridden neighborhood in the dark of night)
3. "Or bid me lurk where serpents are" (she would hang out where there are snakes)
4. "Or chain me with roaring bears"
5. Or hide me nightly in a charnel house...with dead men's rattling bones" (a charnel house if a place where dead bodies and body parts are stored; in Shakespeare's time, there was a dearth of burial ground, so people were allowed to be buried in cemeteries for only a certain amount of time, after which their bones were unearthed and stored in charnel houses, so others could have a turn to be laid in the ground)
6. Or bid me go into a new made grave and hide me with a dead man in his tomb".
I'd say Juliet was pretty desperate not to marry Paris!
