Sunday, July 14, 2013

What emotions does Romeo reveal as he gazes upon Paris and Juliet in the tomb?Act 5 scene 3 of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

When Romeo and Balthasar approach the catacombs where
Juliet is entombed, Paris, who has come to put flowers on Juliet's grave, hears them. 
He discovers that it is Romeo who enters; he tries to stop Romeo, but Romeo tells the
man whom he cannot see that he has come for death and urges the man to flee the horrors
of death.



Put
not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O, be gone!
(ll.61-62)



Unfortunately,
Paris stays, fights with Romeo, and is slain.  Before he dies, he asks Romeo to place
him near Juliet.  When Romeo recognizes him, he remembers what Balthasar has told him
about Paris marrying Juliet; he takes Paris's hand, saying to
him,



O, give
me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
I'll bury
thee in a triumphant grave.
(ll.81-83)



Then, as he
encounters the body of Juliet, Romeo is yet taken with her
beauty:



O my
love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquer'd.
Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And
death's pale flag is not advanced there.
(ll.91-96)



Although he
wonders why Juliet looks so fair, questioning whether "unsubstantial death is amorous,"
of Juliet and lies as her parmour, Romeo decides to lie next to her and "shake the yoke
of inauspicious stars."

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