Romeo and Juliet

Whilst my friend was doing something dumb and hurtful she also did something hilarious. Basically I asked her to read “transparency-how will I know?” She read the first few pages. Which did in fact read like a romance novel. Except that piece wasn’t about romance. It was about hope, how I want to be loved, and recognising red flags as they occur. Maybe I didn’t say anything to anyone, but I judged Joe as not the guy for me in circa December. Effectively that England vs Wales game was the last day of my “maybe this could work” but it was replaced by “ I kinda want to enjoy the idea of him” which is not to say he didn’t touch my heart at Christmas with his laugh. But it was also the innocence that he has that was what did it which was touching. I forgot people, especially adults could be innocent. I couldn’t have done the levels of difficult conversations that I had with him if I was actively still in love. It’s just not how I am wired. So it was over for me sometime in December. I may or may not have realised it. I do remember the Christmas party being about me not him, so that’s when i acknowledged it mentally.

Anyway because she didn’t read it she didn’t understand what it was meant to achieve. She shat all over the process. And started screaming and making wild sentences about the text. One that stuck out was “he doesn’t like you!” Which as someone who was over him and wanted the concept of love, I was just sat there looking at her like “what the fuck is wrong with you?” Your opinion is antiquated. You are discussing this like it’s November 2022 and we’re in April… keep up?

But it made me think of Romeo and Juliet. She’d TLDR’d my writing. So the equivalent was like going to Romeo and Juliet and leaving when Romeo says

“Hark, what light beyond that window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

Then thinking Romeo and Juliet is a romance…

Utterly leaving out

“A plague on your houses!” (Poor Mercutio, he’s actually my favourite.)

“Never was there a tale of more woe, than of Juliet and her Romeo.” (The end is also amazing)

Or even the damn prologue

“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.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.“

I.e they die boo. They die. Even before the beginning of the play they say that. They tell you the whole story.

Two well matched families in stature, in Verona,

Have hated each other for ages, are now taking it to a new level.

(I kind of want to keep the original next line, “civil blood makes civil hands unclean”)

Shedding noble blood makes savages of great men.

The two be-damned children of these enemies.

These, fated lovers, kill themselves, and by their deaths do end their families enmity.

What play were you watching?

Can we also, go back to Mectio’s death lines? They’ve always been my favourite. He speaks not in tongues, but as even I would if I met the end in violence. Very relateable.

“I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses!…. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.

Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon

tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.A plague o' both your houses!
They have made worms' meat of me”

Or in regular English

Go to hell, the lot of you! Its a scratch, not deep or wide, but enough to end me. Where is my PA? Jackass! Why am I having to tell you to go fetch a doctor? Ask for me tomorrow and I’ll already be in my grave. Go to hell all of you! I’m now worm food!

Kinda love it. They should focus on it more in school. Because the first few times that I have read/watched the play I haven’t understood a word they said until “hark what light beyond that window breaks?” And that’s because of the 1996 movie turning on a light in a window. But Mercutio’s final scene? I understood perfectly from the get go. Why? Because at the end there is no time for riddles, just plain speaking.

Jackass, go get a doctor!

A plague on both your houses!

You’ve made worms meat of me.

Or even more simply

“Jackass why have you been caught slipping on an opportunity to save my life? This is the end. If you ask for me tomorrow you’ll find a corpse. The cut isn’t wide, or deep, but it’s the end. I hope you all suffer for killing me.”

Also there’s a part where Romeo says in the middle of the monologue “surely the hurt cannot be much?

I’ll insert.

“MERCUTIO: I am hurt. A plague o' both your houses! I am sped. Is he gone, and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO: What art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO: At ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.[Exit Page]

ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as achurch-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask forme to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”

You can hear him say through the ages at Romeo saying “surely it isn’t that bad? “

“Shut up bitch. I’m actually dying!”

The ease of the emotion is so easy to grasp. He was going but not without telling everyone to stick it.

Then there’s the end. Spoken by a Prince….

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings,304

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.305

Go hence to have more talk of these sad things;306

Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished:307

For never was a story of more woe308

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

Or.

“The morning brings a eerie stalemate. Even the sun won’t shine in grief of our losses.

Leave here and spread the news of the sad tale.

When we talk of this day, we’ll savage some, forgive others in this story.

I have never seen anything so tragic, as Romeo and Juliet, their love, their families, and a fatal dance with the occult, magic. “

(Yes I did add magic to ryhmne with tragic, but being fair, Juliet did take a potion/drug which back then was effectively magic, but no one talks about how science and magic intersected in the 16th century as it pertains to this story)

On a side note, it surprises me how much Shakespeare I am able to remember. As it turns out, much as I worry for my memory, I am not dumb!

Thank you Prince, for your wise words.

God rest Mercutio, the real star of Romeo and Juliet.

Hope you all learnt that a story isn’t always about what you think it is. Life is far too rich for that.

Grace and courage

Annetta Mother-Smith