Act 2, Scene 2: Juliet Contemplates the Meaning of a Name
Editor: Alli Wells
Main Text
1. Jul: Ah Romeo, Romeo, wherefore1 art thou Romeo
2. Denie thy Father, and refuse thy name,
3. Or if thou wilt not be but sworne my love
4. And il’e no longer be a Capulet.
5. Rom: Shall I heare more, or shall I speake to this?
6. Jul: Tis but thy name that is mine enemie,
7. *[Thou art thy selfe, though not a Montague,]*2
8. What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foote,
9. Nor arme, nor face, nor any other part.
10. *[Belonging to a man]*3
11. What’s in a name? That which we call a Rose,
12. By any other name* would smell as sweet:
13. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo cald
14. Retaine the divine perfection he owes:
15. Without that title Romeo part thy name
16. And for that name which is no part of thee,
17. Take all *I have,*4
18. Rom: I take thee at thy word,
19. Call me but Love, and il’e be new Baptisde,
20. Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
21. Ju: What man art thou, that thus bescreen’d5 in night,
22. Doest stumble on my counsel6?
23. Ro: By a name I know not how to tell thee7.
24. My name deare Saint is hatefull to my self,
25. Because it is an enemie to thee
26. Had I it written I would teare the word.
27. Jul: My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
28. Of thy tongues utterance, yet I know the sound:
29. Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?
30. Ro: Neyther faire Saint, if eyther thee displease.
31. Ju: How camst thou hither8, tell me and wherfore?
32. The Orchard walls are high and hard to clime,
33. And the place deathe considering who thou art,
34. If any of my kinsmen find thee here.
35. Ro: By loves light winges did I oreperch9 these walls,
36. For stony limits cannot hold love out,
37. And what love can do, that dares love attempt,
38. Therefore thy kinsmen are no let10 to me.
Annotations
- Why
- Enclosed lines did not appear in the first available printing but appeared in two later variations
- Changed to “word” in another variant
- Phrase appeared as “all myselfe” in two later variations
- Hidden from sight
- Secrets
- Two variants add the phrase “who I am”
- Come here
- To overcome an obstacle
- Hindrance
References
Shakespeare, William. Tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet, D1 verso-D2 recto. London: Danter, John, 1597. STC (2nd ed.): 22322.
Shakespeare, William. Tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet, D2 recto-D2 vesro. London: Burby, Cuthbert, 1599. STC (2nd ed.): 22323.
Shakespeare, William. Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, 59. London: Laggard, I., Blount, Ed., Smithweeke, I., Aspley, W., 1622. STC (2nd ed.): 22273
Notes
STC 22322, the first available printing of Romeo & Juliet, was used as the base text for this edition.
17th-century definitions of words used in the text were obtained from the Online Oxford English Dictionary.
Line numbers were added for organizational purposes but did not appear in printings.
Editorial Policy
When creating my edition of Romeo & Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2), I prioritized authenticity. Therefore, I decided to use the earliest available printing of Romeo & Juliet, STC 22322 (1597), as my base text. For my other two texts, I chose STC 22323 and STC 22273. I decided to use STC 22323 as my second text because it was the next available printing (1622). I was interested to compare the first and second available printings to see how much had changed in the 25-year time period between. I thought that comparing the two oldest available printings would give me a good sense of which areas of the text remained fairly static and which were more dynamic. Finally, I chose STC 22273 (the 1623 folio of Shakespeare’s comedies, histories, and tragedies) as my third text. The 1623 folio is widely known and referenced so I thought it would be an appropriate third text to include when creating my edition. Interestingly, STC 22323 and STC 22273 shared many similarities.
After transcribing the base text (STC 22323), I realized I had to decide the extent to which I would normalize the text according to modern standards. I opted to keep the majority of words in their antiquated forms, such as “shall” instead of “should” and “thou” instead of “you” to preserve the authenticity of the text. It is a striking and necessary for readers to understand that the problems encountered in Romeo & Juliet, which we could envision in a modern world, have persisted across time. While the themes of Romeo & Juliet transcend time, its language grounds the text in the Renaissance. However, in some instances it made sense to generalize words. If a more modern form of the word appeared in later printings that I consulted, I altered words to enhance reading. For example, “doo” was changed to “do” and “wals” was changed to “walls” (modernized forms appeared STC 22323 and 22273). I also changed the spelling of words if I was attempting to define it using the Online Oxford English Dictionary, and a different spelling of the word was recorded. Examples of this include changing “beskrind” to “bescreen’d”, “hether” to “hither”, and “counsaile” to “counsel”. Additionally, the letters “s” and “v” were normalized for clarity of reading.
Whenever possible, the base text was left unchanged for fear of altering the text to reinforce a certain interpretive reading. For this reason, punctuation and capitalization changes that occurred in later variations were largely dismissed. In a small number of instances, digressionary changes were made if they were not deemed to significantly alter the meaning of the base text.
After comparing the three printings used in the creation of this edition, I realized that there were several lines and phrases the appeared in both STC 22323 and 22273 but were absent from the base text. Because these additions appeared in two of the three texts I consulted, I did not want to dismiss them entirely. For the most part these changes were not included in the main body of the text, but instead noted in the annotations. However, there was one instance in which I felt compelled to include the additional line because it nicely complemented the existing text.