Name_________________________date____________________
Romeo & Juliet passages to translate and explicate:
(you may use this paper or attach a separate sheet)
Please explain the following dialogue in modern English. Pay particular attention to rewording the sections that are in bold. Explain what the words mean and their context in the story. In other words, (1) explain the whole context and (2) translate the bolded part into modern English. Do not forget to include your version of the bolded text.
1) Act I SCENE V
A hall in CAPULET’s house.
It was at the ball where Romeo and his two friends sneak. Tybalt seating at the Capulet table recognize Romeo is Enemy enraged he wanted to fight him because he dare infiltrate a Capulet party.
TYBALT: This, by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face, the mask Romeo was wearing.
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead, I hold it not a sin.
2) Act II Scene II
JULIET ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
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3) Act III SCENE I
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: Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch;
marry, ’tis enough….
ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO: No, ’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. I
am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’
both your houses! …Why the devil came you between us? I
was hurt under your arm.
ROMEO: I thought all for the best.
MERCUTIO: Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses!
They have made worms’ meat of me: I have it,
And soundly too: your houses!
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4) ACT III Scene III
FRIAR LAURENCE :…Art thou a man?
thy form cries out thou art:
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
…Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skitless soldier’s flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
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5) Act III Scene V
CAPULET:…But as you will not wed, I’ll pardon you:
Graze where you will you shall not house with me
…hang beg, starve, die in the streets,
For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
Trust to’t, bethink you; I’ll not be foresworn. . . .
NURSE: Faith, here it is.Romeo is banish’d; and all the world to nothing,
That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you;
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the county.
O, he’s a lovely gentleman!
Romeo’s a dishclout to him: an eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead; or ’Twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.
JULIET: … Well, thou hast comforted me
marvellous much.
Go in: and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeased my father, to Laurence’s cell,
To make confession and to be absolved.
