Declaration in the Capulets' Garden

Scene summary

In the Capulets' garden, Romeo has just leapt the wall, after hearing Mercutio's mockery from afar, and sees Juliet appear at the window. He says she is the sun that kills the envious moon, that if her eyes exchanged places with two stars, the brightness of her cheek would shame the stars, and he wishes to be the glove that touches her cheek. Juliet, believing herself alone, sighs, and he calls her a shining angel. She then laments that he is Romeo: she asks him to renounce his father and his name or, if he cannot, to swear that he loves her, and then she will cease to be a Capulet. She says that only the name Montague is her enemy, that a name is not hand, foot, arm or face, and that the rose, with another name, would have the same perfume. Romeo accepts her words: let her call him "love" and he will never again be Romeo.

Juliet is startled to hear a man hidden by the night and recognizes the voice as Romeo's. She asks how he climbed the high wall, in a place that would be death for him if her kin found him. Romeo answers that love made him fly over the stones, that there is more danger in her gaze than in twenty of their swords, and that he would rather die by their hatred than live without her love. Juliet says the night hides the blush that would make her redden for all he has heard, asks whether he loves her, and confesses that she was too quick to yield, but that she will be more faithful than those who know how to feign distance. When Romeo is about to swear by the moon, she asks him not to swear by a star that changes every month, nor to swear at all: she says that, despite the joy, she does not like a pact so hasty, so rash, so sudden, "like the lightning" that vanishes before one says "it lightens," and that the bud of love may become a flower when they meet again.

Romeo asks whether he will be left unsatisfied, and Juliet answers that she has already given her oath before being asked, and would give it again, because the more she gives the more she has, for her love is as deep as the sea. The Nurse calls her from inside, and Juliet withdraws; she returns to say that if Romeo's purpose is honorable and it is marriage, he should send word the next day, by the messenger she will send, where and when the ceremony will be, and she will lay all her fortune at his feet and follow him across the world. Called again, she postpones her answer and withdraws, returns once more to ask at what hour she should send the messenger, and Romeo answers that it will be at nine. She forgets why she called him back, and the two say they would stay there a little longer. The parting drags on: she compares him to a bird held by a silken thread and says that parting is a sweet sorrow, to the point of saying good night until morning. Romeo goes to the friar's cell to ask for help.