Romeo & Juliet (AQA GCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

CAPULET 

                                            How now, wife, 

Have you delivered to her our decree? 

LADY CAPULET 

Ay, sir, but she will none, she gives you thanks. 

I would the fool were married to her grave. 

CAPULET 

Soft, take me with you, take me with you, wife. 

How, will she none? doth she not give us thanks? 

Is she not proud? doth she not count her blest, 

Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought 

So worthy a gentleman to be her bride? 

JULIET 

Not proud you have, but thankful that you have: 

Proud can I never be of what I hate, 

But thankful even for hate that is meant love. 

CAPULET 

How how, how how, chopt-logic? What is this? 

‘Proud’, and ‘I thank you’, and ‘I thank you not’, 

And yet ‘not proud’, mistress minion you? 

Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds, 

But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next, 

To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church, 

Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. 

Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage! 

You tallow-face!

ROMEO 

     If I profane with my unworthiest hand 

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, 

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand 

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. 

JULIET 

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, 

Which mannerly devotion shows in this, 

For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, 

And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss. 

ROMEO 

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? 

JULIET 

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. 

ROMEO 

O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do: 

      They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. 

JULIET 

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake. 

ROMEO 

Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take. 

       Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged. 

JULIET 

Then have my lips the sin that they have took. 

ROMEO 

Sin from my lips?  O trespass sweetly urged! 

     Give me my sin again. 

JULIET    

                                     You kiss by th’book. 

PRINCE 

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, 

Profaners of this neighbour-stainèd steel – 

Will they not hear? – What ho, you men, you beasts! 

That quench the fire of your pernicious rage 

With purple fountains issuing from your veins: 

On pain of torture, from those bloody hands 

Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground, 

And hear the sentence of your movèd prince. 

Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, 

By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, 

Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets, 

And made Verona’s ancient citizens 

Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments 

To wield old partisans, in hands as old, 

Cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate; 

If ever you disturb our streets again, 

Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. 

For this time all the rest depart away: 

You, Capulet, shall go along with me, 

And, Montague, come you this afternoon, 

To know our farther pleasure in this case, 

To old Free-town, our common judgement-place. 

Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

ROMEO 

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? 

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. 

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, 

Who is already sick and pale with grief 

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. 

Be not her maid, since she is envious; 

Her vestal livery is but sick and green, 

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

[JULIET appears aloft as at a window.] 

It is my lady, O it is my love:

O that she knew she were! 

She speaks, yet she says nothing; what of that? 

Her eye discourses, I will answer it. 

I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks: 

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, 

Having some business, do entreat her eyes 

To twinkle in their spheres till they return. 

What if her eyes were there, they in her head? 

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, 

As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven 

Would through the airy region stream so bright 

That birds would sing and think it were not night. 

See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! 

O that I were a glove upon that hand, 

That I might touch that cheek!

PARIS

But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?

CAPULET

But saying o’er what I have said before:

My child is yet a stranger in the world,

She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;

Let two more summers wither in their pride,

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS

Younger than she are happy mothers made.

CAPULET

And too soon marred are those so early made.

The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she;

She’s the hopeful lady of my earth.

But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,

My will to her consent is but a part;

And she agreed, within her scope of choice

Lies my consent and fair according voice.

JULIET O serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face!

Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?

Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical!

Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!

Despisèd substance of divinest show!

Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,

A damnèd saint, an honourable villain!

O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell

When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend

In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?

Was ever book containing such vile matter

So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell

In such a gorgeous place!

NURSE                            There’s no trust,

No faith, no honesty in men, all perjured,

All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua-vitae;

These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.

Shame come to Romeo!

JULIET                             Blistered by thy tongue

For such a wish! he was not born to shame:

Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;

For ‘tis a throne where honour may be crowned

Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O what a beast was I to chide at him!

JULIET     Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? 

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, 

When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? 

But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? 

That villain cousin would have killed my husband.

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring, 

Your tributary drops belong to woe, 

Which you mistaking offer up to joy. 

My husband lives that Tybalt would have slain, 

And Tybalt’s dead that would have slain my husband: 

All this is comfort, wherefore weep I then? 

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, 

That murdered me; I would forget it fain, 

But O, it presses to my memory, 

Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners’ minds: 

‘Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banishèd.’ 

That ‘banishèd’, that one word ‘banishèd’, 

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death 

Was woe enough if it had ended there; 

Or if sour woe delights in fellowship, 

And needly will be ranked with other griefs, 

Why followed not, when she said ‘Tybalt’s dead’, 

‘Thy father’ or ‘thy mother’, nay, or both, 

Which modern lamentation might have moved? 

But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death, 

‘Romeo is banishèd’: to speak that word, 

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, 

All slain, all dead. ‘Romeo is banishèd!’ 

There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, 

In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.

LADY CAPULET

But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

JULIET

And joy comes well in such a needy time.

What are they, beseech your Ladyship?

LADY CAPULET

Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child,

One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,

Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy

That thou expects not, nor I looked not for.

JULIET

Madam, in happy time! What day is that?

LADY CAPULET

Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn

The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,

The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church

Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JULIET

Now, by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too,

He shall not make me there a joyful bride!

I wonder at this haste, that I must wed

Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.

I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam,

I will not marry yet, and when I do I swear

It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,

Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.

And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence

then:

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.

ROMEO

Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROMEO

And bad’st me bury love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Not in a grave

To lay one in, another out to have.

ROMEO

I pray thee, chide me not. Her I love now

Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.

The other did not so.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

O, she knew well

Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.

But come, young waverer, come, go with me.

In one respect I’ll thy assistant be,

For this alliance may so happy prove

To turn your households’ rancor to pure love.

ROMEO

O, let us hence. I stand on sudden haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.

ROMEO

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace.

Thou talk’st of nothing.

MERCUTIO

True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

Which is as thin of substance as the air

And more inconstant than the wind, who woos

Even now the frozen bosom of the north

And, being angered, puffs away from thence,

Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

BENVOLIO

This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves.

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

ROMEO

I fear too early, for my mind misgives

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night’s revels, and expire the term

Of a despisèd life closed in my breast

By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

But he that hath the steerage of my course

Direct my sail. On, lusty gentlemen.

BENVOLIO

Strike, drum.

They march about the stage

and then withdraw to the side

ROMEO

A light’ning before death! O, how may I

Call this a light’ning? — O my love, my wife,

Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

Thou art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death’s pale flag is not advancèd there. —

Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?

O, what more favor can I do to thee

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain

To sunder his that was thine enemy?

Forgive me, cousin. — Ah, dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe

That unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps

Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

For fear of that I still will stay with thee

And never from this palace of dim night

Depart again. Here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here

Will I set up my everlasting rest

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh! Eyes, look your last.

Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O, you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain to engrossing death.

Kissing Juliet

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!

Here’s to my love. Drinking. O true apothecary,

Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

He dies

MERCUTIO

I am hurt.

A plague o’ both 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.

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

Page exits.

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 tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I

am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’

both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a

cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a

villain that fights by the book of arithmetic! 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!

TYBALT

This, by his voice, should be a Montague. —

Fetch me my rapier, boy.

Page exits.

What, dares the slave

Come hither covered with an antic face

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.

CAPULET

Why, how now, kinsman? Wherefore storm you so?

TYBALT

Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe,

A villain that is hither come in spite

To scorn at our solemnity this night.

CAPULET

Young Romeo is it?

TYBALT

 ’Tis he, that villain Romeo.

CAPULET

Content thee, gentle coz. Let him alone.

He bears him like a portly gentleman,

And, to say truth, Verona brags of him

To be a virtuous and well-governed youth.

I would not for the wealth of all this town

Here in my house do him disparagement.

Therefore be patient. Take no note of him.

It is my will, the which if thou respect,

Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,

An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

TYBALT

It fits when such a villain is a guest.

I’ll not endure him.