Role in The Play
Before Romeo meets Juliet, he loves Rosaline, Capulet's niece. He describes her as wonderfully beautiful: "The all-seeing sun / ne'er saw her match since first the world begun." Rosaline, however, chooses to remain celibate; Romeo says: "She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow / Do I live dead that live to tell it now." This is the source of his depression, and he makes his friends unhappy; Mercutio comments: "That same pale, hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so that he will sure run mad." Benvolio urges Romeo to sneak into a Capulet gathering where, he claims, Rosaline will look like "a crow" alongside the other beautiful women. Romeo agrees, but doubts Benvolio's assessment. After Romeo sees Juliet his feelings suddenly change: "Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear it, sight / For I ne'er saw true beauty 'til this night." Because their relationship is sudden and secret, Romeo's friends and Friar Laurence continue to speak of his affection for Rosaline throughout much of the play.
Read more about this topic: Rosaline
Famous quotes containing the words role and/or play:
“You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“Work, as we usually think of it, is energy expended for a further end in view; play is energy expended for its own sake, as with children’s play, or as manifestation of the end or goal of work, as in “playing” chess or the piano. Play in this sense, then, is the fulfillment of work, the exhibition of what the work has been done for.”
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