Scene IV
1. Role of Mercutio View of love – Queen mab speech
* If love be rough with you, be rough with love; (I.iii.26)
* Love is worth anything, it is useless
* Queen Mab speech
* “O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.”
* powerful statement
* Written in iambic pentameter
* Reflects Romeo’s lovesick whims
* she comes in shape no bigger than an agate-stone
* characteristic of fairy
* Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spider's web, The collars of the moonshine's watery beams
* Surrounded by animals and birds
* Image of fairy
* Lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
* He thinks that love is very just a dream; not realistic
* O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
* Everything happens in dream
* This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage
* Doesn’t take love seriously, keeps making a humor out of love
2. Significance of Romeo’s last speech
* Some consequence yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
* Fear about sneeking into the party of capulets
* Thinks some problem might occur
* Of a despised life closed in my breast, By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
* Scared of death and fighting
3. Shakespeare’s view on love
* Is love a tender thing? it is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn. (I.iii.25)
* Love is shown to be rough, blind and immature
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