ROMEO & JULIET
DRAMATURGY
ALLUSIONS
Romeo and Juliet is filled with references and allusions-- to Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, the planets and stars, and a host of other topics. Below is a sample of the mythology references in the play as well as a few links to outside "decoder" sources.
CUPID and DIANA
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Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian's wit
And in strong proof of chastity well armed
From love's weak bow she lives unarmed
(Romeo: I-1, 184-817).
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You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bond.
(Mercutio: I-4, 7-8).
Also called Eros, Cupid was Aphrodite's son. The Greeks depicted him as a young man; Romans depicted as a young boy. He is sometimes thought to be blind (hence the saying, “Love is blind.”)
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Cupid shoots special “love” arrows--gold = true love; lead = lust. If shot with his arrow, you’d fall in love with the first person you saw
Diana was the goddess of both hunting and childbirth. However, ironically, as the goddess of childbirth, she was also a sworn virgin.
AURORA
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But all so soon, as the all-cheering sun
Should in the furthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,
Away from the light steals home my heavy son,
And private in chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks far daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night.
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Montague: I-1: 120-126
Aurora is a minor Roman goddess who was believed to renew herself every morning and fly across the sky in her chariot drawn by her two horses called Lampetus and Phaethon, announcing the arrival of the sun. Her name is derived from the Latin word 'ausus' meaning dawn. She was the mother of the four winds, because, after a calm in the night, the winds rise in the morning with the sun. Aurora was the sister of Sol, god of the sun and Luna the goddess of the moon. Her Greek counterpart was Eos.
PYRAMUS AND THISBE
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Even without a specific text reference in Romeo and Juliet, the ancient tale was familiar to Shakespeare (because it appears in other works), and is inevitably an influence.
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Pyramus and Thisbe, hero and heroine of a Babylonian love story, in which they were able to communicate only through a crack in the wall between their houses; the tale was related by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Book IV.
Though their parents refused to consent to their union, the lovers at last resolved to flee together and agreed to meet under a mulberry tree. Thisbe, first to arrive, was terrified by the roar of a lioness and took to flight. In her haste she dropped her veil, which the lioness tore to pieces with jaws stained with the blood of an ox. Pyramus, believing that she had been devoured by the lioness, stabbed himself. When Thisbe returned and found her lover mortally wounded under the mulberry tree, she put an end to her own life.
From that time forward, legend relates, the fruit of the mulberry, previously white, was black. (britannica.com)
More references coming! Have a request? send me an email and I'll add it to my list!
