In the previous guide, we learned to use our sense of style to analyze a scene for what is happening (looking for direct language) and what is being felt (looking for heightened language).

In this guide we will demonstrate how heightened language works in the scene, and why it makes sense to use it.

Juliet

Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.  Direct

It was the nightingale and not the lark 

That pier'st the fearful hollow of thine ear.  Heightened

Nightly she sings on yond pom'granet tree.  Direct

Believe me, Love, it was the nightingale.  Direct

First, we need to understand the metaphor she is using:

It was the nightingale and not the lark

That pier'st the fearful hollow of thine ear. 

No nightingale actually is piercing his ear; it's a metaphor for the way the song the nightingale sings goes into the listener’s ear.  Romeo, fearful because he knows he must leave soon, would hear any noise as if it were a sword piercing his ear.  And if it were the lark, the song would be a higher pitched, sharper chirp, but Juliet says what he heard was the nightingale's, a lower and gentler coo.

That's the assurance she wants to give him with the metaphor, but there is more going on in the language than just the metaphor.

Using many of the same senses we used to make sense of their conversation at the party, let's play with this text.  First, listen for what sound is repeated as you say the heightened line out loud.

Juliet

It was the nightingale and not the lark 

That pier'st the fearful hollow of thine ear.

Hear the repeated "ee"? 

That pier'st the fearful hollow of thine ear.   

Juliet is smiling in that line.

Use your sense of movement to discover if there is a move she could make while she smiles.

How about  "piercing the hollow of [Romeo's] ear"?

Imagine Juliet smiling as takes her finger and "pierces" his ear.

Romeo

It was the lark the herald of the morn

Say the line out loud.  Hear the "ah"?

It was the lark the herald of the morn.

Romeo may be reacting with laughter -- "ah, ah, ah" -- as Juliet tickles his ear! His words may contradict Juliet, saying the song was that of the lark as it signaled (heralded) the entrance of morning, but he's sharing an emotional, physical response with her as he speaks, and then insists.

No, nightingale.

As he continues, we use our sense of movement, and realize there is a clue for blocking this scene.

Romeo

look, Love,

If Juliet is facing Romeo in the previous lines, here he directs her to look out, toward the morning sky.

Now, play with the sounds in the line:

Say the line out loud.

look, Love, what envious streaks

Do lace the sev’ring clouds in yonder East:

Night's candles are burnt out and jocond day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's tops.

Hear all the "ss" sounds?

look, Love, what envious streaks

Do lace the sev’ring clouds in yonder East:

Night's candles are burnt out and jocond day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's tops.

As in the party scene, Romeo may be whispering, this time whispering in her ear as they stand looking out together at the daylight breaking.

He is whispering, not to assure her, but to get her to see the danger they are watching develop, in the metaphor he is using.

The "envious streaks" that "lace" the "clouds" is the sun's beams are rising up into the sky and day is dawning -- the time he must be gone from Verona or face capture and death.  Night is no longer: "night's candles", the stars, have burnt out (not just blown out, but wholly extinguished).  And "jocund day" (a little irony there -- it is NOT a jocund, happy day at all, for them) "stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's tops (like an army poised to run down and lay siege to the city below).

Juliet's metaphor lets her express her love, playfully and with assurance.

Romeo's lets him express, yes his intimate love for her, but with a sense of the danger he is in that necessitates him leaving, as he then says.

I must be gone and live or stay and die.

How does Juliet feel as she responds?

Juliet

Yond light is not daylight, I know it I. Direct

It is some meteor that the sun exhales

To be to thee this night a torch-bearer

And light thee on thy way to Mantua. Heightened

First she just restates that the light they are seeing is not day light, as Romeo described it, but then she expands, or heightens, her answer:

It is some meteor that the sun exhales 
 

To be to thee this night a torch-bearer 
 

And light thee on thy way to Mantua.

Juliet continues the whispered intimacy

It is some meteor that the sun exhales

Then brings back a smile, in long "ee" and "i"

To be to thee this night a torch-bearer 
 

And light thee on thy way to Mantua.

And some puckers

To be to thee this night a torch-bearer 
 

And light thee on thy way to Mantua.

Her smiles and puckers will register with Romeo if she turns back to facing him. When Chicspeare staged the scene, Juliet turned back toward Romeo as she raised his arm and held it up on "torch-bearer", but then brought both their arms down, and wrapped his around her waist, as she said the direct line.

Therefore stay yet; thou needst not to be gone.

Which meant that SHE had "tak'n" HIM, when he said his next line

Let me be tak'n, ....

And with his arms around her waist, he was able to lift her off her feet and twirl her around as he said the rest of his line. With that interaction, she was as "tak'n" as he was, giving physical expression to how united they are, even as they are trying to separate.

The physical gestures we have found may seem more intense than the text would invite, but remember how, or rather when, this conversation starts.

Juliet is following Romeo as he leaves bedroom, coming out onto the balcony. They are married now and have just spent their first night together. It makes sense, coming from such an emotionally heightened state, that their language would express heightened emotions and be accompanied by intense physical gestures as well.

The direct language in these lines gave us the facts, but couldn't show the love. Mixing in these heightened lines, we "see the love" between Romeo and Juliet and understand why he changes his mind and stays.