Author: Angela Hormberg

Romeo and Juliet: A Memento Mori for Us All

Romeo and Juliet ends in a tomb. As Lady Capulet enters, she exclaims,

“O me! This sight of death is as a bell,

That warns my old age to a sepulchre” (5.3.204-205). 

The sight of Romeo and Juliet is not just a ‘Memento Mori’ for Lady Capulet but also for the audience. Here is the result of passion unchecked by reason. In this scene, viewers of the play are presented with a physical representation of the warning words of Ecclesiastes 7:2 “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart” (NIV). In this way, Shakespeare follows Christian tradition and calls the Christian reader to pause and reflect on their individual mortality and sin, like Dante, who preceded him.  Shakespeare also paved the way for future Christian writers, like Jane Austen.

Romeo and Juliet are reminiscent of Francesca and Paolo from Dante’s Inferno. Paolo and Francesca, who was Paolo’s sister-in-law, succumbed to lust and were discovered by Francesca’s husband/Paolo’s brother, who murdered them. From Dante’s Inferno, translated by John Ciardi, we learn Paolo and Francesca were condemned to the Second Circle of Hell, where they were “swept by a great whirlwind, which spins within it the souls of the Carnal, those who betrayed reason to their appetites” (Allighieri and Ciardi).

“Love, which permits no loved one not to love,

took [Francesca] so strongly with delight in [Paolo]

that [they] are one in Hell, as [they] were above” (Canto V, 100-103).

While both Romeo and Juliet betray “reason to their appetites” at various points in the play, they differ from Paolo and Francesca in that they did marry and remained pure, thanks in part to the Friar, who prevented Romeo and Juliet from being alone and having the opportunity to indulge in their lustful desires.   Still, lustful thoughts are something in which they both indulged.

Dorothy Sayers’ commentary, in her translation of the Inferno, addresses the issue of lust in the Second Circle of Hell, as follows:

“The image here is sexual, though we need not confine the allegory to the sin of unchastity.  Lust is a type of shared sin; at its best, and so long as it remains a sin of incontinence only, there is a mutuality in it and exchange: although, in fact, mutual indulgence only serves to push both parties along the road to Hell, it is not, in intention, wholly selfish” (101).

Sayers’ description is helpful, because it allows that, since Juliet returned his love, Romeo was not completely selfish.  We see this at other times, too, when he attempts to do good or be good, such as, when he attempted to put Tybalt off from fighting, when he said,

“I do protest I never injur’d thee,

But love thee better than thou cast devise

Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;

And so, good Capulet – which name I tender

As dearly as mine own – be satisfied” (3.1.66-70).

Unfortunately, after Mercutio’s death, Romeo sends mercy back to heaven and takes on “fire-ey’d fury” (3.1.121) as his guide.  When Tybalt returns, Romeo kills him.

Again, Romeo struggles with mercy and self-control in the cemetery, when he encounters Paris.  At first, he rejects fighting with Paris and says,

“I beseech thee, youth,

Put not another sin upon my head

By urging me to fury; O, be gone!” (5.3.61-64)

When Paris refuses to be put off from fighting, Romeo gives in to passion and says to Paris,

“Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy” (5.3.70).

Romeo then proceeds to fight and kill Paris. Romeo has as little control over his anger as he does over his love, and it is his lack of self-control that brings about his downfall. 

Following in this tradition, Jane Austen would later emerge with her own type of Francesa and Paolo/Romeo and Juliet, Marianne and Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility.  Their love story also proceeds at a frenetic pace, as they are swept along by passion.  While a blog post does not allow space for a full explication between the two sets of lovers, I would suggest that Willoughby’s final scene with Elinor is somewhat like Romeo’s final scene, when Romeo, after hearing of Juliet’s supposed death, rushes through the night at breakneck speed to the Sepulchre to join Juliet, as she lies in a deathlike state before him. In a similar way, Willoughby flies through the night to Colonel Brandon’s seeking news of Marianne, who he has heard lays there dying.  Willoughby seeks to heap responsibility for his actions upon his wife, Mrs. Willoughby, like Romeo, who shifted his responsibility onto the “yoke of the inauspicious stars” (5.3.111), and like Francesca before them, who laid her responsibility on “Galleot, Galleot the complying Ribald who wrote” (Alighieri and Sayers, Canto V.137-138).  However, unlike Romeo, who had no confessor in his final scene, save all the dead bodies surrounding him, or Francesca, who had the compassionate ear of Dante, Willoughby, upon his arrival at the supposed death bed of his love, was met with the stalwart presence of reason, Elinor Dashwood, who proclaimed “You have made your own choice.  It was not forced on you” (Austen).  For her part, Marianne Dashwood defeats death, unlike her predecessor, Juliet, and goes on to learn from her poor choices.

“Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.  She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her conduct, her most favourite maxims” (Austen).

It’s important to note that while Juliet gives in to lust like Romeo, she is more like Marianne, an innocent, young woman, with parental issues.  Her father has died and her mother is too much like her.  Fortunately, Marianne has Elinor, whereas Juliet had no one.

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante.  Inferno. Translated by John Ciardi. New American Library, 2003. Canto V, Lines 100-103.

Alighieri, Dante.  The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, the Florentine, Cantica I: Hell. Translated by Dorothy Sayers. Penguin Books, 1949. Canto V, pages 101-102.

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility. Edited by R.W. Chapman. Oxford University Press, 1965, p 329 & 378.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. Edited by Joseph Pearce. Ignatius Critical Edition, 2011.

If you would like to cite a portion of this post, here is the MLA citation. Writing this post took quite a bit of time, so please remember to include the citation. Thank you! (Note: you will need to fill in the date you accessed the article.)

Hormberg, Angela. (2024, Dec 21).”Romeo and Juliet:A Memento Mori for Us All.” Angela Hormberg. http://angelahormberg.com/2024/12/20/romeo-and-juliet/

© 2024 Angela Hormberg