99 Fun Facts About Romeo and Juliet

The prologue of Romeo and Juliet famously calls the doomed pair what kind of lovers?

Star-crossed means thwarted by the stars: before the story starts, the Chorus tells the audience that the lovers will die and that only their deaths will end their parents' feud.

In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet argues that which flower would smell as sweet whatever it was called?

A rose: Juliet is thinking aloud that Romeo would be just as dear without his family name, with no idea that he is hidden in the orchard below, hearing every word.

Before he meets Juliet, Romeo is lovesick over which unseen Capulet niece?

Rosaline has sworn to stay chaste, and Romeo gatecrashes the Capulet feast only in the hope of seeing her; one look at Juliet there and he forgets her.

Who marries Romeo and Juliet in secret, hoping to reconcile the families?

Friar Laurence loses his nerve when it matters most: hearing the watch approach, he flees the tomb and leaves the newly woken Juliet alone with her dead husband.

In Shakespeare's tragedy, who kills Mercutio?

Tybalt's sword gets through only because Romeo steps between the two men to stop the fight, and Mercutio is run through under his friend's arm.

In Romeo and Juliet, the dying Mercutio curses 'both your' what?

Houses, meaning the two feuding families: Mercutio belongs to neither, being the Prince's kinsman, yet their quarrel kills him, and he gasps out the curse three times.

What punishment does the Prince impose on Romeo for slaying Juliet's cousin?

Exile from the city is the Prince's mercy, since the law demanded death, yet Romeo calls banishment 'torture, and not mercy' because it parts him from Juliet.

Whom do Juliet's parents insist she marry, triggering the potion plot?

Count Paris is first told to wait two years because Juliet is so young; then, after her cousin is killed, her father abruptly fixes the wedding for that same week.

In Romeo and Juliet, the friar's potion should keep Juliet in a deathlike sleep for roughly how long?

About two days: the friar says 'two and forty hours', long enough for her family to lay her in their vault, where he means Romeo to be waiting when she wakes.

In Romeo and Juliet, why does the friar's letter fail to reach Romeo?

A plague outbreak halts travel: the friar carrying the letter is quarantined before he can set out, so the only word to reach Romeo is his servant's report that Juliet is dead.

In Romeo and Juliet, from whom does Romeo buy his poison?

An apothecary, so hungry and ragged that Romeo can talk him into breaking the law: selling such poison carried the death penalty, and he says his poverty consents, not his will.

In Romeo and Juliet, how does Juliet die?

Stabs herself with Romeo's dagger: she first kisses his lips in the hope that some poison still clings to them, then hears the watch coming and has no time for anything slower.

The last line of Romeo and Juliet says no story held more woe 'than this of' whom?

'Juliet and her Romeo': the Prince names her first so that 'Romeo' can rhyme with 'woe', and speaks the couplet as the two fathers at last shake hands over their children's bodies.

The prologue of Romeo and Juliet, spoken by a Chorus, takes which poetic form?

A sonnet: Shakespeare returns to the form when the lovers first speak, sharing fourteen rhyming lines about pilgrims and saints that end in their first kiss.

Which Ovid myth of forbidden lovers, where one wrongly thinks the other dead, is an ancestor of Romeo and Juliet?

Pyramus and Thisbe is also the play the bungling workmen stage in A Midsummer Night's Dream, written around the same time, so Shakespeare told one story as both tragedy and farce.

Which famous feature of Romeo and Juliet's best-known scene did later stagings add to Shakespeare's text?

The balcony: Shakespeare only has Juliet appear 'above' at a window, and the word never occurs in the play; adapters gave her one generations after his death.

Factions called Montecchi and Cappelletti appear in a 14th-century epic poem by which Italian writer?

Dante names them in his Purgatorio only as one more pair of Italy's quarrelling factions, with no lovers in sight; the romance was attached to the names some two centuries later.

Which cousin of Romeo tries to break up the opening street brawl, crying 'Part, fools!'?

Benvolio draws only to part the servants, but Tybalt arrives, sneers that he hates the word peace and turns the scuffle into a riot; halfway through the play Benvolio simply vanishes.

As she bids Romeo good night, Juliet calls parting 'such sweet' what?

Sorrow: she says she could go on bidding him good night 'till it be morrow', and by then the pair have already agreed to marry, within hours of first meeting.

Some scholars date Romeo and Juliet to 1591 because a character recalls which event 'eleven years' earlier?

An earthquake: the line was read as a nod to the tremor that shook London in April 1580, though the play's style links it to others written around 1594-95.

In Romeo and Juliet, the friar warns Romeo that 'these violent delights have violent' what?

Ends: the friar likens sudden passion to fire meeting gunpowder, used up in the instant they touch, and urges Romeo to 'love moderately' instead.

Which diarist called Romeo and Juliet 'the worst that ever I heard in my life' after seeing it in 1662?

Samuel Pepys saw the play's first night on 1 March 1662 and found the actors so unsure of their lines that he vowed never again to watch a play on its opening performance.

Which 18th-century actor-manager's cleaned-up version of Romeo and Juliet held the stage for nearly a century?

David Garrick cut the bawdy jokes but kept one crowd-pleasing change from earlier adapters: Juliet wakes before Romeo dies, giving the lovers a last farewell Shakespeare never wrote.

At the end of Romeo and Juliet, what do the grieving fathers vow to raise for the lovers?

Statues of pure gold: Montague offers one of Juliet and Capulet matches it with one of Romeo, but peace comes too late for Lady Montague, who has died of grief that very night.

In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet insists the bird singing at dawn is the nightingale, not which other bird?

The lark sings at daybreak, and daybreak means Romeo must leave or be killed; Juliet gives up the pretence moments later and hurries him away herself.

Which character carries secret messages between Romeo and Juliet and fetches the rope ladder for their wedding night?

The Nurse later betrays that trust, urging Juliet to forget her husband and take the match her parents want, and Juliet never confides in her again.

Mercutio's fantastical Act 1 speech in Romeo and Juliet is about which fairy?

Queen Mab, the fairies' midwife, rides a tiny chariot over sleepers' noses and hands each the dream they crave; Mercutio conjures her up to mock Romeo for trusting a dream.

Fatally wounded in Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio jokes that tomorrow he will be what kind of man?

A grave man, meaning both solemn and buried: Mercutio keeps punning to the last, dismissing the fatal wound as 'a scratch' even as he sends for a surgeon.

How did Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer, stars of MGM's 1936 Romeo and Juliet, differ from Shakespeare's lovers?

They were decades older: Howard was 43 and both stars were at least twice the lovers' age, in a film that producer Irving Thalberg built around Shearer, his wife.

Who directed the 1968 film of Romeo and Juliet starring teenagers Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey?

Franco Zeffirelli had already staged the play at London's Old Vic in 1960, with Judi Dench as Juliet, and built the film on that production, this time shooting on location in Italy.

Who spoke the prologue and epilogue of the 1968 film of Romeo and Juliet, uncredited?

Laurence Olivier did more than narrate: he also dubbed the voice of the Italian actor playing Lord Montague, and still took no screen credit.

Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet is set in a fictional place called what?

Verona Beach keeps Shakespeare's lines by stamping its guns with model names like 'Sword' and 'Rapier', and turns the Prince into the police chief, Captain Prince.

Where was most of Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet actually filmed?

Mexico City stood in for the film's American setting: the Capulet mansion is really Chapultepec Castle, and just some scenes were shot in the United States, in Miami.

Who played Juliet opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo + Juliet?

Claire Danes got the part after Natalie Portman, cast first, was judged to look too young beside DiCaprio; he pushed for Danes because she didn't flirt with him at the audition.

In West Side Story, which gang corresponds to the Capulets?

The Sharks are led by Bernardo, whose sister Maria is the story's Juliet; unlike Shakespeare's heroine she is still alive at the end, holding the dying Tony.

Who wrote the lyrics for the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story, to Leonard Bernstein's music?

Stephen Sondheim wanted to write music as well and nearly turned the job down; his mentor Oscar Hammerstein talked him into it, saying he could always write his own music later.

Who won an Oscar as Anita in 1961's West Side Story?

Rita Moreno's award was one of the film's ten Oscars; sixty years later Ariana DeBose won the same Oscar for the same role in Steven Spielberg's remake, in which Moreno also appears.

Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet was originally rejected partly because the composer had written what?

A happy ending: Prokofiev was talked into restoring the tragedy, and even then the ballet first reached the stage in 1938 in Brno, Czechoslovakia, more than a year before any Soviet theatre danced it.

Which Russian composer's Romeo and Juliet overture has a love theme often quoted in film and television romances?

Tchaikovsky wrote it at the prompting of his senior colleague Mily Balakirev, who suggested the subject and an outline and then criticised the result; the version heard today is the second revision, from 1880.

Which French composer of Faust wrote the 1867 opera Roméo et Juliette, with its waltz song 'Je veux vivre'?

Charles Gounod built the opera around four duets for the lovers and bent the plot to fit a last one: Juliette wakes before the poison has finished Roméo, so they can sing together once more.

Taylor Swift's 'Love Story' retells Romeo and Juliet but changes the ending to what?

A marriage proposal: Swift wrote the song on her bedroom floor after a row with her parents over a boy they disliked, and gave her lovers the ending she felt they deserved.

Which British rock band released the song 'Romeo and Juliet' on its 1980 album Making Movies?

Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler wrote it after his breakup with the singer Holly Vincent, casting himself as a Romeo whose Juliet finds fame and leaves him behind.

In Shakespeare in Love (1998), which merchant's daughter becomes the playwright's lover while he writes Romeo and Juliet?

Viola de Lesseps disguises herself as a boy to get on stage, since women were banned from acting, and finally plays Juliet opposite Shakespeare's own Romeo.

The 2011 animated film Gnomeo & Juliet, a garden-gnome Romeo and Juliet, features songs by which pop star?

Elton John also produced the film, which moves the feud to two neighbours' gardens of red-hatted and blue-hatted gnomes and, unlike the play, lets both lovers walk away alive.

Who plays R, the lovesick zombie in the Romeo and Juliet-inspired 2013 film Warm Bodies?

Nicholas Hoult's zombie R falls for Julie after eating her boyfriend's brain and absorbing his memories of her, and the feeling slowly brings him back to life.

Which R&B star made her film debut opposite Jet Li in Romeo Must Die (2000)?

Aaliyah also sang the soundtrack's number-one hit 'Try Again'; she died in a plane crash the next year, so her only other film, Queen of the Damned, came out after her death.

A 2017 GCSE English exam question on Romeo and Juliet made headlines for what mistake?

Confusing the Capulets and Montagues: the OCR exam board's question put a character in the wrong family, about 14,000 pupils sat the paper, and the regulator Ofqual called the error unacceptable.

Which 2013 Bollywood take on Romeo and Juliet starred Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone as lovers from feuding clans?

Ram-Leela sets the feud between two clans of a gun-making village in Gujarat; a court order just before release forced a change of title, so it opened as Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela.

Thomas Otway's 1679 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet moved the lovers from Verona to which setting?

Ancient Rome: Otway's Caius Marius put the lovers in the middle of a Roman civil war, and for about seventy years it was the only version of the story on the London stage.

In Juliet's cry 'wherefore art thou Romeo?', spoken alone at her window, what does 'wherefore' mean?

'Wherefore' means 'why': Juliet is lamenting that the man she loves is a Montague, not asking where he is. Romeo is hiding in the orchard below, hearing every word.

Which insulting gesture by the servant Sampson sparks the street brawl that opens Romeo and Juliet?

Biting his thumb is Sampson's insult to the Montague men. Asked if it is aimed at them, he first checks whether the law would be on his side, then dodges a straight answer.

In Romeo and Juliet, which flower does Juliet say 'by any other name would smell as sweet'?

A rose is Juliet's proof that names do not matter: Romeo, she argues, would keep all his perfection if he were not called a Montague, since only his name is her enemy.

During the orchard scene of Romeo and Juliet, what does Juliet beg Romeo not to swear his love by?

The moon is too fickle for Juliet, who calls it inconstant because it changes every month. She tells Romeo to swear by his own gracious self, or better, not to swear at all.

How old is Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, with her next birthday about two weeks away?

Thirteen is Juliet's age: her nurse recalls that she turns fourteen on Lammas Eve, and her father at first asks her suitor to let two more summers pass before a wedding.

In Shakespeare's own theatre in the 1590s, what kind of performer first played Juliet?

A boy actor took the part, probably Master Robert Goffe. The first woman thought to have played Juliet professionally, Mary Saunderson, did not do so until 1662.

Voyager 2 found Juliet, a satellite named for Shakespeare's heroine, orbiting which planet in 1986?

Uranus is circled by Juliet alongside fellow Shakespeare heroines Portia and Rosalind, and astronomers think she may collide with her neighbour Desdemona within 100 million years.

In Romeo and Juliet, what favour does a Capulet servant ask of Romeo when they meet in the street?

The servant needs someone to read a guest list, because he cannot read the names he has been sent to invite. Romeo reads them aloud and so learns of the feast he then gatecrashes.

At dawn after their wedding night, which bird does Juliet insist she and Romeo have just heard?

The nightingale, a singer of the night, is Juliet's hopeful claim. Romeo answers that it was the lark, the herald of the morn, and that he must be gone and live, or stay and die.

Complete the friar's pre-wedding warning in Romeo and Juliet: 'These violent delights have violent…'?

The line closes on 'ends', and goes on to liken reckless passion to fire and gunpowder, which destroy each other as they kiss. HBO's Westworld borrowed the line for its first episode.

In Romeo and Juliet, what penalty does the Prince set for street fighting after the opening brawl?

Death is the price: 'your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace', the Prince warns both family heads, after three brawls bred of an airy word have disturbed his streets.

Meeting Juliet at the feast, Romeo likens his lips to two blushing what, ready to kiss her hand?

Pilgrims is Romeo's image: he calls Juliet's hand a holy shrine, she answers him as 'good pilgrim', and the witty exchange closes with their first kiss.

Complete Juliet's line on learning Romeo's family name: 'My only love sprung from my only…'?

'Hate' completes the line, rhyming with 'known too late': Juliet has just heard from her nurse that the stranger she kissed is a Montague, the only son of her family's great enemy.

After the Act 3 duels in Romeo and Juliet, who accuses the Montague eyewitness of lying to the Prince?

Lady Capulet makes the charge, saying affection makes the witness false because he is a kinsman to the Montague. She begs the Prince for justice against Romeo.

Why does Romeo at first refuse to fight when challenged to a duel in Act 3 of Romeo and Juliet?

His secret marriage has made the challenger his kinsman for barely an hour, so Romeo answers insults with talk of love. A disgusted friend calls it 'calm, dishonourable, vile submission'.

Complete dying Mercutio's pun in Romeo and Juliet: 'Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me…'?

'A grave man' is the joke: serious for once, and in his grave. Mercutio shrugs off the wound as not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church door, but enough.

In Romeo and Juliet, what does Romeo call himself moments after killing his new wife's cousin?

'Fortune's fool' is Romeo's cry as he blames fate for the killing, which comes barely an hour after his wedding. His cousin has to hurry him away before the citizens arrive.

What does Juliet's nurse fetch so that Romeo can climb to Juliet's room on the wedding night?

A rope ladder, 'cords made like a tackled stair', is Romeo's way up. When news of the duel reaches Juliet first, she mourns that the poor ropes have been cheated, as she has.

In Romeo and Juliet, what excuse lets Juliet leave home on the afternoon she marries Romeo?

Going to confession, or 'shrift', is the cover story. Her nurse asks whether she has leave to go to shrift that day, then sends her to the friar's cell, where a husband is waiting.

After the fatal duel in Romeo and Juliet, which token does Juliet send to Romeo by her nurse?

A ring is her token for her 'true knight', sent with a plea that he come to take his last farewell. When it reaches him in hiding, Romeo says his comfort is revived.

On which day of the week does Lord Capulet originally plan to hold Juliet's arranged wedding?

Thursday is the plan, made on a Monday because Wednesday seemed too soon. Pleased by Juliet's apparent change of heart, he later pulls the wedding forward a day, wrecking the friar's timing.

How does Lord Capulet respond in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet refuses the husband he has chosen?

Lord Capulet threatens to disown her, saying she may hang, beg, starve and die in the streets. Earlier he had told her suitor that his own will was only a part of her consent.

At the end of Romeo and Juliet, what does each grieving father promise to raise to the other's child?

A golden statue of Juliet is Montague's promise, and Capulet pledges one as rich of Romeo to lie beside it, calling the dead pair 'poor sacrifices of our enmity'.

Which character in Romeo and Juliet is reported dead of grief when the families gather at the tomb?

Lady Montague has died that very night: her husband tells the Prince that grief over their son stopped her breath, adding one more loss to the feud's toll.

In Mantua, how does Romeo hear that Juliet has been laid in the Capulet family tomb?

Romeo hears it from his manservant Balthasar, who saw Juliet laid in the vault and rode straight to tell him. The friar's letter explaining the trick never arrives.

Just before bad news reaches him in Mantua, Romeo dreams that Juliet's kisses revive him as what?

An emperor is what the dream makes him, after Juliet finds him dead and breathes life into his lips. Minutes later he learns she lies in the tomb, the dream turned upside down.

What does Juliet's bereaved suitor come to scatter at the Capulet tomb on the night Romeo breaks in?

Flowers are his tribute, with sweet water to sprinkle there each night. His page whistles a warning that someone is coming, and the mourner stays to confront the intruder.

What is the friar of Romeo and Juliet doing at dawn when Romeo arrives asking to be married?

Gathering herbs into a wicker basket, he reflects that one small plant can hold both poison and medicine, a quiet forecast of the potion to come.

Complete Romeo's last words in the tomb in Romeo and Juliet: 'Thus with a kiss I…'?

'Die' is his last word. Moments earlier Romeo marvels that Juliet's lips and cheeks are still crimson, never guessing that she is alive and about to wake.

Which idiom for a hopeless pursuit appears in Mercutio's banter in Romeo and Juliet, among its earliest recorded uses?

'Wild-goose chase' was the name of a follow-the-leader horse race, which is what Mercutio alludes to, not a hunt for birds. The hopeless-quest sense grew out of it.

How do Romeo and his Montague friends get into the Capulet feast uninvited in Romeo and Juliet?

Wearing masks, they pass as masquers come to dance. The disguise is thin: Juliet's cousin knows Romeo by his voice at once and sends a boy to fetch his rapier.

Complete Juliet's farewell to Romeo at her window: 'Parting is such sweet…'?

'Sorrow' completes it, and the couplet runs on: she could say good night till it be morrow. Moments earlier Juliet likens Romeo to a pet bird she might kill with too much cherishing.

In West Side Story, the musical modelled on Romeo and Juliet, what are the two young lovers called?

Tony and Maria are the lovers, kept apart by rival New York street gangs rather than feuding families. They first see each other across the floor at a dance in a gym.

Complete the Prince's verdict over the dead lovers in Romeo and Juliet: 'All are…'?

'All are punished', the Prince declares, and he counts himself in: for winking at the families' discords, he says, he has lost a brace of kinsmen.

Which 1976 rock hit tells listeners that Romeo and Juliet 'are together in eternity'?

(Don't Fear) The Reaper holds up the lovers as a couple reunited in the afterlife. Songwriter Buck Dharma was appalled that some listeners heard the Blue Öyster Cult song as encouraging suicide.

In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio mocks Juliet's fiery cousin as 'prince' and 'king' of which animals?

Cats: the cousin shares his name with the 'prince of cats' in the Reynard the Fox stories, so Mercutio taunts him by asking for one of his nine lives.

Seeing Juliet for the first time at the feast, Romeo says she teaches what to burn bright?

The torches, he says, could learn from her: she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel, a snowy dove trooping with crows.

Which future Dame played Juliet with the Old Vic company in 1960, three years after her stage debut?

Judi Dench was the Old Vic's Juliet in 1960. Decades later she won an Oscar as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, a film about the writing of the play.

The friar who marries Romeo and Juliet belongs to which religious order, whose founder he swears by?

Franciscans: he cries 'Holy Saint Francis!' at Romeo's sudden change of heart, and a brother friar later greets him at his cell as 'Holy Franciscan friar'.

Shakespeare cut the story of Romeo and Juliet, nine months long in his source poem, to about how long?

Under a week: the play spans just four to six days, and critics count that headlong haste among its central themes.

In Romeo and Juliet, which Italian poet does Mercutio joke that lovesick Romeo is now writing like?

Petrarch is the name Mercutio drops, sneering that the poet's adored Laura was a kitchen-wench beside Romeo's lady, though she had the better love to write rhymes about her.

Which clown of Shakespeare's company does the 1599 text of Romeo and Juliet name in place of Peter?

Will Kemp's own name slipped into the printed text where the servant's should be. Peter and Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing are the only two parts he is known for certain to have played.

Which leading tragedian of Shakespeare's company is thought to have been the first to play Romeo?

Richard Burbage probably created the part as the company's chief tragic player. He was also the first Hamlet, and took the title roles in Othello and King Lear.

Which French composer dedicated his 1839 choral symphony Roméo et Juliette to the violinist Paganini?

Hector Berlioz was first inspired by an 1827 Paris performance of the play whose cast included Harriet Smithson, the actress who later became his wife.

The 1599 edition of Romeo and Juliet is titled 'The Most Excellent and' what kind of 'Tragedie'?

'Lamentable' is the word on the 1599 title page, which also boasts that the text is newly corrected, augmented and amended. It runs about 800 lines longer than the first printing.

In Romeo and Juliet, what was the name of the nurse's dead daughter, born the same year as Juliet?

Susan 'is with God', the nurse says. Having lost a baby of Juliet's age, she breastfed Juliet herself and never forgot the day she weaned her.

Which star actress played Juliet opposite Henry Irving's Romeo at London's Lyceum Theatre in 1882?

Ellen Terry was Irving's Juliet in a lavish production now seen as the archetype of the Victorian pictorial style, with spectacular sets and elaborate stage pictures.

When Romeo and Juliet marry in secret, roughly how long have the two known each other?

Less than a day: they meet at the feast one night, and at dawn Romeo is already begging the friar to marry them 'today'. The wedding takes place that afternoon.

When Juliet wakes in the tomb in Romeo and Juliet, where does the panicking friar offer to hide her?

In a convent, 'among a sisterhood of holy nuns', is his hurried offer. Then, hearing the watch coming, he says he dare stay no longer and leaves her alone with Romeo's body.

In Romeo and Juliet, why does the dying Mercutio blame Romeo for the wound he takes in the duel?

He stepped between them to stop the fight, and the fatal thrust came in under his arm. 'I thought all for the best' is all the stricken Romeo can answer.