Adam Silbert                                                                                                   May 17, 2002

Freshman Studies II                                                                                        Ms. Gokturk

            The poet and author Virgil wrote, “Love conquers all things. Let us too surrender to love.”   The power of love to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles has been the subject of countless works of art and literature.  In Shakespeare’s classic, Romeo and Juliet, love finds the children of feuding families who take Virgil’s advice and surrender to its power.  As a result, love ultimately heals the warring Capulets and Montagues but it does so at a tragic cost.  The play provides ample evidence that Shakespeare clearly agreed with Virgil in his analysis of love’s power and he wanted to illustrate its all- consuming power as well as mankind’s inherent desire to be loved in his literary masterpiece.

            The unique nature of love is addressed early in the play.  Shakespeare notes that love can be both a delight and a burden, so strong is its effect on our being.  In a vain attempt to categorize it, Romeo asks, “What is it else? A madness most discreet/a choking gall and a persevering sweet.” (Act I, sc i, lines 187-188).  In this passage, the author illustrates the duality of love.  It is described as being both maddening and sweet.  In much the same way that narcotics provide exhilarating highs, they also collapse into debilitating lows.  Yet, it is the high that feeds the addiction.  Shakespeare recognizes love’s power to bring both pleasure and pain.  Adding to love’s power is its ability to touch anyone at anytime, acting stealthily, “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs” (Act I, sc i, line 185).  Everyone is always vulnerable to love as Romeo finds out when he first lays eyes on Juliet.  Love can travel as weightlessly as perfume on the wind.   Perhaps most importantly in the play, we see that love is blind to hate.  Virgil recognizes this when he suggests we resign ourselves to love because it can arise even from hatred and thus overcome it.  Shakespeare agrees when Juliet cries out, “My only love, sprung from my only hate!/Too early seen unknown and known too late!/Prodigious birth of love it is to me/that I must love a loathed enemy.” (Act I, sc v, lines 139-142).  This powerful moment illustrates love’s power to triumph over irrational hate.

            If love is indeed capable of universal conquest as Virgil suggests, then it must somehow invigorate mind and spirit to triumph over obstacles.  Again, Shakespeare agrees when Romeo tells Juliet that, “with love’s light wings o’erperch these walls/for stony limits cannot hold love out/and what love can do, that dares love attempt:/therefore thy kinsman are no stop to me.” (Act II, sc ii, lines 65-69)  In Romeo’s case, love has made it possible for him to rise to unattainable heights and defeat any who might stand in his way.  In Juliet’s case, love makes her appear to be even more ethereal than in reality, “A lover may bestride the gossamer/that idles in the wantan summer air/and not yet fall so light is vanity.” (Act II, sc vi, lines 18-20).  She too, is seemingly elevated, a result of being touched by love.  Certainly the power of love would have no place to take root if mankind did not want it.  Virgil stated that we should surrender to its warm embrace.  Shakespeare agrees and makes this clear when he writes that Romeo’s sadness could be relieved if he were in love.  When Benvolio asks what it is that lengthens Romeo’s sad hours, Romeo replies, “Not having that which, having, makes them short.” (Act I, sc i, line 159).  He is referring to love.  We can easily relate to Romeo’s longing for love since this is a universal aspiration for all mankind, to love and be loved.

            In the final analysis both Virgil and Shakespeare are in awe of the supremacy of love.  Friar Lawrence realizes that love’s power can put an end to hate.  He tells Romeo that his marriage to Juliet will serve to quench the hatred between the Capulets and the Montagues.  He says that, “This alliance may so happy prove/to turn your households’ rancour to pure love.” (Act II, sc iii, lines 93-94).  Shakespeare makes it clear to us that love can conquer all obstacles, even those that arise from irrational origins.  Romeo and Juliet believe in the power of love.  They know that the mindless feud that separates them is based not on feelings but mere nomenclature.  If their last names were different they could revel in their love in plain sight.  However, their family names keep them apart.  They want love to rectify the situation.  Romeo says, “Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptised:/henceforth I never will be Romeo.” (Act II, sc ii, lines 41-50).  Although he is speaking literally, his desire is clear.  If he is loved then he will be “new” and no longer bound by a name.  In Romeo and Juliet love does conquer the hatred of the Montagues and Capulets, albeit at a price they could ill afford.  “A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life:/whose misadventured piteous overthrows,/doth with their death bury their parent’s strife.” (Prologue lines 6-9).  Sadly it takes the death of their children who were brought together by a love so powerful that it defied their own prohibitions against it to bring the families together.   Love did conquer all but Romeo and Juliet’s surrender to their hearts cost them their lives.

            Although a thousand years separated Shakespeare and Virgil, it is clear that they both recognized the incredible power of love.  In Romeo and Juliet, love triumphs over blind hatred when it comes to children whose hearts are pure and open to its mysterious ways.  Shakespeare’s beautifully crafted words show that he too agreed with Virgil that mankind is at its most victorious when it surrenders to love.