Romeo & Juliet Facts

Click on the pictures to see facts.

Fact #1“Two households, both alike in dignity,in fair Verona where we lay our scene.”

• The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare in 1595. The play is made

up of 3,003 lines and has a total of 24, 023 words.

Fact #2“My only love sprung from my only hate!

Too early seen unknown, and known too late!”

• In the original text Romeo speaks 617 linesand Juliet speaks 542.

Fact #3“But, soft! What light through yonder window

breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

• The potion the Friar gives Juliet in the playthat makes her appear dead lasts 42 hours, long

enough to prevent her from marrying Paris.

Fact #4“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

• Throughout all of Shakespeare’s works herefers to different types of birds over 600 times.

Fact #5“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

by any other name would smell as sweet.”

• As we look at the play in present day it may seemstrange that Juliet is marrying so young, but in

Elizabethan England the legal age for a girl to bemarried was 12 years old.

Fact #6“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet

sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

• William Shakespeare, who today is admired asone of the world literature’s greatest figures

never attended university.

Fact #7“O, I am fortunes fool!”

• The modern actress, Anne Hathaway, whostarred in The Princess Diaries movies and

Get Smart, was named after Shakespeare’s wife.

Fact #8“O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick!

Thus with a kiss I die.”

• The play’s first publication was in 1597 andit was released unauthorized and incomplete.

Fact #9“For never was a story of more woe than this of

Juliet and her Romeo.”

• When William was born there were twoShakespeare families living in Stratford. His

obviously became famous while the other did not.