"Two households both alike in dignity in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star crossed lovers take their life, whose misadventured piteous overthrows doth with their death, Bury their parents strife. The fearful passage of their death marked love, and the continuance of their parents rage, which but their children's end not could remove, is now the two hours traffic of our stage."
A female newscaster delivers what are the opening lines of Shakespeare's original play, which tell the viewer about an affair that ended in mutual suicide. The cadence of the delivery resembles a nightly news report, and specific phrases ("ancient grudge," "new mutiny," "civil blood makes civil hands unclean,") reappear as newspaper headlines in the montage to follow.
"Did my heart love 'til now? Forswear its sight. For I never saw true beauty 'til this night."
Romeo says this about Juliet. He is asking himself if he ever truly loved anyone before he saw Juliet because until he saw her tonight he believes his eyes were lying to him, as true beauty has only just now appeared in the form of Juliet, and no one can compare.
"Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! Serious vanity! Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!"
Romeo is scrawling these verses into his notebook when we first hear them in voice-over, and they signal his uncomprehending shock at the deranging effects that passionate feelings of love can have on the human mind. His string of paradoxes ("heavy lightness," "serious vanity") reflect the contrary, illogical qualities of love that continue to confound his heart and mind.
"Drugs are quick."
In Shakespeare's play, this line is Romeo's penultimate, after he takes the draught of poison given to him by the apothecary. In Luhrmann's film, Romeo recites this line during the Capulet party after taking the ecstasy tablet that Mercutio gave him at Sycamore Grove.
"And when I shall die, take him and cut him up in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will fall in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."
Juliet is expressing her deep love for Romeo in this moment. It is nearly a prayer in that she wishes when she dies he will become as bright as stars in the night sky that everyone will want night to come because they will see what she sees: the wonder of Romeo. And once they see it, the whole world will change from desiring the sun to yearning for night to come where they can see the face of Romeo once again.
"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet."
One of the most famous lines ever written. Juliet speaks about her anguished love for Romeo. She knows that because their families have a generational feud that they will forbid their love, but she says that she doesn't care what it will take: she will love him even if it means changing her family name for him.
"Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow."
This rhyming couplet crystallizes the bittersweet feeling of happiness and sadness that having to say goodbye to a loved one inflicts. Juliet is speaking to herself, having watched Romeo retreat from the courtyard back over the Capulet mansion walls, and is one of many remarks she makes expressing her impatience at having to wait for certain events to come to pass.
"I'll look to like, if looking liking move: But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent to give strength to make it fly."
This is Juliet's clever, canny reply to her mother's cajoling about whether she would be willing to entertain Paris as a potential groom. The line suggests that Juliet will entertain and tolerate Paris's presence, but feels she should be under no obligation to feel anything that she does not genuinely feel.
"Peace. Peace? I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee."
This line dramatically captures Tybalt's sneering disapproval at any attempts by the Montagues to de-escalate the battle that unfolds in the film's opening scene. Tybalt worships at the altar of violence, and believes wholly in the Capulets' righteous, quasi-religious quest to execute all of the heretical Montagues.
"I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind."
These lines come at the end of the Queen Mab speech, laying bare Mercutio's ambivalent feelings toward dreams. While they can be wonderful generators of pleasure and happiness, Mercutio warns that they are finally immaterial, and not to be relied upon.
