The Prince Flashcards
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
The Prince is shown to hate the violence and fighting between the Capulets and Montagues and uses elaborate, figurative language to emphasises this alongside his high status. The metaphor ‘fountain’ creates an image of gushing or continuous flowing is blood showing the extent of the damage the feud has caused
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
He describes how Verona’s citizens even those extremely old are forced to fight either to protect themselves or protect one of the families
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace
Profanes of this neighbour-stained steel
His peaceful nature is again shown when he calls those fighting ‘rebellious’ and ‘enemies to peace’
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,
The use of the royal plural pronoun ‘our’ shows his control and power but also that every single citizen is affected by this. However, he may not have as much power as we first think as the fact that the fighting has happened 3 times suggest they don’t listen or respect him
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
He issues a royal decree in which he says that if they don’t stop fighting, they will die which sets up the conflict later in the play after Romeo kills Tybalt
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;
The possessive pronoun ‘my’ suggests that the Prince has been personally affected by the feud, Mercutio is the cousin of Prince Escalus and has been murdered despite having no bloodline ties to the Montague, or Capulet family. The fact that Mercutio is Prince Escalus’s cousin perhaps could also suggest why Romeos sentence was lowered to banishment, he was avenging Mercutio or maybe because he wants to try end the feud once for all
