ROMEO AND JULIET: CHARACTERS AND TEXT

Cast of characters

[edit] Ruling house of Verona
Prince Escalus: Prince of Verona.
Count Paris: Kin of Prince Escalus; desires to marry Juliet. Is killed by Romeo at the end of the play.
Mercutio: Kinsman of Prince Escalus and friend of Romeo; killed by Tybalt when Romeo interrupts their duel. His name derives from Mercury.

The Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets (1854) by Frederic Leighton

[edit] Capulets
Lord Capulet: Head of the house of Capulet; very wealthy.
Lady Capulet: Wife of Lord Capulet; wishes Juliet to marry Paris.
Juliet: Thirteen-year-old daughter of the Capulets; loves and marries Romeo.
Tybalt: Cousin of Juliet; angry and pugnacious; killed by Romeo, as vengeance for killing Mercutio. His nickname of "the Prince of Cats" may refer to the quarrelsome and vicious character of Tybalt the Cat in the fable cycle Reynard the Fox, which would have been well-known to Shakespeare's audience. Name derived from tyrant.

[edit] Servants
Nurse: Juliet's personal attendant and confidante: assists Juliet in her secret betrothal to Romeo.
Peter: Capulet servant, assistant of the nurse.
Sampson: Capulet servant; eager to fight the Montagues.
Gregory: Capulet servant.

[edit] Montagues
Montague: Head of the house of Montague.
Lady Montague: Wife of Lord Montague
Romeo: Son of the Montagues; loves and marries Juliet. Name comes from the word romance.
Benvolio: Cousin of Romeo. His name means "good will".

[edit] Servants
Abram: Montague servant.
Balthasar: Romeo's personal servant.

[edit] Others
Friar Laurence: Franciscan friar and Romeo's confidant; he marries Romeo and Juliet. He gives Juliet the sleeping potion that prevents her marriage to Count Paris.
Friar John: Another friar sent by Friar Lawrence to tell Romeo that Juliet awaits him; fails in this mission.
Apothecary: Druggist who reluctantly sells Romeo the poison.

[edit] Text of the play
Romeo and Juliet was published in two distinct quarto editions prior to the publication of the First Folio of 1623. These are referred to as Q1 and Q2.
Q1 was published in 1597. Because its text contains numerous differences from the later editions, it is labelled a 'Bad Quarto' composited from actors' memories of their lines, rather than on Shakespeare's manuscript or theatre text. It may have been put together by the actors who had played the roles of Romeo and Paris, since their lines are reasonably complete and uncorrupted in comparison to the rest of the play. Modern people would consider this a "pirate" edition, but the practice was far from unusual at the time.
Q2, a much more complete and reliable text, was first published in 1599, and reprinted in 1609, 1623 and 1637. Its title page describes it as "Newly corrected, augmented and amended". Scholars believe that this text was based on Shakespeare's pre-performance draft, since there are textual oddities such as variable tags for characters and "false starts" for speeches that were presumably struck through by the author but erroneously preserved by the typesetter.
The First Folio text of 1623 seems to be based primarily on the 1609 reprint of Q2, with some clarifications and corrections possibly coming from a theatrical promptbook