A Thing Like Death Shakespeares Narcotic Theater

If the sleeping potions of Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra reflect the form of the plays, they also underline the difficulty in classifying that form. As Shakespeare s only double tragedies and, along with Othello, his only ventures into the Italianate 

From the outset of the play, its primary problem—the misery caused by erotic love—is identified with the dangerous power of visual spectacles to destroy their onlookers. In his first scenes, Romeo is incapacitated with longing for Rosaline s unattainable beauty, but the proposed remedies mirror his troubles. When Benvolio advises him to give liberty unto thine eye (I.i.225), Romeo protests that gazing upon other women would only intensify his unhappiness by emphasizing Rosaline s incomparable perfection. Even Benvolio implicitly suggests that the solution may be at least as painful as the problem  

One desperate grief cures with another s languish  

Even before Juliet has entered the play, her imminent appearance in Romeo s life is identified with the effect of a poison, albeit a curative one. Despite the comic ease and apparently pragmatic intentions of Benvolio s advice, the solution he offers has a distinctly dark undertone. His easy symmetries and correspondingly neat rhymes suggest that his cure will only replace one anguish and desperate grief with another Juliet may be a remedy, but she will ultimately cause as much pain as does Rosaline, the infection that she is meant to treat. 

After the sight of Juliet has jolted Romeo out of one crisis and into the next, Benvolio s vocabulary of poisonous cures echoes in Friar Lawrence s meditations on the powers and perils of medicinal herbs. Musing over the baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers he collects (II.iii.4), the Friar considers the double-edged potential of his plants  

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