the play. There is tension, too, in the compression of time in the play. It is love at first sight for them both, and their determination to act on that love immediately means that the tragedy unfolds in a few days' time. This accents the tragic theme, so that the lovers, impetuous as they are, almost seem to rush to their doom. In the first part of the play, until the farewell scene (III.v) in Capulet's orchard, they attempt to seize time and act as quickly as possible on their love. But as things go wrong, partly because of Romeo's impetuosity, they become victims of time, so that there is no opportunity to straighten things out.
For Juliet, time cannot pass too quickly, not only at the close of the balcony scene (II.ii), when Romeo and Juliet plan their elopement for the following morning ("tis twenty years till then," she says), but also (and especially) after the marriage, when she is waiting for night to fall so that Romeo can come to her bed: "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, / Toward Phoebus' lodging . . . That runaways' eyes may wink, and Romeo / Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen" (III.ii).
Time passes all too quickly for Romeo, who repeatedly, to his great cost, behaves impetuously. There is an early hint of this impetuosity in his infatuation with Rosaline, although that element of Romeo's character has as much to do with an immature appreciation of love than with impetuosity per se. On the other hand, Friar Laurence comments on the change in his affections: "Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, / So soon forsaken?" (II.iii). More crucial is Romeo's rush to kill Tybalt when Mercutio dies. He fails to wait for the Friar's messenger, relying instead on Balthasar's news of Juliet's death. Desperate in grief, he kills Paris at the gravesite. And when he arrives at Juliet's grave, he need wait only a few more moments to avoid tragedy, but blinded by love and grief, he acts before thinking. Only when the...