Easier Shakespeare – Wherefore art thou?

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

This is one of Shakespeare’s best known lines. It is also one of the most commonly misunderstood.

These words are spoken by Juliet in Act 2 Sc ii of Romeo and Juliet. Juliet, not knowing that Romeo is hidden in the garden below her balcony, listening, is talking to herself. She is upset because, although she has fallen in love with Romeo, she knows the match will not be allowed as her family, the Capulets, have a long standing feud with Romeo’s family, the Montagues. She is addressing the idea of family names, and wishes that Romeo belonged to a different family.

So she asks, ‘wherefore art thou Romeo?’ This doesn’t mean, as is so often assumed, ‘where are you, Romeo?’ We might guess from the punctuation alone that something is not quite right, as you can see that I have inserted a comma after my ‘where are you,’ but there is none in Shakespeare’s line. For the ‘where are you’ question to work, we need that comma.

The word wherefore doesn’t mean where. It means why. This makes a big difference.

In fact, Juliet is asking, ‘why are you called Romeo,’ or, ‘why is your name Romeo,’ or even, ‘why do you come from that particular family?’ It’s a rhetorical question. She wishes Romeo had a different name and came from another family so that they would be allowed to marry.

This word wherefore is a false friend. It looks like another word we know and use: where. But its meaning is quite different. False friends can be more troublesome than words we have never seen before. If a totally new word appears on the page, we know that we need to look it up. We can’t make any assumptions. If a word looks like one we already know, or, even more confusing, if its meaning has changed during the past four centuries, we might assume it means one thing when in fact it means something totally different.

If you like, next time you hear someone quoting ‘wherefore art thou?’ when they mean to say ‘where are you?’ you can give this explanation. But don’t do this too often as no-one likes a clever-clogs!