"From Middle English wherfor, wherfore, hwarfore, equivalent to where- (“=what”) + for. Compare Dutch waarvoor (“what for, wherefore”), German wofür (“for what, what for, why”), Danish and Norwegian hvorfor (“wherefore, why”), Swedish varför (“wherefore, why”)."
Juliet is not asking the moon where Romeo is - she's bemoaning the fact that he is a Montague and she is a Capulet: Why did you have to be a Montague?
It drives me crazy every time I hear a performance (typically high school or amateur productions) in which Juliet asks "wherefore ART thou Romeo?" instead of the proper "wherefore art thou ROMEO?"
*sigh* The tribulations of an old English major...
Reposted from 2020 to add this interesting bit from The Shakespeare Guide to Italy:
There is no "balcony" in Romeo and Juliet. None whatsoever. Not only is the word absent from the play, it isn't a word to be found in any other play, Italian or not, by the same playwright. For that matter, the word "balcony" is not found in any of the poetry ascribed to the playwright either.The playwright's descriptions in Romeo and Juliet are clear: Juliet appears in every case, by the author's own words, at her "window."
More about this book later.
Addendum: A tip of the blogging cap to reader Kolo Jezdec, who offers this article from The Atlantic: Romeo and Juliet Has No Balcony.
I have a similar reaction, though it's understandable that the average person who hasn't been clued in would assume the word means "where." It makes we wonder about the expression "why's and wherefore's." Did the meanings of the two words once have a shade of difference? Or is the repetition used to suggest a long list of similar items, like we use "...and blah blah blah"?
ReplyDeleteGood question. I had to look it up. World Wide Words addressed (but didn't totally answer) the situation:
Delete"The complete expression is at least as old as Shakespeare, who used it in the Comedy of Errors in 1590: “Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?” Note the singular, once a common form: though it’s often misquoted, that’s the way the gallant Captain Corcoran and others sang it in HMS Pinafore: “Never mind the why and wherefore”.
The usual meaning is a bit more than just that of the individual words, which is why the apparent redundancy has survived — as a way to emphasise that what’s needed is not just a reason, but the whole reason, or all the reasons. It’s sometimes expanded even further, as here from the Sunday Mirror in 2000: “The fact that she’s alive at all is a miracle. The hows, whys and wherefores are irrelevant.”
https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-why1.htm
For speakers of Dutch, German etc. this is always a little amusing, as these constructions are still in daily usage in those languages. In fact they're part of an entirely regular pattern, which used to be productive in English as well: instead of "in that", "on that", "under that", "through that" etc., you use "therein", "thereon", "thereunder, "therethrough", etc. Which can be turned into a question by saying "wherein", "whereon", "whereunder", "wherethrough", and so forth. Somehow, the only commonly used remnant of this structure in English happens to be "therefore", while most users don't recognize its counterpart "wherefore" anymore.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, thanks for posting. I hadn't made the connection between 'wherefore' and 'therefore' ...before.
DeleteOf course Scott Adams is too stupid to know this. There's a Peanuts strip from the early 60s (I think) in which Linus explains this to Lucy.
ReplyDelete
Deletehttps://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1966/12/17
your cited cartoon explains that better that the discussions above!
DeleteI-)
I thought the joke is that Dogbert is too stupid - and lacks the self-awareness - to know this.
DeleteKnowing this now, Juliet's speech makes much more sense.
DeleteI have the same knee jerk reaction to "begs the question"....
ReplyDeleteContext matters.
ReplyDeleteO Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy:
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot
Nor arm nor face nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
Nowhere in that soliloquy is the question of Romeo's location mentioned.
Even though I am very used to King James English, it was only recently that I made the connection to what you are saying: Namely, that Juliet is not asking WHERE Romeo is...but WHY he is a Montague, when it would otherwise be so simple.
ReplyDelete