دست سرنوشت

 
دست سرنوشت

As well as love, another important theme in Romeo and Juliet is fate.

‘Fate’ is the belief that your life has been decided for you and that you can’t control what happens to you. In the opening lines of the play, Romeo and Juliet are described as ‘star cross’d lovers’. This phrase comes from the belief that the position of the stars influences the events in people’s lives. In Shakespearean times these beliefs would have been common.

Many of the events in the play seem to be controlled by a fate that Romeo and Juliet can do nothing to control. The war between their families, the series of mistakes and accidents that spoil Friar Lawrence’s plans to bring them together and then the terrible timing of Romeo’s suicide and Juliet’s awakening. Audiences would have seen fate at work here.

Today, people are less likely to believe in fate in this way, but there are a number of common expressions with the word ‘fate’. Do you know the meaning of these expressions?

  • to tempt fate
  • a fate worse than death
  • to seal someone’s fate