Wherefore Art Thou Misused?

I almost included this in my previous post, but decided it needed its own entry. The lovely desdemona commented on one of my previous posts about difficult Shakespearean words:

My favorite misunderstood phrase:

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

I was at the Globe and saw T-shirts that said this on one side, and then on the other: “Seriously, has anyone seen him?”

Of all places…

For shame, The Globe! “Wherefore” actually means “why,” not “where.”

One of the good things about No Fear Shakespeare (as opposed to the many bad things) is that it helps to clear up vocab issues like this. Watch these two entries here and here in the Show Us Your Shakespeare contest and you’ll see that “wherefore art thou Romeo?” actually means “why are you Romeo?” or some similar interpretation, not “where are you, Romeo?” as most people believe. The word wherefore is cleared up again in Julius Caesar by No Fear Shakespeare, as Shaksper.net points out:

“Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know wherefore they do it.”- Act 5, Scene
1.

“I know how they think, and I understand why they’re doing this.”- Same
scene, No Fear Shakespeare translation.