Act 3, Scene 8 Summary

Desdemona spots Romeo attempting to scale Constance's balcony; she mistakes him for Juliet and addresses him. Romeo falls immediately in love with Desdemona and informs her that he is in fact a man though dressed as Juliet—she replies he had best not journey to Cyprus where transvestites are not welcomed.

Act 3, Scene 8 Analysis

This brief scene—the shortest in the play, quoted below in its entirety—arranges the plot to allow all of the major players in Act 3 to converge in Act 3, Scene 9. It continues to echo the by-now familiar humor of a cross-dressing Romeo being mistaken for the prepubescent Juliet.