Another challenge in reading Shakespeare is that some of the words are ARCHAIC (meaning old-fashioned). Here are some examples: choler meaning anger, tyrannous meaning a cruel and oppressive ruler, fray means fight, humour referring to the four humours Hippocrates described in the human body -- blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile -- which influence how a person behaves -- blood makes the person optimistic, phlegm makes the person calm, black bile makes them sad and yellow bile makes them angry.
Most playwrights in Elizabethan times wrote in verse and Shakespeare makes use of this style, of course. The lower class people usually speak in prose (not verse) but higher classes of people use verse when they speak (this includes Romeo, Juliet, their parents and everyone except the servants). Shakespeare adheres to iambic pentameter, a rhythm in which each line has five sets of iambs -- an iamb is a unit of rhythm which sounds like this -- duh-DUH (example -- that QUENCH the FIRE of YOUR perNICious RAGE).
Shakespeare also uses a lot of metaphor and very powerful imagery. He's trying to do a lot with a few words. In lines 187 - 191, Romeo describes love :
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
(The sad sighing of people for the fulfillment of their love produces feeling of love. If the love is returned and things go well, the lovers' eyes sparkle with happiness, but if the love is not mutual, it makes the person in love cry. What else is love? It is insanity that keeps quiet, it is frustrating and painful, and it is delicious.)
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