Romeo and Juliet

Juliet returns to her father and tells him that in her discussion with Friar Lawrence, she has seen the error of her ways. She agrees to marry Paris. Her father is delighted: “My heart is wondrous light / Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed” (IV.2.48-49).

Juliet absently looks over wedding clothes with the Nurse, but her mind is elsewhere. She tells the Nurse that she wants to sleep alone tonight (in the past the two have shared a bed). Lady Capulet comes to wish her goodnight as well. Juliet bids the two goodnight, knowing that it’s a permanent goodbye. She longs to call them back but at last steels herself:

Farewell.—God knows when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins

That almost freezes up the heat of life.

I’ll call them back again to comfort me.

Nurse!—What should she do here?

My dismal scene I needs must act alone.

Come, vial (IV.3.15-21).

She thinks aloud, wondering if Friar Lawrence is poisoning her to keep from being dishonored. She talks herself out of this paranoia and instead imagines the horrors she may encounter in the tomb, worrying she may suffocate or the gruesome sight and smell of the corpses will cause her to lose control of her actions. At last, she overcomes her terror and drains the vial: “Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink. I drink to thee” (IV.3.60).

Lady Capulet, Lord Capulet, and the Nurse are bustling around preparing for Juliet’s wedding morning. The Nurse warns Lord Capulet that he’ll make himself sick staying by up all night. Lord Capulet, waving her off, tells her to go and wake Juliet so she can start getting ready.

The Nurse arrives in Juliet’s bedroom and tries to wake her with jokes about her wedding night: “Sleep for a week, for the next night, I warrant, / The county Paris hath set up his rest / That you shall rest but little” (IV.5.6-8). Of course, Juliet doesn’t wake. The screaming Nurse summons Lord and Lady Capulet, who fall into shock.

Friar Lawrence arrives to conduct the marriage, bringing Paris with him. The family and the bridegroom all mourn violently over Juliet’s body. Friar Lawrence scolds them for their excesses:

Your part in her you could not keep from death,

But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.

The most you sought was her promotion,

For ’twas your heaven she should be advanced;

And weep you now, seeing she is advanced

Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself? (IV.5.75-80)

Lord Capulet turns all the wedding preparations into funeral preparations. The scene ends with bickering musicians making musical puns—less worried about a child’s death than getting paid.

Romeo, in Mantua, has had another dream, but this time it is a good one: “If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep, / My dreams presage some joyful news at hand” (V.1.1-2). He recalls his dream, in which Juliet found him dead, kissed him, and revived him to joy. However, his hopeful thoughts are interrupted when his servant, Balthazar, delivers news from Verona: Juliet is dead. Romeo bewails his fate, railing against the stars. He tells Balthazar to fetch him a horse. Balthazar tries to calm him down, telling him not to do anything rash, but Romeo insists. Left to himself, he begins to plan his suicide.

An apothecary wandering around town looks to have fallen on hard times; it’s illegal to sell poison, but Romeo bets he can persuade this man to do it. Romeo asks him for “a dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear / As will disperse itself through all the veins, / That the life-weary taker may fall dead” (V.1.64-66). The desperate apothecary agrees to sell him poison. Romeo takes his deadly vial and hurries to Verona.

Friar Lawrence is hailed by another monk, Friar John—the man whom he sent to Mantua to deliver the details of his plan to Romeo. Friar John was held up by an anti-plague quarantine and could not deliver the message. Friar Lawrence, in a panic, tells Friar John to get him a crowbar: He’s going to break into the Capulet tomb, rescue Juliet when she wakes, and intercept Romeo.

Paris arrives at the Capulet family tomb to pay his respects to Juliet. He scatters flowers over the tomb and vows to mourn there. However, at the sound of approaching footsteps, he hides himself. Romeo arrives with Balthazar, and the two break into the tomb. Romeo tells Balthazar that he’s just there to look at Juliet’s face and to take an important ring from her finger; he warns Balthazar to go away and never speak of what he’s seen. Balthazar, frightened, agrees, but quietly plans to stay and watch; he’s worried for Romeo.

Paris steps out from the shadows and challenges Romeo, believing him to be here to desecrate the Capulet grave. Romeo tries to peacefully send him away, but Paris resists. The two men fight, and Romeo kills Paris; Paris’s last wish is to be buried next to Juliet. Romeo drags the body into the tomb. There, he finds Juliet. He mourns over her body, noting that death does not seem to effect on her beauty:

Death, that has sucked the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

Thou art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks (V.3.92-95).

Vowing to stay here with Juliet forever, he gives her a last kiss, toasts her with poison, and falls: “Here’s to my love. O true apothecary, / Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die” (V.3.119-20).

Friar Lawrence arrives and finds Balthazar outside the tomb. Balthazar tells him as much as he knows, and Friar Lawrence descends into the tomb. There he finds the bodies of Paris and Romeo, as well as Juliet, who is just waking up. Friar Lawrence tries to hurry Juliet away. He can hear the night watch approaching and insists that they get out of there as quickly as possible:

Come, come away.

Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead,

And Paris, too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee

Among a sisterhood of holy nuns (V.3.159-62).

However, Juliet refuses to leave. Friar Lawrence, panicking, abandons her. Juliet, alone, examines Romeo’s dead body, finding the poison vial and discovering that his lips are still warm. The watch is at the door of the tomb now. She takes Romeo’s dagger and stabs herself.

The watch arrives and discovers all the bodies. They summon the Prince and the Montague and Capulet families, though Lady Montague has died of grief over Romeo’s exile. Friar Lawrence, with the corroboration of Balthazar, explains what has happened to the assembled crowd. The grieving Lord Capulet and Lord Montague take each other’s hands and vow to end their feud and erect statues of Romeo and Juliet in Verona. The Prince ends the play, promising that “Some shall be pardoned, and some punished. / For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo” (V.3.319-21).