Juliet’s mother brings her what she believes is good news: that Juliet is going to be married to Paris. Capulet
Romeo spends the night with Juliet, but has to leave in the morning to go into exile. Juliet
Juliet spends the night with Romeo and tries to convince him to stay. Once he leaves, her parents tell her that she will marry Paris. She refuses and decides to go to Friar Laurence for help. Nurse
Having spent the night together, Romeo and Juliet must part ways in the morning. The Nurse enters and tells Juliet that her mother is on the way. As Romeo leaves, the two wonder if they’ll see each other again. Lady Capulet enters and assumes Juliet’s visible grief is a result of Tybalt’s death. But she comes bearing good news: Capulet has arranged for Juliet to marry Paris, and soon. Juliet refuses, and continues to do so even when her father enters and threatens to disown her if she doesn’t. After Capulet and Lady Capulet leave, Juliet begs her Nurse for help. When she refuses, Juliet decides to seek help from Friar Laurence instead.
Juliet’s father is infuriated by her refusal to marry Paris and threatens to disown her. Scene Summary:
Lady Capulet, unaware that Juliet grieves for Romeos banishment rather than the death of Tybalt, tries to comfort her daughter with her plans to avenge Tybalts death by poisoning Romeo. The speech is full of dramatic irony since Lady Capulets hope of poisoning Romeo anticipates the method he chooses to take his own life in the final act of the play. Although Romeo drinks the poison by his own hand, it is the hatred, driven in part by Lady Capulet that gives him cause.
As Romeo descends the balcony, Juliet experiences a frightening vision of Romeo “as one dead in the bottom of a tomb.” This prophetic will prove true in the final scene when Juliet awakens from her drug-induced slumber to find Romeo dead on the floor of the Capulet tomb. Once again, s of love and death intertwine, infecting the joy of their wedding night with the foreshadowing of their coming deaths.
Once again, the dawn divides Romeo and Juliet, this time, for good. As the suns rays “lace the severing clouds,” Juliet wishes the sound of the morning lark were actually the call of the nightingale. Juliet tries to deny the arrival of the coming day to prolong her time with Romeo. Their language is passionate and intense as Romeo agrees to stay and face his death. As in previous scenes, Romeo and Juliets love flourishes in the dark, but daylight brings separation and ill fortune: Juliet says reluctantly, “window, let day in, and let life out.”
At dawn on Tuesday morning, Romeo and Juliet make their final exchanges of love before Romeo leaves for Mantua. The lovers try to resist the coming day that heralds their separation by pretending that it is still night and that the bird they hear is the nightingale and not the lark, a morning bird. However, the ominous threat of the Princes sentence of death finally forces the lovers to part.
Juliets mother arrives and, believing that Juliet weeps for Tybalt rather than the departure of Romeo, tries to comfort Juliet with her plan to have Romeo poisoned. Lady Capulet then tells Juliet the happy news that she is to marry Paris on Thursday. Juliet is stunned and tells her mother that she cannot be married in such haste.
JULIET Now, by Saint Peters Church and Peter too, He shall not make me there a joyful bride. I wonder at this haste; that I must wed Ere he, that should be husband, comes to woo. I pray you, tell my lord and father, madam, I will not marry yet; and, when I do, I swear, It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!
JULIET O God!—O nurse, how shall this be prevented? My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven; How shall that faith return again to earth, Unless that husband send it me from heaven By leaving earth? comfort me, counsel me. Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems Upon so soft a subject as myself! What sayst thou? hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, nurse.
CAPULET Gods bread! it makes me mad: Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play, Alone, in company, still my care hath been To have her matchd: and having now provided A gentleman of noble parentage, Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly traind, Stuffd, as they say, with honourable parts, Proportiond as ones thought would wish a man; And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining mammet, in her fortunes tender, To answer Ill not wed; I cannot love, I am too young; I pray you, pardon me. But, as you will not wed, Ill pardon you: Graze where you will you shall not house with me: Look tot, think ont, I do not use to jest. Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise: An you be mine, Ill give you to my friend; And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, For, by my soul, Ill neer acknowledge thee, Nor what is mine shall never do thee good: Trust tot, bethink you; Ill not be forsworn.
CAPULET How now, how now, chop-logic! What is this? Proud, and I thank you, and I thank you not; And yet not proud, mistress minion, you, Thank me no thankings, nor, proud me no prouds, But fettle your fine joints gainst Thursday next, To go with Paris to Saint Peters Church, Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Out, you green-sickness carrion! out, you baggage! You tallow-face!
JULIET Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath praised him with above compare So many thousand times? Go, counsellor; Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. Ill to the friar, to know his remedy: If all else fail, myself have power to die.
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