Summary: Act 4, scene 1
In his cell, Friar Lawrence speaks with Paris about the latter’s
impending marriage to Juliet. Paris says that Juliet’s grief about Tybalt’s
death has made her unbalanced, and that Capulet, in his wisdom, has determined
they should marry soon so that Juliet can stop crying and put an end to her
period of mourning. The friar remarks to himself that he wishes he were unaware
of the reason that Paris’s marriage to Juliet should be delayed.
Juliet enters, and Paris speaks to her lovingly, if somewhat arrogantly.
Juliet responds indifferently, showing neither affection nor dislike. She
remarks that she has not married him yet. On the pretense that he must hear
Juliet’s confession, Friar Lawrence ushers Paris away, though not before Paris
kisses Juliet once. After Paris leaves, Juliet asks Friar Lawrence for help,
brandishing a knife and saying that she will kill herself rather than marry
Paris. The friar proposes a plan: Juliet must consent to marry Paris; then, on
the night before the wedding, she must drink a sleeping potion that will make
her appear to be dead; she will be laid to rest in the Capulet tomb, and the
friar will send word to Romeo in Mantua to help him retrieve her when she wakes
up. She will then return to Mantua with Romeo, and be free to live with him
away from their parents’ hatred. Juliet consents to the plan wholeheartedly.
Friar Lawrence gives her the sleeping potion.
Summary: Act 4, scene 2
Juliet returns home, where she finds Capulet and Lady Capulet preparing
for the wedding. She surprises her parents by repenting her disobedience and
cheerfully agreeing to marry Paris. Capulet is so pleased that he insists on
moving the marriage up a day, to Wednesday—tomorrow. Juliet heads to her
chambers to, ostensibly, prepare for her wedding. Capulet heads off to tell
Paris the news.
Analysis: Act 4, scenes 1–2
Friar Lawrence is the wiliest and most scheming character in Romeo
and Juliet: he secretly marries the two lovers, spirits Romeo to Mantua,
and stages Juliet’s death. The friar’s machinations seem also to be tools of
fate. Yet despite the role Friar Lawrence plays in bringing about the lovers’
deaths, Shakespeare never presents him in a negative, or even ambiguous, light.
He is always treated as a benign, wise presence. The tragic failure of his
plans is treated as a disastrous accident for which Friar Lawrence bears no
responsibility.
In contrast, it is a challenge to situate Paris along the play’s moral
continuum. He is not exactly an adversary to Romeo and Juliet, since he never
acts consciously to harm them or go against their wishes. Like almost everyone
else, he knows nothing of their relationship. Paris’s feelings for Juliet are
also a subject of some ambiguity, since the audience is never allowed access to
his thoughts. Later textual evidence does indicate that Paris harbors a
legitimate love for Juliet, and though he arrogantly assumes Juliet will want
to marry him, Paris never treats her unkindly. Nevertheless, because she does
not love him, he represents a real and frightening potentiality for Juliet.
Summary: Act 4, scene 3
In her bedchamber, Juliet asks the Nurse to let her spend the night by
herself, and repeats the request to Lady Capulet when she arrives. Alone,
clutching the vial given to her by Friar Lawrence, she wonders what will happen
when she drinks it. If the friar is untrustworthy and seeks merely to hide his
role in her marriage to Romeo, she might die; or, if Romeo is late for some
reason, she might awaken in the tomb and go mad with fear. She has a vision in
which she sees Tybalt’s ghost searching for Romeo. She begs Tybalt’s ghost to
quit its search for Romeo, and toasting to Romeo, drinks the contents of the
vial.
Summary: Act 4, scenes 4–5
Early the next morning, the Capulet house is aflutter with preparations
for the wedding. Capulet sends the Nurse to go wake Juliet. She finds Juliet
dead and begins to wail, soon joined by both Lady Capulet and Capulet. Paris
arrives with Friar Lawrence and a group of musicians for the wedding. When he
learns what has happened, Paris joins in the lamentations. The friar reminds
them all that Juliet has gone to a better place, and urges them to make ready
for her funeral. Sorrowfully, they comply, and exit.
Left behind, the musicians begin to pack up, their task cut short.
Peter, the Capulet servant, enters and asks the musicians to play a happy tune
to ease his sorrowful heart. The musicians refuse, arguing that to play such
music would be inappropriate. Angered, Peter insults the musicians, who respond
in kind. After singing a final insult at the musicians, Peter leaves. The
musicians decide to wait for the mourners to return so that they might get to
eat the lunch that will be served.
Analysis: Act 4, scenes 3–5
Once again Juliet demonstrates her strength. She comes up with reason
after reason why drinking the sleeping potion might cause her harm, physical or
psychological, but chooses to drink it anyway. In this action she not only
attempts to circumvent the forces that obstruct her relationship with Romeo,
she takes full responsibility for herself. She recognizes that drinking the
potion might lead her to madness or to death. Drinking the potion therefore
constitutes an action in which she takes her life into her own hands, and
determines its worth to her. In addition to the obvious foreshadow in Juliet’s
vision of Tybalt’s vengeful ghost, her drinking of the potion also hints at
future events. She drinks the potion just as Romeo will later drink the apothecary’s
poison. In drinking the potion she not only demonstrates a willingness to take
her life into her own hands, she goes against what is expected of women and
takes action.
In their mourning for Juliet, the Capulets appear less as a hostile
force arrayed against the lovers and more as individuals. The audience gains an
understanding of the immense hopes that the Capulets had placed in Juliet, as
well as a sense of their love for her. Similarly, Paris’s love for Juliet seems
wholly legitimate. His wailing cannot simply be taken as grief over the loss of
a wife who might have brought him fortune. It seems more personal than that,
more like grief over the loss of a loved one.
Many productions of Romeo and Juliet cut the scene depicting
Peter and the musicians. Productions do this for good reason: the scene’s humor
and traded insults seem ill placed at such a tragic moment in the play. If one
looks at the scene as merely comic relief, it is possible to argue that it acts
as a sort of caesura, a moment for the audience to catch its breath from the
tragedy of Act 4 before heading into the even greater tragedy of Act 5. If one
looks at the scene in context with the earlier scenes that include servants a
second argument can be made for why Shakespeare included it. From each scene
including servants, we gain a unique perspective of the events going on in the
play. Here, in the figure of the musicians, we get a profoundly different view
of the reaction of the lower classes to the tragedy of Juliet’s death. Initially
the musicians are wary about playing a happy song because it will be considered
improper, no matter their explanations. It is not, after all, for a mere
musician to give explanations to mourning noblemen. As the scene progresses it
becomes clear that the musicians do not really care much about Juliet or the
tragedy in which she is involved. They care more about the fact that they are
out of a job, and perhaps, that they will miss out on a free lunch. In other
words, this great tragedy, which is, undoubtedly, a tragedy of epic
proportions, is still not a tragedy to everyone.
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