Friar Laurence

On Thursday, sir? That’s very very soon.

Paris

Lord Capulet, my future father-in-law, wants it to be that way, and I’m not anxious to slow him down.

Friar Laurence

You said that you don’t know what the lady thinks. This path to marriage seems unstable. I don’t like this.

Paris

She’s wallowing in tears over Tybalt’s death, and because of that I’ve barely talked about love, since love so rarely begins in a place of such sadness.

Her father thinks it’s dangerous for her to be so affected by grief, and he’s wisely tried to hasten our marriage to stop this overwhelming grief of hers. It’s possible that company can help her while loneliness only encourages it. Now you can see the reason for this haste.

Friar Laurence

[Aside]  I wish I didn’t know why it should be delayed. Look, sir, here comes Juliet towards my cell.

Paris

How fortunate to see you, my lady and my wife!

Juliet

It may be good to see you, sir, when I actually am a wife.

Paris

You must be next Thursday, love.

Juliet

What must be, shall be.

Friar Laurence

That’s a true statement.

Paris

Have you come to make confession to the friar?

Juliet

If I answered that, I would be confessing to you why I’ve come.

Paris

Do not deny to him that you love me.

Juliet

I will confess to you that I love him.

Paris

Yes, I’m sure that you’ll confess that you love me.

Juliet

If I do, a confession will be more valuable spoken behind your back instead of to your face.

Paris

Poor soul, your face has been so stained with tears.

Juliet

Good for the tears. It was bad enough before they stained it.

Paris

No, you’re giving your face more of an insult than the tears did with that remark.

Juliet

It’s not slander when it’s the truth. What I said, I said to my own face.

Paris

Your face belongs to me, and you spoke ill of it!

Juliet

Perhaps it does belong to you, because it doesn’t feel like my own. Is this a good time now, holy father, or should I come back at evening mass?

Friar Laurence

Thoughtful daughter, this is a convenient time. My lord, I’ll have to ask you to leave us in private.

Paris

God forbid I should get in the way of devout practice! Juliet, I’ll see you early on Thursday. Until then, goodbye, and have this holy kiss.

Juliet

Oh shut the door, and when you have, come weep with me! I am past hope, past cure, past help!

Friar Laurence

Ah Juliet, I already know about what is causing you such grief. It breaks my heart.

I heard that you must be married to that count next Thursday, and that nothing can delay it.

Juliet

Don’t tell me that you know about this planned wedding to Paris, unless you know how to stop it. If, in all your wisdom you can’t help me, then you must acknowledge the wisdom of my resolving my problems with this knife. God joined my heart and Romeo’s, and you joined our hands. But before this hand shall be joined to another in holy matrimony, or my heart be unfaithful by turning to another, this knife shall kill both my hand and heart.

Therefore, based on the experiences of your long life, give me some advice. Watch while this bloody knife plays the role of umpire, resolving the conflict between my problems and myself, conflicts which your years of experience and knowledge could not solve in an honorable manner.

Friar Laurence

Hold on, daughter. I can see a small hope, which needs action as desperate as this whole situation.

If you have the strength to kill yourself rather than marry Count Paris, then I presume you would fake your death — undergo a state like death — to escape this sin. And if you’ll dare that, I can give you a solution.

Juliet

Oh, rather than ask me to marry Paris, you could tell me to leap from the castle walls, walk among highway robbers, dwell with snakes, chain myself to a post and let bears attack me.

I would sleep in a morgue every night covered in bones, with reeking limbs and yellowing jawless skulls, or go into a fresh grave and hide myself with a dead man inside his shroud, all these things that would have once made me shudder just to hear about. I would do it all without any fear or doubt to live as a virtuous wife to my sweet love.  

Friar Laurence

Wait, then. Go home, be cheerful, tell your family you consent to marry Paris.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, and tomorrow night make sure you’re sleeping alone in your room without your nurse nearby. Take this vial of potion when you’re in bed and drink all of the liquid inside it. Immediately after you do you will feel cold and drowsy because your pulse will stop. Nothing will indicate that you’re still alive: no warmth, no breath, no color in your face. Your eyes will shut like death shutting windows on a day of life. Deprived of circulation, every part of your body will appear to be dead, stiff, and cold.

You will continue to inhabit this borrowed appearance of death for forty-two hours, after which you will wake up, as if from a pleasant sleep. Now, when your groom-to-be comes in the morning to wake you on your wedding day, there you’ll be, dead. According to the traditional funeral rites in our country, you’ll be dressed in your finest robes and laid uncovered on a funeral bier to be carried to the ancient family crypt where all your Capulet ancestors are buried. So that you don’t have to wake up there alone, I will send word to Romeo about this plan, and he’ll come here. He and I will watch over your waking up, and that same night Romeo will take you away to Mantua.

All this will free you from the present shameful state, if no womanish fear prevents you from going through with it.

Juliet

Give me the potion, give it to me! Oh, don’t talk to me about fear!

Friar Laurence

Be patient. Go back home, be strong and hold firm in your resolve. I’ll send a friar on a fast horse to Mantua with letters to your husband.

Juliet

Love give me strength! And strength shall help me endure. Farewell, dear father!