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What happens in Act 4, Scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet?
The Capulet household prepares for Juliet and Paris’s wedding.
What happens in Act 4, Scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet?
The Nurse, the Capulets, and Paris discover that Juliet is "dead," and mourn extensively.
Read our Summary & Analysis of Act 4, Scenes 3–5. (3-minute read)
Does anything important happen in Act 4, Scenes 4 & 5?
Like Scenes 3 and 4 in Act 3, these two scenes serve mainly advance the play’s plot. They focus on the Capulet household—in Scene 4 on their hurried preparations for Juliet’s wedding to Paris, which is supposed to happen the next day, then in Scene 5 on their reactions to discovering that Juliet is dead (or so they believe).
Capulet’s reaction to Juliet’s apparent death in Scene 5 is notable for the heavy use of poetic devises in his speeches. With the lines “Death lies on her like an untimely frost / Upon the sweetest flower of all the field,” he uses a touching simile to compare young Juliet’s death to that of a beautiful flower killed by an early winter frost. A bit later, his repeated personification of Death as his son-in-law and heir is also noteworthy (although, it could be argued that he’s making his daughter’s death more about himself than about her).
Read more about Capulet’s Scene 5 speech personifying Death. (1-minute read)
