Summary: Act 3, scene 5
Just before dawn, Romeo prepares to lower himself from
Juliet’s window to begin his exile. Juliet tries to convince Romeo
that the birdcalls they hear are from the nightingale, a night bird,
rather than from the lark, a morning bird. Romeo cannot entertain
her claims; he must leave before the morning comes or be put to
death. Juliet declares that the light outside comes not from the
sun, but from some meteor. Overcome by love, Romeo responds that
he will stay with Juliet, and that he does not care whether the
Prince’s men kill him. Faced with this turnaround, Juliet declares
that the bird they heard was the lark; that it is dawn and he must
flee. The Nurse enters to warn Juliet that Lady Capulet is approaching.
Romeo and Juliet tearfully part. Romeo climbs out the window. Standing
in the orchard below her window, Romeo promises Juliet that they
will see one another again, but Juliet responds that he appears
pale, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Romeo answers that, to
him, she appears the same way, and that it is only sorrow that makes
them both look pale. Romeo hurries away as Juliet pulls in the ladder
and begs fate to bring him back to her quickly.
Lady Capulet calls to her daughter. Juliet wonders why
her mother would come to speak to her so early in the morning. Unaware
that her daughter is married to Romeo, Lady Capulet enters the room
and mistakes Juliet’s tears as continued grief for Tybalt. Lady
Capulet tells Juliet of her deep desire to see “the villain Romeo”
dead (3.5.80). In a complicated bit of
punning every bit as impressive as the sexual punning of Mercutio
and Romeo, Juliet leads her mother to believe that she also wishes
Romeo’s death, when in fact she is firmly stating her love for him.
Lady Capulet tells Juliet about Capulet’s plan for her to marry
Paris on Thursday, explaining that he wishes to make her happy.
Juliet is appalled. She rejects the match, saying “I will not marry
yet; and when I do, I swear / It shall be Romeo—whom you know I
hate— / Rather than Paris” (3.5.121–123).
Capulet enters the chamber. When he learns of Juliet’s determination
to defy him he becomes enraged and threatens to disown Juliet if
she refuses to obey him. When Juliet entreats her mother to intercede,
her mother denies her help.
After Capulet and Lady Capulet storm away, Juliet asks
her nurse how she might escape her predicament. The Nurse advises her
to go through with the marriage to Paris—he is a better match, she
says, and Romeo is as good as dead anyhow. Though disgusted by her
nurse’s disloyalty, Juliet pretends to agree, and tells her nurse
that she is going to make confession at Friar Lawrence’s. Juliet
hurries to the friar, vowing that she will never again trust the Nurse’s
counsel. If the friar is unable to help her, Juliet comments to herself,
she still has the power to take her own life.
Read a translation of
Act 3, scene 5 →
Analysis
To combat the coming of the light, Juliet attempts once
more to change the world through language: she claims the lark is
truly a nightingale. Where in the balcony scene Romeo saw Juliet
as transforming the night into day, here she is able to transform
the day into the night. But just as their vows to throw off their
names did not succeed in overcoming the social institutions that
have plagued them, they cannot change time. As fits their characters,
it is the more pragmatic Juliet who realizes that Romeo must leave;
he is willing to die simply to remain by her side.
In a moment reminiscent of the balcony scene, once outside, Romeo
bids farewell to Juliet as she stands at her window. Here, the lovers
experience visions that blatantly foreshadow the end of the play.
This is to be the last moment they spend alive in each other’s company.
When Juliet next sees Romeo he will be dead, and as she looks out
of her window she seems to see him dead already: “O God, I have
an ill-divining soul! / Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
/ As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. / Either my eyesight fails,
or thou look’st pale” (3.5.54–57).
In the confrontation with her parents after Romeo’s departure, Juliet
shows her full maturity. She dominates the conversation with her
mother, who cannot keep up with Juliet’s intelligence and therefore
has no idea that Juliet is proclaiming her love for Romeo under the
guise of saying just the opposite. Her decision to break from the counsel
of her disloyal nurse—and in fact to exclude her nurse from any
part in her future actions—is another step in her development. Having
a nurse is a mark of childhood; by abandoning her nurse and upholding
her loyalty toward her husband, Juliet steps fully out of girlhood
and into womanhood.
