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.
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Act 4, scene 3 →
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.
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Act 4, scenes 4–5 →
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.
