Summary: Act 5, scene 1
Then I defy you, stars.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
On Wednesday morning, on a street in Mantua, a cheerful
Romeo describes a wonderful dream he had the night before: Juliet
found him lying dead, but she kissed him, and breathed new life
into his body. Just then, Balthasar enters, and Romeo greets him
happily, saying that Balthasar must have come from Verona with news
of Juliet and his father. Romeo comments that nothing can be ill
in the world if Juliet is well. Balthasar replies that
nothing can be ill, then, for Juliet is well: she is in heaven,
found dead that morning at her home. Thunderstruck, Romeo cries
out “Then I defy you, stars” (5.1.24).
He tells Balthasar to get him pen and paper (with which
he writes a letter for Balthasar to give to Montague) and to hire
horses, and says that he will return to Verona that night. Balthasar
says that Romeo seems so distraught that he is afraid to leave him,
but Romeo insists. Romeo suddenly stops and asks if Balthasar is
carrying a letter from Friar Lawrence. Balthasar says he is not,
and Romeo sends his servant on his way. Once Balthasar is gone,
Romeo says that he will lie with Juliet that night. He goes to find
an apothecary, a seller of drugs. After telling the man in the shop
that he looks poor, Romeo offers to pay him well for a vial of poison.
The Apothecary says that he has just such a thing, but that selling
poison in Mantua carries the death sentence. Romeo replies that
the Apothecary is too poor to refuse the sale. The Apothecary finally
relents and sells Romeo the poison. Once alone, Romeo speaks to
the vial, declaring that he will go to Juliet’s tomb and kill himself.
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Act 5, scene 1 →
Summary: Act 5, scene 2
At his cell, Friar Lawrence speaks with Friar John, whom
he had earlier sent to Mantua with a letter for Romeo. He asks John
how Romeo responded to his letter (which described the plan involving Juliet’s
false death). Friar John replies that he was unable to deliver the
letter because he was shut up in a quarantined house due to an outbreak
of plague. Friar Lawrence becomes upset, realizing that if Romeo
does not know about Juliet’s false death, there will be no one to
retrieve her from the tomb when she awakes. (He does not know that
Romeo has learned of Juliet’s death and believes it to be real.) Sending
for a crowbar, Friar Lawrence declares that he will have to rescue
Juliet from the tomb on his own. He sends another letter to Romeo
to warn him about what has happened, and plans to keep Juliet in
his cell until Romeo arrives.
Read a translation of
Act 5, scene 2 →
Analysis: Act 5, scenes 1–2
The sequence of near misses in this section reveals the
inescapable work of fate. There is no reason for the friar’s plan
to go wrong. But an outbreak of plague forces Friar John into quarantine
and prevents him from delivering Friar Lawrence’s letter to Romeo,
while Balthasar seeks out Romeo with news of Juliet’s death. Just
as the audience senses an inviolable fate descending on Romeo, so
too does Romeo feel himself trapped by fate. But the fate the audience recognizes
and the fate Romeo sees as surrounding him are very different. The
audience knows that both Romeo and Juliet are bound to die; Romeo
knows only that fate has somehow tried to separate him from Juliet.
When Romeo screams “Then I defy you, stars” he is screaming against
the fate that he believes is thwarting his desires (5.1.24).
He attempts to defy that fate by killing himself and spending eternity
with Juliet: “Well, Juliet,” he says, “I will lie with thee tonight”
(5.1.34). Tragically, it is Romeo’s very
decision to avoid his destiny that actually brings fate about. In
killing himself over the sleeping Juliet he ensures their ultimate
double suicide.
Through the irony of Romeo’s defiance rebounding upon
himself, Shakespeare demonstrates the extreme power of fate: nothing can
stand in its way. All factors swing in its favor: the outbreak of the
plague, Balthasar’s transmission of the message of Juliet’s death, and
Capulet’s decision to move Juliet’s wedding date. But fate is also something
attached to the social institutions of the world in which Romeo
and Juliet live. This destiny, brought about by the interplay of
societal norms from which Romeo and Juliet cannot escape, seems
equally powerful, though less divine. It is a fate created by man,
and man’s inability to see through the absurdity of the world he
has created. Now, in this scene, we see Romeo as agent of his own fate.
The fortune that befalls Romeo and Juliet is internal rather than
external. It is determined by the natures and choices of its two protagonists.
Were Romeo not so rash and emotional, so quick to fall into melancholy,
the double suicide would not have occurred. Had Juliet felt it possible
to explain the truth to her parents, the double suicide might not
have occurred. But to wish someone were not as they were is to wish
for the impossible. The love between Romeo and Juliet exists precisely
because they are who they are. The destructive, suicidal nature
of their love is just as much an aspect of their natures, as individuals
and couple.
In the character of the Apothecary, once again,
Shakespeare provides a secondary example of the paradoxical and
pressing social forces at work in the play. The Apothecary does
not wish to sell poison because it is illegal, banned by society.
But it is the same society that makes him poor, and which insists
on validity of the differences between rich and poor. The Apothecary
is pushed to sell the poison by external forces that he, like Romeo,
feels completely unable to control.
