Summary: Act 5, scene 3
In the churchyard that night, Paris enters with a torch-bearing
servant. He orders the page to withdraw, then begins scattering
flowers on Juliet’s grave. He hears a whistle—the servant’s warning
that someone is approaching. He withdraws into the darkness. Romeo, carrying
a crowbar, enters with Balthasar. He tells Balthasar that he has
come to open the Capulet tomb in order to take back a valuable ring
he had given to Juliet. Then he orders Balthasar to leave, and,
in the morning, to deliver to Montague the letter Romeo had given him.
Balthasar withdraws, but, mistrusting his master’s intentions, lingers
to watch.
From his hiding place, Paris recognizes Romeo as the man
who murdered Tybalt, and thus as the man who indirectly murdered Juliet,
since it is her grief for her cousin that is supposed to have killed
her. As Romeo has been exiled from the city on penalty of death,
Paris thinks that Romeo must hate the Capulets so much that he has
returned to the tomb to do some dishonor to the corpse of either
Tybalt or Juliet. In a rage, Paris accosts Romeo. Romeo
pleads with him to leave, but Paris refuses. They draw their swords
and fight. Paris’s page runs off to get the civil watch. Romeo kills
Paris. As he dies, Paris asks to be laid near Juliet in the tomb,
and Romeo consents.
Romeo descends into the tomb carrying Paris’s body. He
finds Juliet lying peacefully, and wonders how she can still look
so beautiful—as if she were not dead at all. Romeo speaks to Juliet
of his intention to spend eternity with her, describing himself
as shaking “the yoke of inauspicious stars / From this world-wearied
flesh” (5.3.111–112). He kisses Juliet,
drinks the poison, kisses Juliet again, and dies.
Just then, Friar Lawrence enters the churchyard.
He encounters Balthasar, who tells him that Romeo is in the tomb.
Balthasar says that he fell asleep and dreamed that Romeo fought
with and killed someone. Troubled, the friar enters the tomb, where
he finds Paris’s body and then Romeo’s. As the friar takes in the
bloody scene, Juliet wakes.
Juliet asks the friar where her husband is. Hearing a
noise that he believes is the coming of the watch, the friar quickly
replies that both Romeo and Paris are dead, and that she must leave
with him. Juliet refuses to leave, and the friar, fearful that the
watch is imminent, exits without her. Juliet sees Romeo dead beside
her, and surmises from the empty vial that he has drunk poison.
Hoping she might die by the same poison, Juliet kisses his lips,
but to no avail. Hearing the approaching watch, Juliet unsheathes
Romeo’s dagger and, saying, “O happy dagger, / This is thy sheath,”
stabs herself (5.3.171). She dies upon
Romeo’s body.
Chaos reigns in the churchyard, where Paris’s page has
brought the watch. The watchmen discover bloodstains near the tomb;
they hold Balthasar and Friar Lawrence, who they discovered loitering nearby.
The Prince and the Capulets enter. Romeo, Juliet, and Paris are
discovered in the tomb. Montague arrives, declaring that Lady Montague
has died of grief for Romeo’s exile. The Prince shows Montague his
son’s body. Upon the Prince’s request, Friar Lawrence succinctly
tells the story of Romeo and Juliet’s secret marriage and its consequences.
Balthasar gives the Prince the letter Romeo had previously written
to his father. The Prince says that it confirms the friar’s story.
He scolds the Capulets and Montagues, calling the tragedy a consequence
of their feud and reminding them that he himself has lost two close
kinsmen: Mercutio and Paris. Capulet and Montague clasp hands and
agree to put their vendetta behind them. Montague says that he will
build a golden statue of Juliet, and Capulet insists that he will
raise Romeo’s likeness in gold beside hers. The Prince takes the
group away to discuss these events, pronouncing that there has never
been “a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo” (5.3.309).
