Romeo and Juliet

A Chorus opens the play with a sonnet that gives away the ending: two “star-crossed lovers” from feuding families will die, and only their deaths will end the hatred. Then the action starts with a bang. Servants of the Capulets and Montagues trade insults and start a sword fight in the streets of Verona. Benvolio tries to stop it; Tybalt makes it worse. Prince Escalus arrives, furious, and declares that the next person to break the peace will be put to death.

Meanwhile, Romeo is miserable because Rosaline doesn’t love him back. Across town, a nobleman named Paris asks Lord Capulet for permission to marry Juliet. Capulet says she’s too young, but tells Paris to woo her at the family’s feast that night. Romeo and his friends hear about the party and decide to sneak in wearing masks, mostly so Romeo can see Rosaline.

At the feast, Romeo spots Juliet and instantly forgets Rosaline. Tybalt recognizes Romeo’s voice and wants to fight him right there, but Lord Capulet orders him to back off. Romeo and Juliet speak for the first time; their first fourteen lines together form a perfect sonnet, ending in a kiss. Only afterward does each learn who the other is. “My only love sprung from my only hate!” Juliet gasps.

After the party, Romeo climbs the wall into the Capulets’ orchard. Juliet appears at her window (the famous “balcony scene”) and, thinking she’s alone, wishes Romeo weren’t a Montague. Romeo reveals himself. They confess their love, and Juliet, worried it is all “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,” still asks: if you mean it, send word tomorrow about our wedding.

At dawn Romeo rushes to Friar Laurence. The friar teases him for forgetting Rosaline so fast, but agrees to marry the couple, hoping the match will turn the families’ “rancour to pure love.” His advice: “Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.”

Tybalt has sent a letter challenging Romeo to a duel. Mercutio mocks Tybalt and teases the Nurse when she comes to find Romeo. Romeo tells her the plan: Juliet should go to the friar’s cell that afternoon, pretending to go to confession. The Nurse drives Juliet crazy by delaying the news, then sends her off. Friar Laurence warns that “these violent delights have violent ends,” and leads the couple away to be married.

It is a hot afternoon, and “the mad blood” is stirring. Tybalt finds Romeo and calls him a villain. Romeo, secretly now Tybalt’s cousin by marriage, refuses to fight. Mercutio, disgusted by this “calm, dishonourable, vile submission,” draws his sword on Tybalt. Romeo steps between them, and Tybalt stabs Mercutio under Romeo’s arm. Dying, Mercutio still makes a pun (“ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man”) and curses: “A plague o’ both your houses!”

Enraged, Romeo fights Tybalt and kills him, then cries, “O, I am fortune’s fool!” and flees. The Prince spares Romeo’s life because Tybalt killed first, but banishes him from Verona forever. Juliet, waiting eagerly for her wedding night, hears the news from the Nurse and is torn between grief for her cousin and loyalty to her husband. She chooses Romeo.

Hiding in Friar Laurence’s cell, Romeo says banishment is worse than death and even tries to stab himself. The friar scolds him and makes a plan: spend the night with Juliet, then escape to Mantua until things can be fixed. Meanwhile Lord Capulet, thinking a wedding will cheer Juliet up, promises her to Paris for Thursday. At dawn the lovers part (was that the lark or the nightingale?). When Juliet refuses to marry Paris, her father explodes and threatens to throw her out. Even the Nurse tells her to forget Romeo and marry Paris. Juliet now stands alone.

Juliet goes to Friar Laurence and finds Paris there, planning the wedding. After he leaves, she pulls out a knife and says she’d rather die than marry him. The friar offers a risky alternative: a potion that will make her look dead for “two and forty hours.” Her family will lay her in the Capulet tomb; he will send a letter telling Romeo to come, and when she wakes, Romeo can take her to Mantua.

Juliet goes home and pretends to agree to marry Paris. Overjoyed, her father moves the wedding up a day, to Wednesday. Alone that night, Juliet is terrified. She worries the potion might be poison, and she pictures waking up too early in the dark tomb beside Tybalt’s body. She drinks it anyway.

In the morning, the Nurse comes to wake the bride and finds her apparently dead. The household’s wedding music and feast turn into a funeral. Friar Laurence calmly organizes the burial, knowing the truth.

In Mantua, Romeo’s servant Balthasar arrives with awful news: Juliet is dead and buried. Romeo never got the friar’s letter. He buys illegal poison from a poor Apothecary and heads for Verona. Back home, Friar Laurence learns that Friar John, his messenger, was locked inside a house quarantined for plague and couldn’t deliver the letter. Laurence rushes to the tomb.

At the Capulet tomb, Paris is laying flowers for Juliet. He sees Romeo, thinks he has come to vandalize it, and challenges him. They fight, and Romeo kills Paris. Inside, Romeo sees Juliet, still beautiful, says goodbye, drinks the poison, and dies: “Thus with a kiss I die.”

Moments later, the friar arrives and Juliet wakes up. Hearing the watchmen coming, he begs her to flee with him, then runs off alone. Juliet finds Romeo dead, kisses his lips hoping for leftover poison, and stabs herself with his dagger. The Prince and both families arrive. Lady Montague has died of grief over Romeo’s exile. Friar Laurence explains everything. Shattered, Capulet and Montague finally shake hands and promise golden statues of each other’s child. The Prince closes the play: “For never was a story of more woe / Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”