“Nightly shall be strew thy grave and weep”
The Page whistles and Paris states “What Cursed Foot?”. This reminds the audience
That Romeo was cursed as Mercutio Died. At this point Paris goes in to hiding.
Romeo enters and it is still the middle of the night he is angry and in a hurry to kill himself. He tells Balthazar to go on the look out but he is afraid and doesn’t like what he is seeing so he goes off and hides after Romeo said he will tear Balthazar limb from limd. So there is now three people hiding in the graveyard,. When Romeo smashes the tomb he is comparing it to his deathbed
“Why I descend to this bed of death”
This is a metaphor as the last time he saw Juliet was in her bed on the night they wed. Romeo continues to smash the vault when Paris emerges from the shadows making the audience and Romeo jump, as it is dark and a dangerous situation. The stranger provokes Romeo, so they fight in darkness and the angered Romeo kills Paris in a hurry who then asks Romeo to lay his body next to Juliet’s as a last request, as it is dark Romeo doesn’t recognise who he has murdered.
Romeo enters the vault with the body that he now knows it is Paris and lays the body next to Juliet. The atmosphere calms down as Romeo moves further into the vault and is resigned to his death. Romeo is not afraid to enter the vault as you can see he is in a hurry to kill himself.
Back outside Balthazar and The Friar meet up, it is still dark but near morn. They are surround by the poisonous yew berries. The Friar wants Balthazar to accompany him into the vault but he is worried as Romeo is in there. The Friar sees blood on the floor and realises there has been a recent death. The Friar enters the vault and find Romeo and Paris both dead, he now knows he is too late. He comments on “Eyeless Skulls” and he is probably a bit scared to continue on in and starts to have second thoughts. Juliet awakes and sees Romeo lying there on the floor dead and wants to stay with him but The Friar urges her to leave the vault as he hears people approaching. Juliet overcomes the surroundings and decides to stay with Romeo and this is where the second part of the tragedy occurs.
The language in this scene differs from character to character, as they express their feelings.
First Paris enters the scene. The language he uses is very formal. He speaks in rhyme that is part of a sonnet (14 line Poem)
“O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones-
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew
Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep”
This contrasts with Romeo, he talks about his feeling, from the heart, about Juliet. When Romeo enters his language is very aggressive, very vague and there is no turning back on what he is about to do. When Romeo is talking to Balthazar he says he is wild and angry, he tries to lie to him because ha wants him away and says
“I will tear thee joint by joint”
He is very extreme and desperate.
Before Romeo kills Paris he tries to warn him to move and that he is a desperate man, after he kills Paris and realises that it is him who he has killed, his language starts to calm down and he speaks with a relaxed tone of voice. In the vault he refers to Juliet as light and then he says to him self
“The dashing rocks and seasick weary bark”
Which is a metaphor comparing himself to a shipwrecked boat at his final resting place. He drinks the poison and dies.
Juliet awakes and asks a lot of rhetorical questions, “Where is my lord” which is repeated a number of times. She has a great sense of urgency and wants to know what has happened to her beloved Romeo. Juliet sees the poison bottle and is desperate to find something to kill herself with and be reunited with Romeo, but is relived to see his dagger.
The audience will find this scene interesting because of the confusion between the characters. Romeo wants to be dead with Juliet but we really know she isn’t, it leaves a cliff-hanger type ending for the audience who are gripped with silence and want to shout out to Romeo and let him know that she isn’t really dead. For first time seers it would be good because it leaves the wondering and hoping that she will wake up in time to meet her loved one.
It is the nature of tragedy to end in death and sadness, but a Shakespearean tragedy in never only sad. Shakespeare’s tragedies are not pessimistic, hopeless plays. The audience does not feel that the deaths that end the plays have been pointless. Certainly, they are regretted; certainly we wish things could be different; but we do not despair. This is the peculiarly agonised response a Shakespearean tragedy always evokes. We have just seen how `Romeo and Juliet` vindicates the lovers and that their deaths bring about reconciliation and peace. We are, at once, glad they did not die in vain, and sad they had to die at all. The two things go hand in hand: it is because Romeo and Juliet are the lovers they are that we wish they could live, and yet it is precisely because they are the lovers they are that they have to die. We can put it in another way: were they not such lovers they would have lived; but the feud would have continued too. This is the central irony of Shakespearean tragedy: we, in the audience, suffer because we so much want a happy ending even as we know that it is impossible, that in a strange way, it is better that the protagonists die.
In this scene it is the characters and the language they use to express their feelings about each other that makes the scene dramatically important
