Four nights ago Capulet held a most spectacular ball. It was at this masquerade that Romeo appeared uninvited and met Juliet for the very first time. There’s no doubt it was love at first sight, the two were completely infatuated. The fact that their opposing families would never approve their love seemed of no consequence to them. With the help and support of Juliet’s Nurse and Friar Laurence the two married the very next day. The heads of both families carried on with their customary day-to-day routines completely oblivious of their children’s defiance.
Problems first began when Tybalt’s previously suppressed aggressive tendencies got the better of him and he went in search of Romeo. Romeo intent on avoiding a potentially violent confrontation, with who was in effect now his family tried to reason with Tybalt, but to no avail. Romeo’s best friend, Mercutio, intervened and ended up getting slaughtered by Tybalt. In a burst of anger and lust for vengeance Romeo in turn killed Tybalt. As a result the Prince sentenced Romeo to exile. Juliet was devastated when she learned of Romeo’s banishment, the Nurse and Friar Laurence arranged for her to meet the equally depressed Romeo, and the two spent what was to be their first and last night together.
Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse for the star-crossed lovers, Juliet’s parents told her that she was to marry Paris. They had no idea what was really going on. When Juliet refused to marry Paris they took it as an outright act of defiance and threatened to disown her. With even the Nurse siding with her parents Juliet was hopeless and beginning to contemplate suicide. Before giving up completely Juliet paid Friar Laurence a visit, who came up with a brilliant plan to reunite her with Romeo. She followed the Friars instructions and took a dangerous potion that would make her appear dead long enough to miss her wedding to Paris the following day, and for the Friar to send word to Romeo.
However everything did not go as planned. Because of various complications Romeo did not receive the Friars letter but rather a message saying Juliet was dead. Romeo goes to see for himself, but first bumps into Paris whom he fights with and kills. He found her in the Capulet tomb still knocked out from the potion, he believed she was really dead and no longer saw the point in living and drank a poison he bought from an apothecary. As fate would have it, Juliet awoke shortly after Romeo had killed himself, she in turn stabs herself with his dagger.
Capulet and Montague last night were given detailed accounts of what happened. They agreed on a truce! A golden statue is to be built of the two doomed children for all to see. There cannot be a more appropriate closing that the statement made by The Prince himself – “For never was a story of more woe, than this of Juliet and her Romeo”
