The farewell and the order to marry

Scene summary

At dawn, in the bedroom, Juliet tells Romeo that it is not yet day: what he heard was the nightingale, not the lark. Romeo says it is the lark, that the light already streaks the east, and that he must leave to live or stay to die. Juliet then says that the light is a meteor serving as a torch to light his way to Mantua, and Romeo yields, saying he will stay and die if she wishes. Juliet corrects herself: it is the lark; he must go. The Nurse warns that her mother is coming to the room. Romeo goes down, and Juliet, with a premonition, says she sees him as dead at the bottom of a tomb; he answers that she looks pale too.

Lady Capulet enters and assumes Juliet is weeping for Tybalt's death. Juliet answers her in half-measures: she says she forgives the villain Romeo with all her heart, and that no one makes her suffer as much. Her mother promises vengeance, with poison to be sent to Mantua, and Juliet says she would like to prepare the poison herself. Her mother then announces the happy news: her father has set the wedding with Count Paris for Thursday morning, at the church of Saint Peter. Juliet refuses, saying she prefers marrying Romeo, whom she claims to hate. Capulet arrives with the Nurse, and his wife tells him that Juliet refused. He flares up: he calls her carrion, a rag, and a tallow face, threatens to drag her on a hurdle, says that if she does not go to church on Thursday she should never look him in the face again, and calls her a curse. The Nurse defends her, and Capulet orders her to be silent. In a speech, he says he has spent days and nights seeking to marry her well, and that if she does not marry, she may beg and die in the street. He leaves. Juliet asks her mother to postpone the wedding a month, or a week, or else to prepare the marriage bed in the dark tomb where Tybalt lies, but her mother says she is done with her and leaves.

Juliet asks the Nurse how to avoid the marriage, since her husband is in the earth and her faith in heaven. The Nurse advises marrying Paris: Romeo is banished and will never dare return, Paris is more handsome, and beside him Romeo is a dishrag. Juliet asks whether the Nurse speaks from her heart, hears that she does, and says "Amen." She sends the Nurse to tell her mother that she went to Friar Laurence's cell to confess. Alone, she calls the Nurse a demon, says that from now on she and her heart will be two, and that she will go to the friar; if all fails, she has the power to die.