The bride found dead

Scene summary

The Nurse enters the room to wake Juliet and teases her, saying she sleeps like a lazybones and that Count Paris will not let her rest the next night. Getting no answer, she sees that the girl is dressed and lying down, tries again, and concludes she is dead. She cries for help, and Lady Capulet arrives, begs her daughter to come back to life, and says she will die with her. Capulet orders Juliet brought, because the bridegroom has come; he touches her and finds her cold, with the blood settled and the joints stiff, like an untimely frost on the fairest flower of the field. Paris and Friar Laurence arrive with the musicians. Capulet says the bride is ready to go, but not to return: death lay with her the night before the wedding, and death is his son-in-law and heir. Paris, Lady Capulet, and the Nurse lament in speeches that repeat the same exclamations.

The friar orders them to stop: the daughter is now in heaven, where the parents wanted to see her, and they love her badly, for they go mad because she is well. He orders them to dry their tears, to lay rosemary over the body, and to carry her, in her finest garments, to church, as is the custom. Capulet replies that everything prepared for the feast is turned into a funeral: the instruments into bells, the banquet into a funeral supper, the hymns into mourning songs, the flowers into flowers for the dead. The friar orders everyone to make ready to follow the body to the grave. The musicians stay, and the Nurse asks them to put away their instruments, to which one of them replies that the situation could be remedied. Peter enters and asks for a song called "Heart's ease," because his heart is playing "My heart is full." The musicians refuse, and he threatens to strike them, trades insults with them, and asks why music is said to have a silver sound. After giving the answer himself, that the musicians have no gold for their music, he leaves. The musicians decide to stay for lunch, waiting for those who weep.