Juliet — Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene iii

Production Notes

Juliet alone, preparing to drink the Friar’s potion. The speech is structured as a series of escalating fears — each possibility worse than the last — until she finally overwhelms them all with action. It is one of Shakespeare’s finest portraits of courage, because we see every reason she has not to be brave before she chooses to be anyway.

Excellent for Players exploring internal conflict. The stage directions embedded in the text (she takes out the vial; she takes out her knife) give the Player physical anchors throughout.

Script

JULIET

Farewell.—God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins That almost freezes up the heat of life. I’ll call them back again to comfort me.— Nurse!—What should she do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Come, vial. (She takes out the vial.) What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then tomorrow morning? (She takes out her knife and puts it down beside her.) No, no, this shall forbid it. Lie thou there. What if it be a poison which the Friar Subtly hath ministered to have me dead, Lest in this marriage he should be dishonored Because he married me before to Romeo? I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not, For he hath still been tried a holy man. How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point. Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? Or, if I live, is it not very like The horrible conceit of death and night, Together with the terror of the place— As in a vault, an ancient receptacle Where for this many hundred years the bones Of all my buried ancestors are packed; Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies fest’ring in his shroud; where, as they say, At some hours in the night spirits resort— Alack, alack, is it not like that I, So early waking, what with loathsome smells, And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad— O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, Environèd with all these hideous fears, And madly play with my forefathers’ joints, And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud, And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone, As with a club, dash out my desp’rate brains? O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body Upon a rapier’s point! Stay, Tybalt, stay! Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink. I drink to thee. (She drinks and falls upon her bed.)

Facilitator Notes

Warm-up: Explore physical stillness versus internal tumult — how much of Juliet’s fear can be in the breath and voice rather than visible movement?

Debrief prompts:

• Count the “What if…” questions. How does the rhythm of the speech mirror Juliet’s state of mind?
• At what moment does Juliet make her decision? What signals it?
• The speech ends in action, not words. What does it mean for this particular character that courage is a physical act?
• How does the speech feel different from the balcony scene? What has changed in Juliet between those two moments?