Shakespeare & The Big Spoiler

O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after!

Photo by Michael Fenton on Unsplash

“O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after!” — Romeo & Juliet, Act V, Scene 3, Lines 168-169.

Romeo & Juliet die.

Sorry if that’s a spoiler, but even Shakespeare spoiled the ending before he got past page 1. The play begins, and before we can even meet these doomed, melodramatic teen lovers, Shakespeare tells us that they’re going to die.

And so, we the audience are forced to sit idly by and watch this incredibly preventable tragedy play out. But then again, maybe that’s the point. Maybe it isn’t a story about true love at all. Maybe it’s a story about how baseless prejudice can destroy something perfect. The most perfect thing, in fact, immature, hyper-romantic young love.

The Shakes-Scene

After the spoiler-filled sonnet opening the play wherein chorus tells us of this doomed but destined love, we find ourselves in the middle of a brawl between two families: The Capulets and the Montagues. It starts with two servants tossing insults and ends in a melee. But then the Prince enters and tells them he’s had enough of their nonsense and orders them to disperse.

That taken care off, we finally meet Romeo who had no part in the brawl. He’s too love-sick to fight. He goes on for nearly a hundred lines telling his bestie Benvolio about how deeply in love he is. And it’s not until Act I, Scene 2 that we learn he’s in love with Rosaline. Not Juliet. So maybe it wasn’t such a big spoiler after all? Maybe this is a sign of a cheeky Shakespeare playing a gotcha game with his audience.

And then we meet Juliet. We’re told she’s fourteen and her father thinks that’s a bit young for marriage, but he and Juliet’s mother have decided she should marry Paris… just not for a couple of years.

Which brings us to the party! Romeo is there to see his love Rosaline. Juliet is there to meet her soon-to-be-betrothed Paris and by line 105, Romeo and Juliet are making out.

Uh Oh.

After the party, Romeo ditches his friends and hops the wall of the Capulet orchard (ah, young knees) to creepily spy on his new love. And Juliet looks longingly out of her window (the word ‘balcony’ is nowhere in the play) and laments that Romeo is a Montague. And, as much as the scene is quoted and lampooned, it is beautiful. Seriously, give it a read.

Before I carry on with our tale, it behooves me to pause for a brief Public Service announcement: Wherefore means Why (not where). She is bemoaning his attachment to his name because his name is what keeps them apart. Now, back to our regularly scheduled synopsis…

They confess their love to one another and by the end of the scene, they’ve agreed to marry. Names be damned.

So off Romeo rushes again. This time to Friar Lawrence. Holy men in Shakespeare are never particularly helpful and this case is no different. He should have convinced Romeo and Juliet to slow down. But instead, he was lured by the greedy desire to be the one to unite the two warring families, and that greed, not the lovers’ love, is what leads to their death. Well, that and all the dueling.

Romeo sends word through Juliet’s nurse that Juliet should come to Friar Lawrence’s cell that afternoon and he would marry them. Now, you might notice, that all of this is moving very fast. In fact, one scholar has quipped that Romeo and Juliet are in such a hurry that they rush right past their comedic ending into tragedy. But even as this plot progresses, there is continual foreshadowing. Both Romeo and Juliet mention ominous feelings and dreams of death. The Playwright never lets us forget that their love will be the death of them.

And, the moment they are married, things turn bloody. Romeo is on the way to Juliet to… consummate the marriage when he is accosted by Juliet’s cousin Tybalt. Now Tybalt is a hot-head and he’s angry that Romeo and his friends crashed the party. He does not know that Romeo has married Juliet, and Romeo cannot tell him that until things are … official (wink). And Romeo doesn’t want to fight his wife’s cousin, so his best friend (and maybe best character of the play), Mercutio steps in. Romeo comes between them to stop the fighting, but Tybalt stabs Mercutio under Romeo’s arm. And Mercutio dies. And symbolically, the comedy of the play is also dead.

Romeo and Tybalt then fight, and Romeo slays Tybalt. The town finds out and the Prince declares that Romeo is banished and must leave by morning. Juliet learns of this and is incredibly distraught. Her father, thinking she is mourning the death of her cousin, tells Paris the wedding between he and Juliet will now be in three days.

And then we find the young lovers waking in their marriage bed, wishing the sun would not rise so Romeo would not have to leave. Parting is such sweet sorrow. But leave he must, and immediately thereafter, Juliet’s mother comes in to tell her she must marry Paris in three days time. So Juliet is trapped, but perhaps all of those adults that conspired to help her marry Romeo will help?

Nope.

The Nurse who passed messages between the lovers and helped sneak Romeo into Juliet’s bedchamber tells her she’s better off marrying Paris and forgetting Romeo ever existed. And Friar Lawrence, who married the lovers, initially tells her the same. But, being the big softie he is, he comes clean and tells everyone that Romeo and Juliet are married and they all live …. Just kidding.

Instead, Friar Lawrence develops a ridiculous scheme whereby Juliet will take a poison that will make her seem dead for forty-eight hours. He’ll then send word to Romeo to come get her and they’ll run off together. And things start off alright. Juliet takes the poison. Her family assumes she’s dead and lays her in the family tomb (next to the newly deceased Tybalt… *shudder*). But the messenger never gets to Romeo because he’s quarantined due to plague (Ugh, too relatable. Right?). So, instead, Romeo is told that Juliet is actually dead and rushes back to Verona.

Romeo goes to the tomb and finds Paris there also mourning Juliet. He and Paris fight, and Romeo kills Paris. He goes to find Juliet’s body and makes a series of very ironic comments about how alive she still looks (SHE IS YOU DOPE). And, because the guy won’t just sit down with his feelings and mourn for four minutes, he takes poison and dies mere seconds before Juliet wakes.

Friar Lawrence arrives to find Paris and Romeo dead, and Juliet waking. He tells her it will be ok. He promises to “dispose of [her] among a sisterhood of holy nuns.” Again, the guy could just tell her family that she’s alive and cop to devising the worst plan ever. But nope… His decision making continues to deteriorate when he hears noises and gets worried about being caught in this mess (that was his idea!), so he leaves her there. Alone. In a tomb with the recent corpses of her favorite cousin, the guy she could have married to avoid all this, and her husband. What comes next is foreseeable to say the least.

Now, she could walk out of the tomb and hope her father doesn’t disown her (which he’s already threatened to do). Or, she could go start over as a nun with no ties to the family that presumes her dead. Or…

She tries to drink the poison that Romeo drunk to die, but he’d finished it all. She hears the Night Watch coming down, and desperate, she stabs herself in the heart with Romeo’s dagger. Which is a pretty bold move for someone often dismissed as a silly pre-teen with an overwrought crush.

Her decision to die might seem rash. In fact, there’s a current Broadway musical, ‘& Juliet’, where she chooses conversely. But don’t forget how hated these families were to each other. To even suggest the other was human could cause a fight. If she admitted she married the enemy (the enemy who’d killed her cousin), would she be branded ‘disloyal’ and ruined? Perhaps this level of tribal hatred seems relevant today… who am I to say?

But back to fair Verona, where we lay our scene. Those who remain alive come to find everyone dead. The Prince questions the Friar who confesses (and throws the nurse under the bus), and the servants who had come with Romeo and Paris. Having unwound the mystery of everyone’s death, the Prince sums up the lesson as this:

“Capulet, Montague, See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.”

In the end, the fathers of Romeo and Juliet realize their hate has killed their only children and make peace, promising to build monuments to the other’s child. Their baseless feud had destroyed everything. And perhaps that is the true tragedy of Romeo & Juliet — the things we destroy to hold on to our grudges.

Speak the Speech, I Pray You

Bring Shakespeare’s words into your own life by:

• Chiding a friend who finished the last of the Tums on hot wings night;

• Lamenting to the empty coffee pot;

• And … mourning the empty wine bottle after a long week at work.

Additional Resources

• Find a copy of the entire play here.

• Watch Baz Luhrmann’s classic Romeo + Juliet.

• Read about the stage history of the play from the RSC.

Bonus

Since there was no newsletter last week (life gets in the way), here’s a bonus selection of texts to send a heartbroken bestie courtesy of Romeo’s bestie Benvolio:

• “Alas that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!”

• “No, coz, I rather weep. . . . At thy good heart’s oppression.”

• “[Give] liberty unto thine eyes. Examine other beauties.”