Romeo refuses to fight and his friend Mercutio is so disgusted by this 'cowardice' that the takes up the challenge instead. The Prince arrives and, on hearing the full story, banishes Romeo rather than have him executed. Arranged by the Friar and the Nurse, Romeo and Juliet have spent their wedding night together. They are immediately parted though, as Romeo must leave for banishment in Mantua or die if he is found in Verona. Believing her grief to be for the death of her cousin, Juliet's father tries to cheer Juliet by arranging her immediate marriage to Paris.
He threatens to disown her when she asks for the marriage to be at least postponed, and she runs to the Friar for advice and help. Juliet arrives at the Friar's to be met by Paris, who is busy discussing their wedding plans. She is so desperate that she threatens suicide, and the Friar instead suggests that she takes a potion that will make her appear to be dead. He promises to send a message to Romeo, asking him to return secretly and be with Juliet when she wakes, once her 'body' has been taken to the family crypt.
The Nurse discovers Juliet 's 'body' dead' when she goes to wake her for her marriage Paris. Friar Laurence is called, counsels the family to accept their grief, and arranges for Juliet to be 'buried' immediately. Romeo's servant, Balthasar, reaches Mantua before the Friar's messenger and tells Romeo that Juliet is dead. Romeo buys poison and leaves for Verona, planning to die alongside Juliet's body.
Trying to break into the Capulet crypt, Romeo is disturbed by Paris and they fight. Romeo kills Paris and reaches Juliet's body. He drinks the poison, kisses his wife for the last time, and dies. Having learned that Romeo never received his message, the Friar comes to the crypt to be with Juliet when she wakes. He finds Paris's body and reaches Juliet just as she revives. He cannot persuade her to leave her dead husband, and runs away in fear.
Juliet realises what has happened, takes Romeo's knife and stabs herself to death with it. The watchmen discover the gruesome sight and call the Prince, to whom the Friar confesses everything. Having heard the full story, the Montagues and Capulets are reconciled.
Peace has been achieved, but the price has been the lives of two innocent young lovers. Studying Shakespeare? Discover loads of facts, videos and in-depth information about Shakespeare's plays.
He explains his plan to Romeo in a letter, which never reaches him. Distraught over the alleged death of his beloved Juliet, Romeo returns to Verona and takes his own life at the open coffin of Juliet.
Shortly after, Juliet wakes up from her sleep, sees what has happened and also takes her life. The two feuding families now recognise their complicity and reconcile at the grave of their children. Many loving couples and tourists come here every year to walk in the footsteps of Romeo and Juliet.
No matter where you look in the entire city, you will find loving couples everywhere who stick declarations of their love and their initials on small slips of paper to the walls or immortalise themselves on the walls or stones of houses — often illegally. Not registered yet? Then become a member of our travel community for free and get numerous benefits:. Simply print, download, send it by e-mail or download an e-book for your mobile phone and you are ready for your next trip.
No idea how to do it? Romeo and Juliet is the most famous love story in the English literary tradition. The play focuses on romantic love, specifically the intense passion that springs up at first sight between Romeo and Juliet.
In Romeo and Juliet , love is a violent, ecstatic, overpowering force that supersedes all other values, loyalties, and emotions. Love is the overriding theme of the play, but a reader should always remember that Shakespeare is uninterested in portraying a prettied-up, dainty version of the emotion, the kind that bad poets write about, and whose bad poetry Romeo reads while pining for Rosaline.
Love in Romeo and Juliet is a brutal, powerful emotion that captures individuals and catapults them against their world, and, at times, against themselves. The powerful nature of love can be seen in the way it is described, or, more accurately, the way descriptions of it so consistently fail to capture its entirety. At times love is described in the terms of religion, as in the fourteen lines when Romeo and Juliet first meet.
Love, in other words, resists any single metaphor because it is too powerful to be so easily contained or understood. The themes of death and violence permeate Romeo and Juliet , and they are always connected to passion, whether that passion is love or hate.
The connection between hate, violence, and death seems obvious. But the connection between love and violence requires further investigation. Love, in Romeo and Juliet , is a grand passion, and as such, it is blinding; it can overwhelm a person as powerfully and completely as hate can.
The passionate love between Romeo and Juliet is linked from the moment of its inception with death: Tybalt notices that Romeo has crashed the feast and determines to kill him just as Romeo catches sight of Juliet and falls instantly in love with her. From that point on, love seems to push the lovers closer to love and violence, not farther from it. This theme continues until its inevitable conclusion: double suicide.
This tragic choice is the highest, most potent expression of love that Romeo and Juliet can make. It is only through death that they can preserve their love, and their love is so profound that they are willing to end their lives in its defense. In the play, love emerges as an amoral thing, leading as much to destruction as to happiness. But in its extreme passion, the love that Romeo and Juliet experience also appears so exquisitely beautiful that few would want, or be able, to resist its power.
Such structures range from the concrete to the abstract: families and the placement of familial power in the father; law and the desire for public order; religion; and the social importance placed on masculine honor. These institutions often come into conflict with each other. The importance of honor, for example, time and again results in brawls that disturb the public peace.
Though they do not always work in concert, each of these societal institutions in some way present obstacles for Romeo and Juliet. The enmity between their families, coupled with the emphasis placed on loyalty and honor to kin, combine to create a profound conflict for Romeo and Juliet, who must rebel against their heritages.
Further, the patriarchal power structure inherent in Renaissance families, wherein the father controls the action of all other family members, particularly women, places Juliet in an extremely vulnerable position.
The law and the emphasis on social civility demand terms of conduct with which the blind passion of love cannot comply. Religion similarly demands priorities that Romeo and Juliet cannot abide by because of the intensity of their love. Though in most situations the lovers uphold the traditions of Christianity they wait to marry before consummating their love , their love is so powerful that they begin to think of each other in blasphemous terms.
The maintenance of masculine honor forces Romeo to commit actions he would prefer to avoid. But the social emphasis placed on masculine honor is so profound that Romeo cannot simply ignore them. It is possible to see Romeo and Juliet as a battle between the responsibilities and actions demanded by social institutions and those demanded by the private desires of the individual.
But the lovers cannot stop the night from becoming day. And Romeo cannot cease being a Montague simply because he wants to; the rest of the world will not let him.
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