Scene 1
The Chorus speaks a sonnet
A single voice, before the play has technically begun. The Chorus speaks fourteen lines — a sonnet — and gives the audience the entire shape of the story in advance. Two households in fair Verona, equal in dignity, locked in an ancient grudge that has flared up again. From them, "a pair of star-cross'd lovers" who will love and die. Their deaths, and only their deaths, will finally bury their parents' strife. The play asks for two hours of patient listening and promises that what is left out will be made up for. Then the Chorus exits. The play begins knowing the audience already knows it ends in a tomb.
Scene 2
The brawl in the street
Sunday morning in Verona. Two Capulet servants, Sampson and Gregory, swagger through a public place looking for trouble. A pair of Montague servants pass; Sampson bites his thumb at them, an Elizabethan provocation. Swords come out. Benvolio, Romeo's cousin, arrives and tries to break it up. Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, arrives and refuses — "what, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word." The brawl widens. Both fathers run on with old swords, restrained by their wives. Prince Escalus arrives and ends it: the next outbreak between the houses will be punished by death. After the square clears, Benvolio finds Romeo wandering — lovesick over a woman named Rosaline — and tries to coax it out of him.
Scene 3
Capulet, Paris, and the guest list
Capulet walks the street with the young nobleman Paris, who has asked for Juliet's hand. She is not yet fourteen, Capulet says — let two more summers pass. But come to the feast tonight; see her there; consent if she does. Capulet hands an illiterate servant a guest list and tells him to invite the names. The servant, unable to read, asks the next gentleman who passes — Romeo, with Benvolio. Romeo reads the list aloud. Rosaline's name is on it. Benvolio seizes the chance: come to the feast in disguise, compare her with other beauties, and you will see her plain. Romeo agrees, but only to look at Rosaline.
Scene 4
The marriage proposal
Lady Capulet calls for Juliet and asks the Nurse to stay. The Nurse, in one of the play's most famous comic monologues, ranges affectionately through Juliet's childhood — weaning her with wormwood, the earthquake of eleven years ago, her dead husband's small bawdy joke about a fall. Lady Capulet steers her back. Juliet is not yet fourteen. The valiant Paris, at the feast tonight, seeks her love. She is to read his face like a precious book. Juliet, with grave courtesy, agrees to look — "but no more deep will I endart mine eye / than your consent gives strength to make it fly." A servant calls them to the feast.
Scene 5
Queen Mab and the premonition
Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio, and a small group of friends walk through the street toward the Capulet feast in masks. Romeo is reluctant. He has had a dream, he says, of "some consequence yet hanging in the stars" that will begin tonight. Mercutio answers with the Queen Mab speech — a torrent of fairy-tale invention beginning playfully (a tiny coach drawn by atomies, driven by a gnat) and sliding into something darker (lovers, lawyers, soldiers, ladies whose lips she blisters with plagues). It becomes uncontrollable. Romeo stops him: "thou talk'st of nothing." Mercutio agrees — dreams are nothing, "the children of an idle brain." They reach the Capulet door. Romeo, reluctant still, follows them in.
Scene 6
The meeting and the sonnet
The Capulet ball, in full motion. Romeo, masked, sees Juliet across the room and forgets Rosaline: "did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!" Tybalt recognizes Romeo's voice and reaches for his rapier; Capulet stops him — Romeo is "a virtuous and well-governed youth" — and orders him not to disturb the feast. Romeo takes Juliet's hand. They speak fourteen lines between them — a perfect Shakespearean sonnet, sharing the rhymes — on the metaphor of pilgrim and shrine. He kisses her. He kisses her again. The Nurse calls Juliet away. Each, separately, asks the Nurse who the other is. Juliet, on learning: "my only love sprung from my only hate."
Scene 7
Romeo refuses to leave
Outside the Capulet wall, late at night after the feast. Mercutio and Benvolio have lost Romeo on the way home and call for him through the dark. Mercutio, in increasingly bawdy mock-invocations, conjures him by Rosaline's "bright eyes" and "scarlet lip" and by the parts of her anatomy a young man might think of. Romeo will not answer. Benvolio gives up — "blind is his love, and best befits the dark" — and the two of them turn for home. What they do not know is that Romeo has already vaulted the orchard wall and is in the Capulet garden, watching for a light in an upstairs window. Mercutio is still laughing about Rosaline.
Scene 8
The balcony scene
Romeo, alone in the orchard, sees a light in the window above. Juliet appears on the balcony thinking herself unobserved: "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" — meaning why: why must he be a Montague? Romeo speaks; she startles. They talk — she asks him how he got past the orchard wall, whether he is mocking her, and names what is happening: "it is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden." She agrees anyway. They exchange vows. She is called away by the Nurse and returns three times to add one more thing. By dawn they have agreed: at nine she will send word to learn where they are to be married.
Scene 9
The Friar agrees
Friar Laurence, alone in his cell at dawn, fills a basket with herbs and reads moral lessons in their double natures: "within the infant rind of this small flower / poison hath residence and medicine power." Romeo arrives — sleepless, exalted, asking the Friar to marry him to Juliet today. The Friar's first response is teasing: yesterday it was Rosaline. Romeo defends the new love. The Friar weighs it, then agrees on a single calculation: this marriage, in secret, may be the rod that breaks the feud — "for this alliance may so happy prove, / to turn your households' rancour to pure love." His warning, also delivered: "wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast."
Scene 10
Mercutio and the Nurse
Late morning, a street in Verona. Mercutio and Benvolio have not seen Romeo since he vaulted the wall last night and are discussing graver news: Tybalt has sent Romeo a letter at his father's house, "a challenge, on my life." Romeo enters, suddenly cheerful; Mercutio, delighted, trades elaborate puns with him. The Nurse arrives in her best clothes with her fan, sent by Juliet to learn the wedding plan. Mercutio teases her relentlessly. Romeo gets her aside and gives the message: at this afternoon's hour, Juliet is to come to Friar Laurence's cell to be shrived and married. He arranges with Balthasar that a rope ladder will be brought to her window tonight.
Scene 11
Juliet waits for the Nurse
Juliet, alone in the garden, paces and counts the minutes. The Nurse left at nine; it is past noon; love's heralds should be thoughts, ten times faster than the sun's beams. The Nurse finally arrives, exhausted from the heat, with Peter trailing. She refuses to give the news immediately — first she must catch her breath, complain about her aching back, ask whether Juliet has dined. Juliet, frantic, alternates between pleading and exasperation; her fear of bad news climbs into her voice. At last the Nurse delivers it: go to Friar Laurence's cell this afternoon, where there stays a husband to make you a wife. She will fetch the rope ladder for tonight. Juliet runs.
Scene 12
The secret marriage
Romeo at the Friar's cell, waiting. The Friar warns him, again: "these violent delights have violent ends, / and in their triumph die, like fire and powder." Love moderately; long love does so. Juliet enters. She and Romeo speak briefly, ardently — neither can describe what they feel; "they are but beggars that can count their worth." The Friar takes them off-stage into the chapel: "come, come with me, and we will make short work, / for, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone / till holy church incorporate two in one." The wedding takes less than thirty lines. After it, only the three of them and the Nurse will know.
Scene 13
Mercutio dies, Tybalt dies
Mercutio and Benvolio in the public square; the day is hot, the Capulets are out, the mad blood is stirring. Tybalt arrives looking for Romeo. Romeo enters, freshly married, unable to fight his new cousin and unable to explain why. Tybalt insults him; Romeo answers gently. Mercutio cannot bear the gentleness — to him it sounds like cowardice — and draws on Tybalt himself. They fight. Romeo steps between them; Tybalt thrusts under his arm and runs Mercutio through. "A scratch, a scratch — marry, 'tis enough... a plague o' both your houses!" He dies. Romeo, broken with grief, kills Tybalt within ten lines. The Prince arrives, hears Benvolio's account, and banishes Romeo from Verona on pain of death.
Scene 14
The Nurse brings the news
Juliet, alone in her chamber, calls on the night to come quickly: "gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds." It is an epithalamion sung by a thirteen-year-old girl waiting for her wedding night. The Nurse rushes in wailing — he is dead, he is dead — and Juliet for thirty lines thinks she means Romeo. The Nurse means Tybalt; Romeo killed him; Romeo is banished. Juliet's first response is fury at Romeo. Then it turns. The Nurse curses Romeo and Juliet stops her — Romeo is her husband; whatever he is, she cannot speak ill of him. The Nurse, contrite, leaves to find Romeo at the Friar's cell and bring him to her tonight.
Scene 15
The banishment
Romeo, hidden at the Friar's cell, hears his sentence. Banishment is worse than death, he insists — death is a single blow; banishment is exile from Juliet. The Friar tries philosophy. The Nurse arrives. Romeo, learning Juliet is calling his name, draws his dagger. The Friar tears it from his hand and delivers a long, angry sermon — Romeo is a man, not a beast; Juliet is alive; Tybalt would have killed him; the law gave him banishment instead of death; pull yourself together. Then the plan: go to Juliet tonight as arranged, leave for Mantua before dawn, stay there until the marriage can be made public. The Nurse takes a ring back to Juliet.
Scene 16
The Paris match arranged
A short scene. Late at night, Paris is at the Capulet house paying his respects after Tybalt's death and on the point of leaving. Capulet stops him at the door. He has been thinking. Paris will marry Juliet on Thursday. Lady Capulet protests mildly that Thursday is too soon; Capulet brushes it off. The marriage will be small because of Tybalt's death — "we'll keep no great ado, a friend or two" — but it will happen. He charges his wife to climb to Juliet's chamber at once and tell her. Paris, transparently delighted, agrees that Thursday is none too soon. The Capulets go to bed. The audience knows that at this moment Juliet is upstairs with Romeo.
Scene 17
The parting at dawn
Dawn. Romeo and Juliet stand at the window. Juliet wants the night to last — that bird is the nightingale, not the lark. Romeo tells her gently it is the lark; he must go or die. They part. He climbs down the rope ladder. Lady Capulet enters with the news of the Paris wedding on Thursday. Juliet refuses. Capulet, comprehending the refusal, erupts: she is a "disobedient wretch"; he will drag her to the church on a hurdle; if she will not marry Paris, she may "hang, beg, starve, die in the streets." Lady Capulet refuses to intercede. The Nurse counsels Juliet to forget Romeo and marry Paris. Juliet, alone, resolves on the Friar.
Scene 18
The potion plan
Friar Laurence's cell. Paris is there, arranging Thursday's wedding. Juliet enters; Paris greets her tenderly and is gently put off. Alone with the Friar, Juliet draws a knife and threatens to use it before she will marry Paris. The Friar stops her. He has a plan. Tomorrow night she is to drink a vial he hands her. She will fall into a death that lasts forty-two hours: no breath, no pulse, the lips and cheeks pale. She will be discovered "dead" and buried in the family vault. Meanwhile he will write to Romeo in Mantua; Romeo will return on the night of the burial, find her waking, and carry her away. Juliet takes the vial without hesitation.
Scene 19
Juliet "consents"
Capulet, his wife, the Nurse and a few servants, busy with preparations for Thursday's wedding. Juliet enters. She kneels to her father, asks his pardon, and says she has been "chid" by the Friar into obedience: she will marry Paris cheerfully. Capulet is overjoyed. He sends for the Count to thank him; in his enthusiasm he moves the wedding up a day — Wednesday instead of Thursday. Juliet does not have the leisure to argue. She and the Nurse go upstairs to choose her wedding dress. Capulet declares he will sit up all night supervising. The single shifted day, in the next two scenes, will be the difference between life and death.
Scene 20
The potion
Juliet's chamber, late Tuesday night. The Nurse and Lady Capulet have just bid her goodnight. She lays a dagger on the table beside the bed, in case the vial fails. Then, alone, she rehearses every possible failure: the potion will not work and they will marry her in the morning; the Friar has poisoned her instead, to hide his complicity; she will wake before Romeo comes and suffocate in the tomb; she will wake among Tybalt's bones and break her brains out with some great kinsman's bone. The speech runs through all of them and arrives at one image — Tybalt's ghost rising in the vault. She drinks. "Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here's drink. I drink to thee."
Scene 21
The household up all night
A short scene set just before dawn on Wednesday. Capulet, Lady Capulet, the Nurse and servants are in the hall finishing the wedding feast. Capulet is in high spirits, supervising the cooks, calling for spices, sending servants for "drier logs" for the kitchen fire. The household has been up all night. Lady Capulet tries to send him to bed; he refuses. He jokes that he is "a mouse-hunt in his time" and will see the morning through. Music is heard outside — Paris has arrived with the wedding band, the customary morning summons of a bridegroom. Capulet bustles out to greet him and sends the Nurse upstairs with a candle to wake the bride.
Scene 22
The discovery
The Nurse climbs the stairs and pulls back the bed-curtains. Juliet does not stir. The Nurse calls, sees her, begins to wail. Lady Capulet runs in; Capulet runs in. Paris arrives with Friar Laurence and the musicians and finds, instead of a bride, a household in mourning. Each character delivers a short formal lament — the Nurse, Lady Capulet, Capulet, Paris — that the play does not entirely take seriously; the Friar, who alone knows the truth, hurries to convert the wedding into a burial. "All things that we ordained festival, / turn from their office to black funeral." The body will be carried in her wedding clothes to the family vault before the day is out.
Scene 23
The apothecary
Mantua, midmorning Thursday. Romeo, who has had no word from the Friar, is unusually cheerful — he has dreamed Juliet found him dead and revived him with a kiss. Balthasar enters dust-stained from the road. The news: Juliet is dead, buried this morning in the Capulet vault. He has ridden through the night with no letter from the Friar. Romeo's response is immediate: "Then I defy you, stars." He sends Balthasar to hire horses for tonight. Alone, he remembers a half-starved apothecary's shop he passed earlier in the week. He goes there and, with forty ducats, buys poison strong enough "to disperse itself through all the veins" instantly. "There's thy gold, worse poison to men's souls."
Scene 24
The letter undelivered
Friar Laurence's cell, late Thursday afternoon. Friar John arrives — the brother who was sent to Mantua with the letter. He has not delivered it. The bearer of plague tracts had visited a house in Mantua suspected of pestilence; the searchers of the town locked Friar John inside, not letting him out, and not letting him send the letter on. He is only just released, with the letter still in his hand. Friar Laurence's reaction is the play's plainest panic: "unhappy fortune!" He fetches a crowbar and hurries alone to the Capulet vault. Juliet will wake in three hours. He will keep her in his cell until Romeo can be summoned again.
Scene 25
The end at the vault
Late Thursday night, the Capulet vault. Paris arrives first with flowers to mourn. Romeo arrives with a crowbar; Paris takes him for a vandal; they fight; Romeo kills him and only then sees his face. He lays the body beside Juliet's. His speech over her — "Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, / hath had no power yet upon thy beauty" — ends with the apothecary's poison. He drinks; he dies. Friar Laurence arrives too late; Juliet wakes; the watch is heard; he flees. Juliet finds Romeo's dagger and uses it. By morning the Prince has heard the Friar's confession and declares: "All are punish'd." Capulet and Montague shake hands.