Name:______________________________________Period:______
In Act 4 – Scene 3, it is night and Juliet is alone and about to take the drug that will make her seem dead so that she will escape marriage to Paris. She knows her parents will give her a funeral and she will be laid to rest in the
Capulets’ tomb where Tybalt’s body now lies among those of her ancestors.
Her long speech is a very vivid, nightmarish one, conveying her terror about what she is about to do. Remember she is only thirteen.
1.
On your own, consider Juliet’s feelings at this point. How might she be feeling about her parents, Romeo, the Nurse, the thought of her own funeral, Paris, Friar Lawrence, what the drug will do to her body, being entombed alive, Tybalt’s body, the bodies of her ancestors? Your answer should be at least 5 sentences in length.
2.
With your face partner (or in a group of 3 if there are only 3 at your table) read through Juliet’s speech.
You may consult the translation in our class copy, but please DO NOT write on it. On the back side of this paper, use colored pencils, markers or crayons, to color code it as follows:
Blue – examples of Juliet being brave and determined
Green – examples of Juliet reasoning out the possible consequences of taking the poison
Red – examples of Juliet feeling uncontrollable terror.
3.
Go through and circle all the words that have to do with death or dying.
4.
Identify 3 specific fears/images that Juliet is worried about. List those here.
5.
On the back side, underneath Juliet’s speech, illustrate what you think the scene in the Capulet tomb might look like – the way she imagines it. Use color and detail in your picture.

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. (holds out the vial)
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, no. This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
(lays her knife down)
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 these many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering 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 —?