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They were supposed to be a match made in heaven, one of the fairytale romances that we love to watch unfold, until a ploy to keep the two together went tragically wrong.
Romeo and Juliet's constantly feuding families resulted in the two lovers being forbidden to be together. Juliet's family had promised her to another man, but Juliet knew her true love was Romeo and decided to marry him against her parent's wishes.
For Juliet to escape her arranged marriage, she came up with a plan. On a dark November evening she took a sleeping potion which would fool her family into thinking she was dead. Before Juliet took the potion, she sent a letter to Romeo explaining her plan, but before this letter reached him Balthazar, a close friend of Romeo's came to him to tell him of Juliet's death.
Faced with this tragic news and overcome with grief,
Romeo went straight to a poor apothecary to buy a dram of poison, in order to end his life so he could be with Juliet for eternity.
In an effort to get Romeo to change his mind the apothecary states:
"My poverty, but not my will, consents."
To which Romeo replies:
"I pay thy poverty, and not thy will."
Romeo then rushed to be by Juliet's side where he drank the poison, only to see Juliet awaken from her sleep.
Sadly it was too late, as the poison consumed Romeo's body, Juliet became aware of what had happened and held Romeo in her arms. The last words he said to his Juliet were "Thus with a kiss, I die."
As Juliet clung to Romeo's hand with the knowledge that she couldn't go on with her life without him, Juliet picked up the knife that Romeo carried with...
Mass-produced colour photolithography on paper for...
Romeo and Juliet with Friar Laurence
Romeo and Juliet,Act I- Scene_1
Not quite
If "They were supposed to be a match made in heaven," why did they face such obstacles?
Arguably, Juliet was something of an immature juvenile delinquent. In Veronese society, a child of her age is expected to be reasonable in responding to the wishes of her parents. After all the Capulets did not get to be one of the leading families in the city by being fools. Instead, she insists on marrying the man who is the bane of their existence.
And Romeo? What can be said for this adventurer. He meets Juliet by showing up at a private party essentially as a party crasher. He falls in love with her, manages a secret marriage, and then fails to explain things so that he, Tybalt, and Mercutio end up in a street fight in which Mercutio and Tybalt end up dead. Not an auspicious way to start a marriage.
And if you want to wax eloquent abut how bad things are, the editorial should address some of the very real problems that it appears these two star-crossed lovers brought on themselves.
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