Act IV, Scene OneJuliet has one more person she can turn to for help - the Friar. When she arrives to make her confession, she meets Paris, who is making arrangements with the Friar for the upcoming wedding. After Paris leaves Juliet with a kiss on the cheek, Juliet threatens to kill herself if the Friar cannot come up with a plan. His plan is this: on Wednesday evening Juliet is to send her nurse out of her room and then drink a potion that will put Juliet into a state of trance, and make her appear to be dead for 42 hours. Her parents will put her in the Capulet monument where she will sleep until Friar Laurence can get a message to Romeo to come get Juliet and take her to Mantua. (Refer back to Act II, Scene iii-Friar Laurence’s knowledge of the herbs).

Scene TwoAlthough Juliet had told her father she refuses to marry Paris, he, assuming she will change her mind because she is an obedient child, plans the wedding anyway - with many more than just a few guests, as he’d said earlier. Juliet returns home and apologizes to her father, telling him she will do as she is told. Lord Capulet is so happy that he moves the wedding up a day to Wednesday, thus upsetting the Friar’s timing of the plan. This scene shows us Juliet’s apparently changed attitude toward the wedding.

Scene ThreeJuliet prepares to take the potion given to her by the Friar. There is a problem here - Juliet has not told the Friar of the change in the day of the wedding, so he has not yet notified Romeo. Juliet discusses all her fears in taking the potion: it might not work and she’ll have to marry Paris; it might be real poison and she will die; she might wake up in the Capulet monument early and alone with all the dead bodies and ghosts of her ancestors. She takes the potion and sleeps.

Scene Four - wedding planning

Scene Five - Juliet is found “dead” and a funeral, not a wedding, is held. This funeral prepares the audience for the conclusion (denouement) when Juliet really does die.Friar Laurence has not yet sent word to Romeo about the plan but quickly finds a friar friend to take the news to Romeo rather than Romeo’s servant Balthasar, who had been delivering all the news from Verona. Because of the change in the wedding day, Balthasar had not gotten the news from the Friar, but did see that Juliet had died, and that is the news he brings to Romeo in Act V.

Below is the link to the recording of Kyra Knightly performing Juliet’s speech in scene 3 as she is about to take the potion. You may follow along on p. 883 of your Literature Book. List the things Juliet mentions she is afraid of.