south of Verona, not really very far, though to Romeo it might well have seemed an infinite distance under the circumstances.
The chink of hope remains, but oh, how different from what it would have been if Mercutio had not been ignorant of Romeo's marriage.
For even that chink of hope to remain, however, time is needed as Friar Laurence says, and, alas, time disappears.
Thursday let it be...
Old Capulet is perturbed at Juliet's misery and attributes it entirely to the death of Tybalt. He says to Paris:
Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
- Act III, scene iv, line 3
Yes indeed, and this is the best evidence we have that she may well have picked up her fatal notions of the feud from him.
Thinking to console his daughter, Capulet decides to let her marry Paris at once after all. He asks the day and Paris says:
Monday, my lord.
- Act III, scene iv, line 18
This fixes the time sequence for all the play. Capulet considers that and says:
Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.
A [on] Thursday let it be ...
- Act III, scene iv, lines 19-20
He doesn't know that Juliet is already married, of course.
No warmth, no breath ...
Unsuspecting this new gruesome development, Juliet receives Romeo late Monday night. The night after their meeting and their great balcony scene, they spend in connubial love. At dawn on Tuesday they must separate and Romeo gets out of town safely.
But then Juliet learns of her prospective marriage to Paris and of course refuses firmly. Old Capulet promptly flies into a passion and makes it plain that she will marry Paris whether she wishes to or not.
Juliet can find no one to help her. Capulet threatens to disown her. Lady Capulet turns away. Even the Nurse, in desperation, can only advise Juliet to marry Paris and commit bigamy.
Juliet can think of no alternative but to fly to Friar Laurence.
At this point the friar might have shown courage. He might have gone to the Capulets with the truth and endeavored to protect himself and Juliet with his priestly robes. Under the circumstances, there would have been great risk, but there were no reasonable alternatives.
Friar Laurence turns to an unreasonable one. As romantic as Juliet, he tries a complicated plan of indirection. He gives Juliet a mysterious drug he has prepared himself. He tells her to take it the night of the next day (Wednesday) and it will put her into a cataleptic trance. He says:
... no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease;
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
- Act IV, scene i, lines 96-98
This trance will last forty-two hours, that is, through Thursday and Friday. The Capulets, thinking she is dead, will place her in the family tomb. Romeo will be there by Friday night, and when she wakes he will carry her off to Mantua.
This drug is, of course, an element of fantasy, for no drug is known (even today) that can safely counterfeit death so accurately over so long a time.
... mandrakes torn out of the earth
For the first time in the play, there is a sizable gap in time. Some thirty-six hours are skipped over and it is Wednesday night. Juliet suddenly submits to her father's plans (to his relief and pleasure) and has now prepared herself, supposedly, for a wedding the next morning. She sends out the Nurse so that she may sleep alone, and as she prepares to take the friar's drug, she is beset with quite understandable fears.
What if it kills her? Or, worse still, what if it wears off too soon and she comes to in the tomb before Romeo is there to claim her? What if she is surrounded by the effluvium of death, the gibbering of ghosts, and, in general, by
... loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad-
- Act IV, scene iii, lines 46-48
The mandrake is a herb with a large, fleshy root that is usually forked in such proportions as to give it a resemblance to a partly formed man. About this fancied resemblance a number of superstitions arose.
Since the root looked like a man it would, supposedly, help in the formation of one, and mandrakes were therefore thought to have the ability to make women fecund. This superstition (a worthless one, of course) is sanctioned by the Bible, where Jacob's second wife, Rachel, who is barren, begs for the mandrakes gathered by the son of his first wife, her sister Leah (Genesis 30:14).