What happens in Act 4 of Romeo and Juliet?

Juliet threatens to kill herself rather than marry Paris, and Friar Laurence gives her a potion that will make her appear dead for forty-two hours. She returns home and pretends to consent, prompting her father to move the wedding forward a day. Alone at night she imagines everything that could go wrong, then drinks the potion. In the morning the Nurse finds her apparently dead, and the wedding preparations are turned into a funeral.

What is Friar Laurence's plan in Romeo and Juliet?

Friar Laurence gives Juliet a drug that mimics death for forty-two hours. Her family will believe she has died and bury her in the Capulet vault; he will send letters telling Romeo the truth; and Romeo will come to the tomb, be there when she wakes, and take her away to Mantua. The plan fails because Capulet moves the wedding a day earlier and the letter never reaches Romeo.

Why is Juliet afraid to drink the potion?

In her Act 4 Scene 3 soliloquy Juliet imagines three disasters: that the potion may be real poison given by the Friar to hide his part in her secret marriage; that she may suffocate in the airless vault before Romeo arrives; and that she may wake early among her ancestors' bones and Tybalt's rotting body and go mad with terror. She drinks it anyway, calling out to Romeo.

Shakespeare in Plain English

Romeo & Juliet · Tragedy · c. 1595

Act Four

Cornered, thirteen years old, and out of allies, Juliet pulls a knife on herself in a priest's cell — and takes a drug that will make her look dead for forty-two hours. What could possibly go wrong? All five scenes.

Romeo & Juliet

The Original · First Folio

Plain Modern English

Hover or tap any line — its translation glows across the gutter.