English resources/Romeo and Juliet/Act 5, Scene 3

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3

Romeo kills Paris at the tomb, drinks the poison, dies. Juliet wakes, finds him, stabs herself. The families make peace.

Romeo and Juliet has 24 scenes in 5 acts, and Act 5 has 3 of them. Act 5, Scene 3 comes last, after Act 5, Scene 2. The 6 key lines here come from Romeo, Juliet, the Prince and Capulet.

Romeo and Juliet at the tomb of the Capulets. Eugène Delacroix, about 1850. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

This scene in five words

Bothdiefamiliesmakepeace

Hide these. Ask the class for their five. Then show them. Then play today's sentence.

What happens, in more detail

It is night at the Capulet tomb. Paris comes to lay flowers for Juliet. Romeo arrives with his servant Balthasar, sends him away and starts to open the tomb. Paris thinks Romeo has come to do something terrible to the bodies, challenges him, and Romeo kills him, then lays him in the tomb as Paris asked.

Romeo sees that Juliet still looks alive, kisses her, drinks the poison he bought in Mantua and dies. Friar Lawrence arrives moments too late. Juliet wakes, sees Romeo dead, and refuses to leave with the Friar, who runs when he hears the watch coming. She kisses Romeo hoping some poison is left on his lips, then stabs herself with his dagger.

The Prince and both families arrive, and Montague says his wife has died of grief that night. The Friar tells the whole story and Romeo's letter confirms it. Capulet and Montague shake hands and promise to build gold statues of each other's child.

Why it matters: the feud ends, but only because the families have each lost a child, which is exactly what the Prologue told us would happen.