So Juliet goes to Friar Laurence’s cell to get advice. She comes with a knife, prepared to take her own life if the Friar can’t come up with a solution. She foreshadows her own death when she states: “Or bid me go into a new-made grave/ And hide me with a dead man in his shroud.” (IV, 1, 86-87) Because Juliet can’t really marry Paris (as she is already married to Romeo), Friar Laurence gives her a potion which will make her seem dead for forty-two hours. Friar Laurence tells her that he will send a messenger to Romeo to let him know what the plan is so he can come get her and take her to Mantua.
Juliet goes home and tells Lord Capulet that she will be happy to marry Count Paris because she doesn’t want him to get suspicious and so that her plan may succeed. Juliet tells her nurse and mother that she wants to be alone for the night, telling them that she has “need of many orisons/ To move the heavens to smile upon my state” (IV, iii, 3-4) referring to her Fate. She has second thoughts about drinking the potion (“Or, if I live, is it not very like/ The horrible conceit of death and night” referring to the Darkness, IV, iii, 37-38) but only out of love for Romeo decides to drink it after all.
Everyone is preparing for the wedding of Juliet and Paris. But in the morning, when the nurse finds Juliet seemingly dead, she states “Never was seen so black a day as this” (IV, v, 54) referring to the Dark theme. When Lord Capulet is told, he weeps, “Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,/ Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak..” (IV, v, 32-33) Death is personified as having taken Juliet and tying up Lord Capulet’s tongue not letting him speak. Thus, everyone believes that Juliet is dead. Instead of a wedding, there will be a funeral.
Again Shakespeare chooses to inject a little humour here with some word play amongst the musicians, Nurse and Peter. The joke is with the words and actions around dagger and wit in this example (IV, v, 115-117):
“Pray you, put up your dagger and put out your wit.” – Second Musician
“Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an iron wit and put up my iron dagger.” – Peter
