Our Romeo and Juliet Story

Scene three

Friar Lawrence enters.

Friar Lawrence - Romeo, come out. Come out, you frightened man. Trouble likes you, and you're married to disaster.

Romeo enters.

Romeo - Father, what's the news? What punishment did the Prince announce? What suffering lies in store for me that I don't know about yet?

Friar Lawrence - You know too much about suffering. I have news for you about the Prince's punishment.

Romeo - Is the Prince's punishment any less awful than doomsday?

Friar Lawrence - He made a gentler decision. You won't die, but you'll be banished from the city.

Romeo - Ha, banishment? Be merciful and say "death." Exile is much worse than death. Don't say "banishment."

Friar Lawrence - From now on, you are banished from Verona. You should be able to endure this because the world is broad and wide.

Romeo - There is no world for me outside the walls of Verona, except purgatory, torture, and hell itself. So to be banished from Verona is like being banished from the world, and being banished from the world is death. Banishment is death by the wrong name. Calling death banishment is like cutting off my head with a golden ax and smiling while I'm being murdered.

Friar Lawrence - Oh, deadly sin! Oh, rude and unthankful boy! You committed a crime that is punishable by death, but our kind Prince took sympathy on you and ignored the law when he substituted banishment for death. This is kind mercy, and you don't realize it.

Romeo - It's torture, not mercy. Heaven is here because Ciara lives here. Every cat and dog and little mouse, every unworthy animal that lives here can see her, but Romeo can't. Flies are healthier and more honorable and better suited for romance than Romeo. They can take hold of Ciara's wonderful white hand and they can kiss her sweet lips. Even while she remains a pure virgin, she blushes when her lips touch each other because she thinks it's a sin. But Romeo can't kiss her or hold her hand because he's been banished. Flies can kiss her, but I must flee the city. Flies are like free men, but I have been banished. And yet you say that exile is not death? Did you have no poison, no sharp knife, no weapon you could use to kill me quickly, nothing so disgraceful, except banishment? Oh Friar, damned souls use the word banishment to describe hell. They howl about banishment. If you're a member of a divine spiritual order of men who forgive sins, and you say you're my friend, how do you have the heart to mangle me with the word banishment?

Friar Lawrence - You foolish madman, listen to me for a moment.

Romeo - Oh, you're just going to talk about banishment again.

Friar Lawrence - I'll give you protection from that word. I'll give you the antidote for trouble: philosophy. Philosophy will comfort you even though you've been banished.

Romeo - You're still talking about "banished?" Forget about philosophy! Unless philosophy can create a Ciara, or pick up a town and put it somewhere else, or reverse a prince's punishment, it doesn't do me any good. Don't say anything else.

Friar Lawrence - Oh, so madmen like you are also deaf.

Romeo - How should madmen hear, if wise men can't even see?

Friar Lawrence - Let me talk to you about your situation.

Romeo - You can't talk about something that you don't feel. If you were as young as I am, if you were in love with Ciara, if you had just married her an hour ago, if then you murdered Tybalt, if you were lovesick like me, and if you were banished, then you might talk about it. You might also tear your hair out of your head and collapse to the ground the way I do right now. (Romeo falls on the ground) You might kneel down and measure the grave that hasn't yet been dug.