The Capulet household is in public mourning this morning, following the discovery of Juliet Capulet, apparently lifeless, in her chambers. The family physician confirms all the signs of death. The city is in shock. The wedding to County Paris, scheduled for Thursday, has been cancelled.
However — and this correspondent chooses words carefully — sources close to Friar Laurence suggest the situation is considerably more complicated than it appears. Prior to her "death," Juliet visited the Friar's cell in a state of considerable distress. She had been informed, by her father Lord Capulet, that failure to appear at her wedding to Paris would result in her being thrown out of the house.
Juliet's position was, to put it plainly, impossible: she was already secretly married to a banished man, being ordered to wed another. Her options, as she herself apparently put it to the Friar, were limited to "a remedy or death." The Friar, it seems, offered her a third option.
"Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!" — Juliet, upon receiving the Friar's vial
A potion, carefully formulated, would render her indistinguishable from dead for exactly forty-two hours. Long enough to be placed in the Capulet family tomb. Long enough, if the plan held, for word to reach Romeo in Mantua, for him to return in secret, and for the two of them to wake her and escape.
The plan, on paper, was not unreasonable. The Friar dispatched a letter to Romeo in Mantua explaining everything. The city has been placed under partial quarantine due to an outbreak of plague. The messenger, as of this printing, has not reached Mantua.
