FORCED TO CHOOSE: Juliet Capulet, Ordered to Marry Paris, Turns to a Desperate Plan
With Romeo banished and her father insisting she marry County Paris within days, Juliet returned to Friar Laurence — the same man who married her in secret — for one final, desperate favor.
"Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!"
The Friar's solution: a potion that would make her appear dead for exactly forty-two hours. Long enough to be laid in the family tomb. Long enough, he hoped, for word to reach Romeo in time to come and wake her — and for the two of them to escape together, far from Verona, before anyone learned the truth.
Found "dead" this morning by her own nurse. The household is in mourning. We are told the wedding to Paris has, naturally, been postponed.
There is, however, a complication our sources only just confirmed: the Friar's letter explaining the entire plan to Romeo in Mantua never arrived. Quarantine restrictions held up the messenger. As of this printing, Romeo knows only one thing — that Juliet is dead. He does not know it's a lie.
Romeo's response, upon hearing the news, was to immediately purchase a vial of poison from an apothecary willing to break the law for the right price, and to set out for Verona at once.