If only Benvolio had in been on the Friarâs plan.
Juliet comes, in a dress that speaks of happier days but her face is like the ashes that seem to be her heart. She knows she has an ally in the Friar. He wed her to her love, on nothing more than sweet words of lovestruck fools and the hopeful promise of a truce between two families sworn to hate. Surely he can help her now, surely he will know how to keep her pure while her Romeo is far from her side.
The Friar is aghast at first. He is unsure, timid, until Juliet starts to speak like one he had heard begging for a marriage priest. These two children, bound in love, but also silence, bound to separation and the most uncertain fate. He cannot let such unhappiness prevail. He cannot let another slip away. So, in a moment of clarity and desperation, he shares a thought, a sleep like death, a grief and heartbreak only temporary, until he can reunite the two whose love seems all but written in the stars.
Juliet is willing. Like Romeo, the two of them share a single mind: that death is better than love unanswered, and in that unification the Friar finds a simple beauty, like a tapestry that has not yet seen the fading passage of time. He prepares for her the potion that will steal her life in brief, giving exact instructions for the taking so that nothing will be left to doubt. He knows that someone of loyalty will be like to warn her Romeo, and in hope to sway fate again in favor of love, he knows who to trust with the vital information.
As the girl is gone away to placate her parents and gain good standing, thus, to lay in motion what she hopes will bring swiftly her love to her side, the Friar moves to his own mission. He locates a friend, an ally who shares the hope for true loveâs favor and fruition, one Romeo will trust and believe with uncertain news.
Benvolio is only too glad to agree. He also has yearned for his friend, his cousin. It has been like losing an arm, though not a heart, as Juliet has seemed to. He marks the time before selecting the swiftest horse, thereby racing the sun to deliver truth before a lie can poison Romeoâs ears. While he is on the ride, the bells sing mourning for a bright life now gone. Benvolio cannot hear, and neither will Julietâs love, and never shall he hear it.
Romeo receives him gladly. He is struck to the bone with concern, the chills of this risky endeavor making him yearn for his Juliet, to once more feel the sun of her lips on his own, creating a moon from the sullen craters of his face that have been since leaving her side. Benvolio assures him that his love is not dead, and will awake when he returns to claim her as his own. So passes a tense night as horses buck against wind and destiny, and Romeo can only pray he is guided by his heart and will be reborn in love again before fate can intervene.
It is a somber city, it seems, that receives him back without cheer or welcome. Romeo cannot help the somber mood to infect him a little, but to see the Friarâs face and be promised of a joyful reunion, he is won over to happiness again. It is hard to see his love so pale and still, like the stone she lies upon, like the graves that surround, but even as he watching and touches tender skin, a light seems to fill the white and color returns to the world.
Her eyes flutter, her mouth parts to breathe and Romeo is breathing all the same, as if to help give life back into her tired limbs that were all to limp in his hold. When Juliet truly awakes, her first glimpse of life again is indeed the one who hold her heart, and soon his lips persuade her she is not dreaming.
True love prevails. True love never dies.
