Class: Grade 9 English, Hunter Collage High School, NYC
Grade recieved: A
Teacher Comments: I think this is an original and intelligent paper. Little tip: read your paper OUT LOUD to catch careless mistakes. 2/11/99

The word bed is commonly associated as a place to help calm the troubled mind with peace and sweet dreams. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, characters speak of bed with good intentions, but the word also brings Shakespeare's predictions of death. Romeo and Juliet are a pair of young and impulsive lovers brought together at a time of hostile feuding between families. Although the play's characters are in constant conflict, all they really desire is to bring peace within their family. Ironically, this peace is found in their deathbeds.

One of the earliest applications of the word bed appears when Romeo, Mercutio, and others prepare to attend the Capulet feast and Romeo tells of his dream. Mercutio proclaims "that dreamers often lie." (1.4.56). Romeo reverses his meaning as he continues: "In bed asleep while they do dream things true." (57). His dream is foreshadowing that brings him chilling predictions that will become much truer then dreams while asleep in bed:
I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels, and expire the term
Of a despis�d life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail. On, lusty gentlemen. (1.4.113-120)
These gentlemen direct Romeo, onto a feast that he does not want to attend. However, it is Shakespeare will for Romeo and Juliet to meet. If they never meet, there will be no peace for these Montagues and Capulets, but there might also be no death for Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris, Romeo, or Juliet. Here, peace comes at a price, and here begins the series of deaths: Shortly after Romeo and Juliet meet at the Capulet party, Juliet says to the Nurse: "Go ask his name. If he be marri�d, / My grave is like to be my wedding bed" (1. 5.148-9). Here, Shakespeare writes Juliet a prediction that will come true when she kills herself in the Capulet charnel house. Since Juliet does not yet know that Romeo is a Montague, she speaks of her grave being her wedding bed only because she is impatient and exited. However, one might say that Romeo is married to his name, his family, and the fighting between the two families. Juliet's words will come true.

After the party at which Romeo and Juliet first meet, Mercutio jokes at Romeo and then retreats home: "Romeo, good night. I'll to my truckle bed; / This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep." (2.1.42-3). The day after, Tybalt and Mercutio find themselves engaged in a fight when Romeo enters. Romeo attempts to stop the quarreling, but Tybalt stabs and murders Mercutio. The Mercutio who the night before leaves the cold to find contentment in his bed now finds Romeo, and the cold of his deathbed.

Another use of bed comes from Friar Lawrence. He wishes to help Juliet escape her marriage to Paris by suppling her with a poison intent on faking her death:
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
nd this distilling liquor drink thou off;
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humor, for no pulse (4.1.95-98)
Friar Lawrence continues on to tell Juliet of what will happen, "Now, when the bridegroom," (109) meaning Paris, "comes / To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead." (109-110) Friar Lawrence knows not how true that will be. It is true that Paris is tricked when he finds Juliet with no pulse; but so is Romeo. Friar Lawrence's good deed turns vile and ends in Juliet's deathbed. "There art thou dead" (110) refers not only to the death of Juliet, but of Paris and Romeo, all impulsively for her and all because of the Friar's potion.

When Paris visits Juliet's grave to pay respect to her, he says: "Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew." Not only does he speak of Juliet's earlier prediction: "My grave is like to be my wedding bed" (1. 5.148-9), but his good intentions of visiting Juliet will lead him to his deathbed. Had Paris disregarded his plan, he will not be present when Romeo appears, they will not have any arguement, and Romeo will not have an oppurtunity to kill him. Unfortunately, however, Romeo slays Paris, and provides yet another example.

This tale of Romeo and Juliet is about love, woe, impulse, desire, and death, surprisingly over the corse of only three days time. The love from the families for their own members, the love of Romeo and Juliet, the love of Paris, and the love of old Montague and Capulet for each other at the end of the play. The woe is from Romeo and Juliet. Impulse because it all happened so quickly, and Romeo could have fallen in love with any beautiful maid, such as Rosalind. Desire because Juliet and Romeo don't know each other's personallity that well, and desire drove them together. Finally, the death of so many: Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris, Romeo, and Juliet.

This entire love story is completely developing around the violence and death of the feuding Montague and Capulet families. Shakespeare portrayed that the greatest love and most profound peace can only come from the most intense hate and extreme disorder. All of the death is deprived from love: Mercutio out of love for his friends, Tybalt for his kinsmen, both Paris and Romeo for Juliet, and Juliet for her Romeo. The peace between the families arose only after the Romeo and Juliet's death: "Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie," (2.1.1). There is no peace, quiet, or serenity, until after the old desire is put to rest. However, all is really at peace, in bed.