Romeo & Juliet Study Guide
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Act IV, Scene 4
Hall in Capulet's house

Scene Summary

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Capulet household bustles with wedding preparations. Capulet has stayed up all night directing servants, ordering food, and managing logistics. Lady Capulet and the Nurse tease him for his energy. As dawn breaks and Paris's musicians arrive, Capulet sends the Nurse to wake Juliet and get her dressed for the wedding.

Translation Style
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✨ Character Voice Translations PREMIUM
Original Text
[Enter LADY CAPULET and NURSE.] LADY CAPULET. Hold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse. NURSE. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry. [Enter CAPULET.] CAPULET. Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd, The curfew-bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock: Look to the baked meats, good Angelica: Spare not for the cost. NURSE. Go, you cot-quean, go, Get you to bed; faith, you'll be sick to-morrow For this night's watching. CAPULET. No, not a whit: what! I have watch'd ere now All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick. LADY CAPULET. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time; But I will watch you from such watching now. [Exeunt LADY CAPULET and NURSE.] CAPULET. A jealous hood, a jealous hood! [Enter three or four Servingmen, with spits, logs, and baskets.] Now, fellow, What's there? FIRST SERVANT. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what. CAPULET. Make haste, make haste. [Exit First Servant.] Sirrah, fetch drier logs: Call Peter, he will show thee where they are. SECOND SERVANT. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs, And never trouble Peter for the matter. [Exit.] CAPULET. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha! Thou shalt be logger-head. Good faith, 'tis day: The county will be here with music straight, For so he said he would: I hear him near. [Music within.] Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say! [Re-enter NURSE.] Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up; I'll go and chat with Paris: hie, make haste, Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already: Make haste, I say. [Exeunt.]
Modern English

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Act IV, Scene 4 is one of Shakespeare's most quietly devastating scenes — a brief slice of domestic normalcy that the audience knows is about to be obliterated. The scene's power lies entirely in dramatic irony: every cheerful line about spices, baked meats, and music is underscored by the audience's knowledge that Juliet lies upstairs in a deathlike sleep. Capulet is at his most human here — bustling, energetic, joking with servants, teasing his wife. His line "Come, stir, stir, stir!" carries an unconscious cruelty: he is stirring a household for a celebration that will become a funeral. The Nurse's affectionate scolding ("you'll be sick to-morrow / For this night's watching") and Lady Capulet's teasing hint about his youthful escapades ("a mouse-hunt in your time") create a portrait of an ordinary family at its warmest — which makes the next scene's horror all the more devastating. The theme of haste reaches its crescendo. Capulet's repeated "Make haste, make haste" echoes through the scene, and the arrival of Paris's music — "the bridegroom he is come already" — compresses time to its breaking point. Shakespeare uses the scene's brevity (barely thirty lines) to mirror this acceleration: there is literally no time for reflection,...

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"Come, stir, stir, stir! the second cock hath crow'd" — Capulet (his energetic dawn call, unknowingly directing preparations for a funeral)

"Make haste, make haste... Make haste, I say." — Capulet (the theme of haste compressed into a single urgent command)

"Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up" — Capulet (the line that sends the Nurse to discover what the audience already knows)

Themes
Dramatic Irony Domesticity Haste Celebration vs. Mourning
Literary Devices
Dramatic Irony Comic Relief Juxtaposition Foreshadowing
Characters
Capulet Lady Capulet Nurse Servingmen
Motifs
Time Haste Music Dawn
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