ROMEO Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred.
[Laying Paris in the tomb.]
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry, which their keepers call
A light’ning before death! O how may I
Call this a light’ning? (5.3.87-91)
Paris is death, because he is dead, but Romeo is also a dead man, because he has only moments to live (and also because, if Juliet is dead, then so is he, already). And now, Mercutio-like, Romeo puns and plays with words, with desperation but also, perhaps a kind of grim pleasure; it brings another kind of energy to the scene, gives him another range of emotional colours to play with. Light is the word that has started this, suggesting the light’ning before death, the revival of spirits and the merriment apparently seen – by jailers, keepers, for instance – in those about to die. (This is a bit of a Renaissance thing, part of making ‘a good death’, but also what would now be called gallows’ humour; there are lots of records of those about to be executed making grim jokes with the executioner.) This can be played in a number of ways, of course, Romeo unable to see any way in which his spirits could lift (how may I call this a light’ning? how on earth?) or else confirming that yes, he is weirdly feeling better: how – how much, in how many ways, how do I love thee? – may I call this a light’ning. But a lightening – that which lightens, in terms of weight (and heaviness has been a recurrent motif) or illumination is also lightning, a violent, destructive flash, gone almost before it’s seen. Even in the balcony scene, Juliet had, momentarily fearful, compared their declarations of love to the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say ‘It lightens’.
In the UK, Samaritans, phone 116 123, jo@samaritans.org and, for young men in particular, CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably (for resources, not crisis support).
