FRIAR              Hold then, go home, be merry, give consent

                        To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow;

                        Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,

                        Let not the Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.

                        Take thou this vial, being then in bed,

                        And this distilling liquor drink thou off… (4.1.89-94)

Aha, we cry, so here, finally, is the point of that extremely long speech that the Friar made ages and ages ago (actually it was yesterday morning) all about herbs and stuff. Drugs are the answer! This is also going to be a very long speech, and there’s the sense, at least at the beginning, of Juliet wanting to interject – but, but, I absolutely can’t and won’t marry Paris – and the Friar continuing regardless. He starts with the practicalities: Juliet has to dissemble with all her might – be merry – and consent to marry Paris. A reminder of the timeframe that the Friar’s working to – the wedding is scheduled for Thursday, and it’s now Tuesday afternoon. So he’s assuming there’s time in hand, at the same time as he will go on to be very specific about the timing of what he’s proposing: Juliet will have to do as he’s about to describe on Wednesday. It’s not as dramatic as the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, but the seeds of disaster are in this speech too, in its precise attention to timing (of which more later on). Another reminder of the break with the Nurse: the Friar assumes that she and Juliet still share a chamber and possibly even a bed. And, produced from somewhere – this vial, containing this distilling liquor. Does he just happen to have it about his person? produce it from a pouch or satchel, of a size large enough to suggest that he carries a variety of such things? On film, of course, he can have a fully equipped lab or pharmacy, Snape-like, in his cell; on stage, this level of clutter and set-dressing probably won’t work. In the moment, we most likely won’t notice or care – but what we will focus on, fixate on, with Juliet, is this little bottle, which is apparently going to be the remedy in this terrible, desperate situation.