After Romeo is banished for killing Tybalt, he is distraught. His friend Mercutio is dead and he is separated from his beloved Juliet. Romeo goes to Friar Laurence, but he cannot stop crying. He even draws his sword to commit suicide. The friar chastises Romeo in order to bring him to his senses. He says that Romeo’s “tears are womanish” and that he is acting as wild as an “unreasonable … beast.” Friar Laurence urges him to be grateful that his circumstances are not worse.
The friar lists three reasons why Romeo should stop crying. Juliet is alive, as is Romeo—he could have easily been killed by Tybalt. The punishment for murder is death, but Romeo is allowed a reprieve and is only exiled. Friar Laurence says that if he does not act rashly, Romeo can find a way to happiness:
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
Juliet is alive, Tybalt did not kill Romeo, and the law did not execute him. As far as the friar is concerned, where there is life, there is hope.
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