(Friar Lawrence addresses the mourners who include Romeo, Maria, Catherine and Rosaline, along with the Prince and Juliet.)

Friar Lawrence: Time is the great mystery. It levels castles, and heals wounded hearts. A happy year remembered rushes by like a summer’s day, but a moment of grief drags us into an eternal winter of despair. And so we walk, with leaden-footed steps through this living world, unbelieving that the dead are truly gone.

In this place, we come to think of Romeo, a poet-son of Montague, gentle man, filled with eloquence and grace, and though he loved too much, let no man say that he loved not well. If he had known of this miracle brother, rescued from the clinging naiads of the sea, how would he have clasped that hand, as if to drag him from those waters once again into