Shakespeare for those who hated it in high school. An odd assortment of characters -- including a transexual nurse, a hair-fetishist, a polysexual page, a necrophilic nun, an unlucky burglar and the inventor of the tampon -- testify as to what really led Romeo and Juliet to kill themselves at a time when Verona was a hotbed of transgenderism. These two chapters wind up the story.

Romeo and Juliet: The Real Tragedy, Part 3
By: Dawn DeWinter
Act 3 … A really dumb plan

Court Herald: Oyez, Oyez, this Court of Inquiry for the Ninth Circuit Court of Assizes for the Region of Veneto, presided by Escalus, Prince of Verona, is resumed for the purpose of absolving the Principality of any responsibility for the piteous suicide of star-crossed lovers Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. All rise while Our Noble, Nobbled, Noxious Nabob and Prince enters and takes his throne.

Prince Escalus: I order the servant Sampson to the stand. Be careful, oaf, of where you feel your way. Granted, you’ve only been blind for a day, but you should still be able to find your way around a courtroom without groping from the chest of one young Lord or Lady to the next. Court Herald, do drag Sampson — by his flowing mane if necessary — to the witness stand before he commits an outrage against a maiden. And bind his arms behind his back for good measure. Good, that should keep him from temptation.

Now that you’re settled down tell us, knave, why you were hiding under the marital bed of Juliet and Romeo Montague, a violation of privacy so gross that you’ve already been blinded, lest you try again to watch a Lord pop the cherry of his Lady?

Sampson: Your Excellency, I pray that you will allow me to explain my gross misconduct while I still have the balls to risk it. Do I have your permission?

[The Prince waved his pinky finger in assent.]

My many thanks, you are a merciful Prince indeed. It’s all the fault of me mum. Her name being Delilah, she insisted on naming me Sampson, the dude who never cut his hair. That was okay for the original guy because he was a Sikh or something, but my long flowing locks have gotten me in constant trouble, especially around machinery. I’ve also lost one servant’s job after another because of hair in the soup.

Well, your lordship, I understandably became obsessed with watching how other folks with long hair avoided split ends and fist fights. Sure enough, that which started out in my mind as scientific research ended up becoming a sick obsession. I had unwittingly developed a sexual fetish, just as doctors Masoch, Freud and Shaman predicted I would. I consulted all three; that’s how desperate for a cure I was!

The only one who made any sense at all was Freud. He made me realize that me mum was at the root of all me problems. So I killed her by bashing her head with a fetish that I’d carved from a donkey’s jawbone to please Dr. Shaman.

Then guilty over polishing off me mum, I used the fetish as a paddle on me bum because Dr. Masoch explained that punishing me self would ease the guilt. He was wrong; ever since I fell in love with spanking myself with a donkey’s jawbone I feel extra guilty for being such a total ass.

I am truly a mess — an ass with a sore ass and a now broken ass jaw and tail bone. To make things truly unbearable, the Capulets are threatening to cut off my balls if I testify about Juliet’s wedding night. While part of me would get some pleasure from the abuse, the rest of me says that it’s better to beat off than to be beaten.

Prince Escalus: Testify freely, for I’ll not permit the Capulets to separate your testicles from your body. I now command you to relate to us all that you saw and heard the night that Romeo first slept with his wife Juliet. But first, you must tell us why you came to be under the bed.

Sampson: Long have I admired Juliet’s hair. I have even collected strands of it from her brush or pillow when she was fast asleep so that I might ponder their luxuriant beauty in the seclusion of my garret room. As I was needing to replenish my supply …

Prince Escalus: Replenish? But aren’t the hairs from the head of Juliet likely to outlive you? Why required you a new supply?

Sampson: Because, My Lord, when I punish myself for killing me mum, I first let my hair down; then I use one hand to grab me self by the short hairs; and finally I put on a hairshirt to protect my hairless back as I use a hairbrush with the other hand to beat my hairy ass within a hair’s breadth of losing consciousness. Normally I turn not a hair no matter how hairy it gets; but sometimes I lose one of Juliet’s precious hairs down a hairline fracture in the wooden beam of the hair space I call my room.

Prince Escalus: Hare-brained, hairy-heeled oaf, if you don’t stop running off at the mouth about hairs, I shall set my Mexican hairless dogs on you. You’ll have neither hide nor hair left after they’re through with you.

Sampson: A thousand pardons, My Lord. I was just trying to explain why I snuck into Lady Juliet’s room that night to collect a few hairs from her brush. Normally she would have been sound asleep at such an hour, but instead her bedchamber was empty. I then saw her standing on the balcony affixed to her room; ah, but her long hair did glow in the candlelight!

She was talking to Romeo, asking him not to climb down from the balcony, as it was not yet near day. It was the nightingale, she said, and not the lark that had just crowed. Romeo replied that it was the lark, the herald of the morn, as the first light of dawn on the mountain tops did reveal.

Then she made an outright lie: you needn’t go yet, because the light came from a meteor rather than the sun. I thought the lie most odd. “Why was she so desperate to keep him from going?” I asked myself. And why was Romeo so anxious to leave?

Prince Escalus: Do you have answers as well as questions?

Sampson: I will hazard some answers soon enough. Lord Romeo told Lady Juliet that he’d ignore all the signs of the dawning day, if she insisted, even though he’d surely be taken and put to death. “Come, death and welcome! Juliet wills it so.” Well, I thought that a definite conversation-stopper, as did Juliet, who then said “be gone, away!” She finally admitted it was a lark that was singing so out of tune. I dare say it was — its voice was definitely pitchy, like a contestant’s on Veronese Idol or, as Lady Juliet said, like that of a loathed toad.

At this point, I heard Nurse’s footsteps in the corridor; that’s when I hid under Juliet’s bed. Nurse told her young mistress that, with dawn now definitely cracking, Lady Capulet was coming to her chamber. Romeo asked for a kiss before he left, and Juliet replied that it would be years before she’d again behold her Romeo. The lad then promised to see her again. After making some small talk about how livid their faces looked in the dying moonlight, the young couple said adieu.

Prince Escalus: I hear no answers from you. And yet it is admittedly odd that Romeo and Juliet were discussing Veronese Idol at a romantic moment like that. Gentlefolk don’t normally admit to attending that minstrel show.

Sampson: After Romeo disappeared into the garden, Juliet cursed fickle fortune and begged it to be fickle enough to send her man back ere long. She then turned towards my hiding place and I got my best look at her. First, I noticed that her hair was exquisitely combed, not a hair out of place. Nor was her dress rumpled. She looked like a woman waiting for her lover and husband to arrive, not one that had just seen him depart. Struck by how neat and tidy Juliet looked after her wedding night with Romeo, I wondered whether there had been any sexual intercourse at all. Romeo also looked immaculate. Thinking back about the appearance of the bed as I searched it for Juliet’s hair, I realized that it showed no sign of anyone having lain upon it since the servants made it up the previous day.

Prince Escalus: So you are saying that you saw no evidence whatsoever that Romeo and Juliet consummated their marriage that night?

Sampson: More than that, My Lord. I am convinced that neither of them even disrobed. I would say that they spent the night like brother and sister — not your Egyptian or Ancient Roman siblings, not your Cleopatras or Caligulas mind you, but like brother and sister did in the time of Adam and Eve before incest became thinkable. Do you want me, My Prince, to report the conversation between Lady Capulet and Juliet that I overheard while I lay trapped under the bed?

Prince Escalus: No, Lady Capulet will make a more trustworthy witness. We are finished with you. To Lord Capulet I say that while I assured this rogue that none shall cut off his manhood, I made no promise that the rest of him would remain intact. Sir, I commend him to your custody, so that he may make amends for the wrong he has done your family. You might wish to start with a scalping.

Prince Escalus: The court calls to the stand Lady Capulet to tell us about her conversation with Juliet the morning after Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment. Who, My Lady, spoke first?

Lady Capulet: Why, it was I. I said, “How now, Juliet!”

Prince Escalus: Well said indeed. And Juliet’s reply?

Lady Capulet: She said that she was unwell. I told her that her tears would not make her cousin live again. Too much grief, I said, shows some want of wit. I then explained that I intended to avenge her cousin’s death by sending a man to Mantua to poison Tybalt’s murderer. She said that she abhorred hearing Romeo’s name without being able to wreak the love that she had for Tybalt on the body of the man who had slaughtered him. Her sentiments I thought oddly put, but then teens do have trouble expressing themselves. Juliet seemed pleased that I would wait for her to provide the poison that would be used to help Romeo to join dead Tybalt.

I didn’t appreciate at the time that she was stalling for time. Yet how could I have known that she loved the villain Romeo? Had I known, I would not have said that I brought her tidings that her father had arranged a day of joy for her. On next Thursday morning, I said, she would wed Count Paris at Saint Peter’s Church. She replied that she was unwilling to marry a man who had not yet wooed her for a wife; she said she’d rather marry Romeo, whom she claimed to hate, rather than Paris. Her obstinacy left me no choice but to put the matter in Lord Capulet’s hands. Let him now relate what then transpired. [And so the Prince agreed.]

Lord Capulet: My Lady informed me that Juliet refused to obey my decree of marriage. I was amazed that she didn’t thank us for arranging a marriage with so worthy a bridegroom as a Count. And a young, well-proportioned one at that! Angrily, I called her a disobedient wretch and told her she either went to the Church to be wed or never look me again in the face. I’d disown her to hang, beg, starve, die in the streets. I feign would have hit her if had she not held her tongue. Nurse tried to speak in Juliet’s defence, but I’d not hear her express treason against my patriarchal authority.

When my own wife accused me of speaking too heatedly, I left the women to consider their position. My wife soon joined me in our bedchamber where she said that her last words to Juliet, still entreating for a postponement of the wedding, were that she’d not intercede with me. Even my wife had decided there was nothing more to be said: Juliet either obeyed me or was no longer our daughter.

Prince Escalus: As neither Lord nor Lady Capulet overheard what Nurse and Juliet next discussed, I recall Nurse to the stand. I am told that her tongue is sufficiently healed for her to speak.

[The testimony that follows had oft to be repeated so that the Prince and Court scribe could understand Nurse’s garbled words; even then, they may have differed somewhat from those here recorded. To save ink and parchment, her testimony is set forth here as though she had no need to say things thrice.]

Nurse: Juliet asked me how if there was any way for her to avoid becoming a bigamist. In my opinion, If noble ladies could have harems of males, if polyandry were legal in Verona, Juliet would have been soaring in heaven instead of sinking into despond. She’d still be alive if this weren’t an uptight patriarchy, for we now know that Romeo could have satisfied both Paris and Juliet. Theirs was a love triangle wrought in heaven.

Prince Escalus: Your opinion marks you as a feminist. I advise you to show restraint.

[As her own words condemned Nurse as a feminist, His Excellency had no choice but to order her to be burnt at the stake as a witch. However, to ensure that she would continue to testify in good faith, he advised his chamberlain to keep his death decree a closely guarded secret until the inquest had ended. Thus did the Prince safeguard the natural, God-ordained, patriarchal order.]

Nurse: I did forget myself. The disease of menopause did undermine my ability to think clearly. I apologize for acting irrationally. Forgive my womanly weakness.

[The Prince waved a finger to indicate that she should proceed]

Nurse (cont’d): When Lady Juliet asked for some comfort, I pointed out that Romeo, being banished, and now a nobody, could never challenge her if she married the Count, a lovely gentleman. I said she could be happy in this second match, which excelled her first, who was as good as dead. You live here and are of no use to him, that’s what I said. Lady Juliet did thank me for comforting her marvellous much, but then said that she would go to Father Laurence’s cell to seek absolution for displeasing her father. I told her that was a wise thing to do.

Prince Escalus: Have the fevers of menopause destroyed your wits entirely? Did you not understand that Father Laurence was the last one she should consult, given the friar’s prior lack of respect for the patriarchal rights of Lord Montague? Bah, be off with you! I now recall Friar Laurence to the stand to recount his meeting with Lady Juliet after she learned that she was betrothed to Count Paris, my kinsman.

Friar Laurence: First I learned from Count Paris himself that he was to be married to Lady Juliet the coming Thursday. The Count told me that Lord Capulet wanted a speedy marriage to take Juliet’s mind off Tybalt’s death, for unhealthily she had given her sorrow too much sway. He and Juliet did actually meet perchance in my cell. The Count bade her not to deny in her confession her love for him. I, but not he, understood the import of her reply that she would confess to Count Paris that she loved “him”, meaning Romeo. At Juliet’s request, I then entreated the Count to leave us alone for her confession. He left after blowing her a kiss.

Lady Juliet began to explain that she was past hope, past cure, past help, but I cut her short, saying that I already knew the reasons for her grief. She asked me how to prevent her being married a second time. Unless I could devise a stratagem, she threatened to make her knife bloody with her own blood. “I long to die,” she dramatically declaimed, if I could not remedy her ills. I then fatally asked Juliet whether she had the strength to slay herself to prevent her marriage to Count Paris. If she dared to cope with being dead for a short time, she could later escape from it, and the shame of a bigamous marriage, by swallowing an antidote that I’d prepare for her resurrection.

Prince Escalus: An extraordinary plan indeed! I see no possibility of its ever having worked. Had “dead” Juliet appeared ghostlike in Mantua to join her banished husband Romeo, would not word of her resurrection and betrayal have reached Lord and Lady Capulet, who would have had to dispatch someone to slay both teens or else forfeit their family’s honor and, given the betrayal of my kinsman, their own lives and estates? Your plan never made any sense. Only a holy fool could conceive it.

There was but one remedy that could have saved Juliet and it was for some foe to poison Romeo, the true source of her woe. He had no right to steal a noble maid from her father. Her first marriage never consummated and thus null in the eyes of God and Church, Lady Juliet could have honorably married into my family. A real death for Romeo, not a feigned one for Juliet — that was the best solution for all, including a youth so devoid of wisdom and testosterone that he did spoil the reputation of a maiden without despoiling her.

Friar Laurence: Such a solution never occurred to me. I just went with the first thing that popped into my head. Lately I have become quite morbid, contemplating which of us — my pigeon cellmates or me? — should be dispatched by a butcher’s knife to join the dove of peace in Heaven, there being no longer room for all of us. So, when Juliet asked for help, I naturally thought that she needed to die, and on the third hour rise from the grave.

She embraced the suggestion with unnerving images about serpents, roaring bears, rattling bones, rotting flesh, and yellowed skulls before saying she’d rather be hidden with a dead man in his shroud than lose her virginity to Count Paris. She was anxious, she said, to stay “unstained” for Romeo, who deserved the first go at her, having been first to ask. I was so shocked by the lurid imagination of her adolescent mind that I didn’t absorb until it was much too late her revelation that she wasn’t Romeo’s true wife in the eyes of God and Man.

Prince Escalus: Yes indeed, foolish friar. How happier all those but the banished would have been had you simply annulled her first marriage and escorted her yourself, by some ruse, to Saint Peter’s Church to be wed within the hour to a man able to make a woman out of her. If Romeo did indeed spend his wedding night with his pants on, I should have banished him to the Greek Islands, where he would have men willing to make him as a man.

Friar Laurence: Alas, instead I advised Lady Juliet to go home, be merry, and give consent to marry Paris two days hence. Tomorrow night, however, she was to take a stiff drink laced with a vial of poison I was now handing to her. Soon enough it would stop her pulse. There would be no sign of life — not body warmth, not breath, not even her normally pink cheeks. She would be stiff, stark and cold and appear like death.

Prince Escalus: All right, already. We get the picture. Frightening friar, you really get off on talking about death, don’t you?

Friar Laurence: Not me. It’s Juliet who is the Goth.

Prince Escalus: A Goth? I should hope so. All we noble families north of the Po River claim to be descendants of the Goths who conquered the Roman Empire nine hundred years ago.

Friar Laurence: I like to think that my own ancestors arrived here as pilgrims on the same ship as the three Mary’s. Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Mary Salome and Saint Mary Jacobe — they were the first to witness the empty tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ. Naturally, they were unnerved by the experience, and to calm their nerves joined their uncle Joseph of Arimathea (who provided Christ’s tomb) and one overworked, gypsy servant named Sara, on a Mediterranean cruise. By wintering at Les-Saintes-Maries at the mouth of the Rhone River, the three Mary’s initiated the tourist trade in Southern France, for which they’ve been hailed locally as saints ever since.

I’ve always assumed that they used the Holy Grail as a shared drinking cup on this trip, but had it stolen by the gypsies, who were already congregating in that resort to worship dark-skinned Sara, who must have looked really hot on the beach compared to the local palefaces and white bellies.

Prince Escalus: It all makes sense to me. But are you prejudiced against “gypsies”, more appropriately known as the Roma?

Friar Laurence: How can I help myself? Am I not a European?

Prince Escalus: I am no longer sure that you are, for did you not affirm that your ancestors first came to this continent aboard a shipload of Jews? That would surely mean that they were Jews too. I have been seeking a way to strip you of the Pope’s protection so that you might pay for your conspiracy against my kinsman Paris. Maybe I have at last found it. Or the Grand Inquisition will find it for me soon enough. Laurence, is that not a Hebrew name? But do finish your testimony, Friar Laurence, while there is yet time.

[The Prince took a moment to whisper something to his chamberlain, who then departed the courtroom.]

Friar Laurence: I do want you to appreciate that I never intended for Juliet to share a shroud with a dead man. The manner of our county is that the dead are dressed in their best robes to lie uncovered on the funeral bier in their ancestral vault. Well, maybe I shouldn’t over-generalize: The one percent of the dead who come from families of quality end up thus; the rest are fortunate indeed if their families can afford to bury them naked in a shallow grave. So I guess my plan depended on Juliet’s “dying” rich.

Anyway, I promised Juliet that Romeo would come that very night to bear her hence to Mantua, where they would live happily ever after, as no one would have cause still to wish them harm. Well, no one, if one overlooked her betrayed parents, his betrayed parents, vengeful cousins of Tybalt and Mercutio, Count Paris, Your Excellency, and anyone who spent money on either her planned wedding or unplanned funeral.

My plan seemed foolproof — I told her that I would send a friar with speed to Mantua with my letters to Lord Romeo apprising him of our plan. That’s about it for now, but I have more to relate later in these proceedings. I advise, therefore, against excessive haste; it would make waste, my Lord Prince.

Prince Escalus: Friar, there is no fear of my acting in haste. As the old mafia proverb, which is generally attributed to either Don Puzo or Don Klingon, reminds us, “Justice is a dish best served cold.” You are dismissed from the stand but don’t leave Verona without our permission. I now call Lord Capulet back to the stand to tell us about Juliet’s return from her visit to the friar’s cell.

Lord Capulet: Nurse saw Juliet first, saying that she came from shrift with merry look. I asked where my headstrong daughter had been gadding about. From where I have learned to repent the sin of disobedient opposition to you and your behests, she said, adding that Friar Laurence had enjoined her to fall prostrate before her father to beg permission. “Henceforward, I am ever ruled by you.” So did she boldfacedly lie. She then went off to her bedroom with Nurse, supposedly to help her pick her clothes and ornaments for the wedding.

After asking my wife to help deck out Juliet for the morrow, I walked over to Count Paris to advise him of the change in Juliet’s disposition. My wife told me that she did not tarry long in Juliet’s bedchamber; nor did Nurse that night. When I returned from the Count’s, I worked hard until dawn giving orders to the servants to ready the wedding feast. In the morning, I sent Nurse to rouse Lady Juliet from her last childish slumber.

Prince Escalus: It does appear that the Nurse will have to retake the stand. Scribe, bring your table and chair close to her, so that you may master the meaning of her muffled mumbles.

Nurse: When I found mistress Juliet lying dead on her bed on the morn she was to be wed, I immediately summoned her parents to the chamber. When Lady Capulet arrived, I could not tell her that her daughter lived no more, so I advised her to “look, look at Juliet”. After pleading with Juliet to revive, Lady Capulet called for more help, whereupon Lord Capulet entered the bedroom.

I did my best to break the news gently to him, as fathers are closer than mothers to daughters. So I said as calmly as possible: “She’s dead, deceased, she’s dead; alas, what a day!” Lady Capulet, deciding on a more direct approach, abandoned euphemism entirely, saying to his Lordship, “Alas, what a day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead.”

Prince Escalus: Are you intimating Nurse that Lady Capulet, a woman whose ancestors once broke bread with Attila the Hun, would be so coarse and ill-bred as to repeat almost word for word what you, a dried-up wet nurse, had already said?

Nurse: Why not, if the words I said were worth repeating? You needn’t look at me with stern visage, My Liege Lord, for you know that none dare harm me further until I have finished my tale of Juliet and Romeo. If tortured, I will surely lose forever the power to speak. Ah, you sit back on your throne. Then I may proceed.

Lord Capulet spoke like a true gent after he checked his daughter for life signs: “Death lies on Juliet,” he said, “like an untimely flower upon the sweetest frost of all the field” — or something like that. Just then Friar Laurence and Count Paris arrived with the musicians, as though they all had been given an offstage cue. Lord Capulet told the Count that Death had lain with his wife; flower that she was, she was now deflowered by Death, who would now be Lord Capulet’s only son-in-law and heir.

These words most unnerved me; I looked around the room to see if perchance he had espied Romeo in our midst. For was not Romeo death? Everyone took another turn at waxing poetical over death and the maiden before Father Laurence told us to bear Juliet’s corpse to the church forthwith.

Lord Capulet then showed us why he’s known as the financial wizard of Verona’s street at the wall by announced that all the things that he’d bought for the wedding would be used for the funeral. The bridal flowers could, for instance, serve for a burial wreath. It wasn’t going to cost him a penny to bury Juliet; he even persuaded Father Laurence to officiate over the funeral mass for free. I never thought I’d live to see the day that a clergyman …

Prince Escalus: How dare you, witch, show disrespect to two fathers by calling the holy avaricious and the grieving miserly? It is becoming crystal clear in this inquest that a failure amongst the servile class to pay the full respect due the master class is a primary cause of the death of the two teens.

Perhaps we erred in feeding them meat. I feed my servants exclusively a vegan diet, unless they serve in my bedchamber. These I definitely do not want to have iron-poor blood, as I wish for their bodies to be hard like steel. As for the rest, let them eat cake, tofu cake. It keeps them docile.

I now call Balthasar, a servant of the Montague household, who disobediently accompanied Romeo to Mantua without the permit of his Lord and Lady.

Balthasar: When I found Romeo in Mantua, he asked after his parents and Juliet, saying that nothing can be ill if she be well. I sadly told him that her body slept in the Capulet’s vault, while her soul now lived with the angels. Romeo asked me to hire post-horses (changing steeds every few miles like a pony express rider to go as fast as possible). He said he’d defy Fate by going to Verona that night. I beseeched him to wait, for his looks were pale and wild. I feared a misadventure. He sent me off to hire the horses, but I lingered a while outside his door. Ominously, he swore aloud that he would lie with Juliet tonight.

Alarmed, I followed him through the streets as he, real crazy-like, babbled to himself of an impoverished apothecary, who tended his pharmacy in tattered clothes worn o’er a meager body worn to the bones by sharp misery. A man with a life as hopeless as the stuffed alligator and odd-shaped fishes hung on his wall, the man would, Lord Romeo surmised, be desperate enough to sell him a fast-acting poison, even though Mantua, fed up with its Princely family murdering each other with stomach-turning frequency, forbade such sale on pain of death.

Alas, as he sped up, I could not keep up with him, losing him in the maze of paths that passed for streets in that part of town. I do not know whether he found the apothecary in due course.

Prince Escalus: As I understand that you witnessed Romeo’s fight with Count Paris, you shall linger in our dungeons a while longer so that you may be available for futher interrogation. Take him away guards.

I now call Robert, son of Robert of the downy pillow, to the stand to tell us about his drug dealings with Lord Romeo. Miserable wretch, you quake. I see you fear your wrath. Be not alarmed, old man, for I will harm you not if you tell the truth today. After all, you are not Veronese and so owe me no fealty. You are said to be an apothecary by profession, but apparently not a successful one, for you look too ill-fed not to have sold your father’s downy pillow years ago for gruel. Tell us about Romeo.

Apothecary: I was sleeping on my hard bed, my head upon a stone pillow, in the attic above my store when I heard someone yelling for me to come to the sole window. By breaking the remaining shards, I was able to see below a spoiled rich kid, so confident of his own karma and so careless of mine, that from the street below he did shout that he was offering me forty ducats to sell him a quick-acting poison. Naturally I explained, there being so many ears to hear, that Mantua’s law is death to anyone who sells such potions.

Insultingly, the beardless boy asked whether how anyone who lived so wretchedly should fear to die. “Famine is in your cheeks,” he shouted. “Your eyes speak of need and oppression,” he yelled.

Prince Escalus: Did you know the identity of the boy?

Apothecary: No, although I may have heard the high-pitched voice before. He sounded like he wore his tights too tight. I wish now that I had thrown my chamber pot on his head, but I foolishly listened. Cupping his hands to make a megaphone, the boy next shrieked that neither the world nor its laws were my friend; so why should I not break the law and cease to be poor? For the ears of my nosy neighbors, I replied firmly that while my poverty might consent to break the law, I had not the will to do it.

Then wordlessly I motioned him to the deserted lane behind my shop where I stealthily sold him a liquid capable, I said, of dispatching anyone, even he who had the strength of twenty men. And this young lad had scarce the strength of a farm wife. Though angered by the unnecessary attention he had drawn to our transaction, out of pity I sold him the poison, for his limp manner struck me as that of a Nancy boy tragically incapable of pleasing wife or kin by making his rod erect in the presence of women.

Giving me the gold, he said it did more damage to men’s souls than the cordials I sold. His final words confused me at first — that he would use the poison at a woman’s grave — but on reflection it made sense that his failure to consummate their marriage might kill them both with shame. Stupid kid, thanks to him I was clamped in irons within the hour, and let out from a stinking hole only once, and that just so that I could testify here today.

Prince Escalus: Thank you for your truthful testimony, apothecary; however, I liked not your aspersions on Romeo’s manhood. My guards will escort you to Mantua, whose Duke has promised to make your execution especially painful to betoken his desire to improve relations between our two counties.

I trust that you will get some pleasure amidst your pain by reflecting on your contribution to slowing the arms race in Northern Italy. As a result of high-level discussions concerning Romeo’s stay in Mantua, we two counties have foresworn the first use of poisons, whether liquid or gaseous, in our wars against each other. This is, I believe, a great step towards peace, since Verona already has clear superiority in crossbows, swords, spikes, spears and slingshots.

[The courtroom erupted with applause for the statecraft of Prince Escalus, who modestly took bows for an hour. The apothecary was dragged from the room babbling something about “solids”.]

Prince Escalus: I now call to the stand Friar John. Tell us, friar, why Romeo did not receive the letters entrusted to you by Friar Laurence which advised Romeo that Juliet’s death was no more than a cheap voodoo trick, and that she would soon be walking around the tomb, not as a zombie but as a live, still-intact virgin, eager to mount Romeo, that is to say, to mount his horse and ride him until she conceived a babe in Mantua.

Friar John: Before I start, I blame the poor communication skills of Father Laurence. He did no in timely fashion alert me to the importance of the letters he had handed to me to deliver to Romeo in Mantua. As I told Father Laurence, I looked for a barefoot brother of our religious order to accompany me to Mantua. I figured that I be more thankful to God for providing me with a donkey ride, which normally I detest since, being tall, my feet oft scrape along the ground, if I saw him trudging beside me barefooted on the rocky road.

When I found him he was visiting the sick in a town seized by the Plague known as the Black Death. Alas, we were both quarantined, sealed into that pestilence-ridden house as in a tomb, as the authorities waited for us either to die or to prove ourselves the one in ten who can beat the Plague.

When I did not even sicken, I was declared a demon, but had wit enough to tell my foes that if they slew me that I’d return to demonically possess their bodies each in turn, making their heads spin like tops, their stomachs upchuck green bile, and their tongues talk profanities like a politician who thinks none can hear. They fled from me.

Prince Escalus: I had thought to punish you for agreeing to help Father Laurence in his conspiracy to help Romeo steal the rightful bride of my kinsman Paris, but on second thought I have no desire to discover how holy or unholy a friar you might be. But do tell us before departing the stand, why you did not immediately head for Mantua upon your release. Why did you return to Father Laurence in Verona, your mission incomplete?

Friar John: Your Excellency, I did not know that my mission was a matter of life and death for Romeo and Juliet, and so I decided that I should not risk taking the Black Death to Mantua.

Prince Escalus: But it was all right to risk bringing it here? Friar, while I yearn not for demonic possession, nonetheless I cannot leave you unpunished for returning to this county as a potential Pestilence Mary. I therefore banish you to Mantua, as it has not yet signed an agreement with Verona to ban germ warfare. Guards, clothe him in several layers of rags stripped from our ignoble dead and escort him masked to the county line.

The stupidity of the servant class is appalling. It fatigues my mind to look for novel ways of punishing them. Would that they might all be replaced by automatons, one to do the sweeping, another to do the washing, yet another to do the greeting. If somehow we could put the spark of life into these infernal machines, we people of quality would never have a care again.

We might then give ourselves over entirely to the finer things in life — to sipping Pink Zinfandel and British cabernets, to quaffing a beer at the sign of Bud the Wiser, to writing rock n’ roll madrigals, to painting on black velvet, to penning haiku epics to our noble ancestors, to composing love poems to our nephews and nieces, and best of all, to cuckolding each other with wife, sons and daughters. But alas, that utopia is nowhere yet to be found, even for those of quality.

As I will need an extra hour in the morning to recover my wits after a night of drowning my sorrows in the cheap, effervescent swill newly conceived by the French monk known as Dom Perignon, this court does adjourn until 11 o’clock tomorrow. I do so hope he’s right about the bubbles, but I suspect he’s simply made up a story to explain why he is unable to prevent the wine from fermenting in the bottle.

End of Act 3 — Do come back after the third and final intermission to download the thrilling, mind-numbing conclusion to our comic drama, Act 4, “Is beauty found in opposites?”

Romeo and Juliet: The Inquest, Act 4
Act 4 … Is beauty found in opposites?

Court Herald: Oyez, Oyez, this Court of Inquiry for the Ninth Circuit Court of Assizes for the Region of Veneto, presided by Escalus, Prince of Verona, is resumed for the purpose of absolving the Principality of any responsibility for the piteous suicide of star-crossed lovers Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. All rise while Our Noble, Inexhaustible Nepotist, Grand Panjandrum and Prince enters and takes his throne.

Prince Escalus: I now recall the Montague servant Balthasar to the stand to tell us about Romeo’s actions at the Capulet’s vault.

Balthasar: Your Lordship, when we reached the door of the tomb, Romeo asked me to give him a mattock and wrenching iron.

Prince Escalus: What is a mattock?

Balthasar: Beats me. I’ve never heard of it before neither. But I gave him the crowbar and the pick, the one with an adze and chisel edge as ends of its head, which we brought with us from Verona.

Shall I proceed? Then, giving me a letter for his father, he charged me to stand aloof, doing nothing, no matter what I should hear or see. I was not to interrupt his descent into the bed of death so that he might behold his lady’s face and take from her finger a precious ring that he must use. I knew not how. He told me to get lost, warning me that I returned to pry he would tear me joint by joint and strew my bones about the churchyard. If I went away as asked, however, I would leave as his friend to live a long, prosperous life.

Of course, fearing his wild look and doubting his intentions, I hid myself behind a tombstone to witness what he did next. I next overheard him say, as he pried open the tomb, that he intended to cram the maw of death — that be its stomach, Sire — with more food, by which I afeared he meant his own body. It was at the very moment that Count Paris arrived at the tomb.

Prince Escalus: How dare you insult the lords and ladies of this court by suggesting that we might not know the word “maw”? I should have you sewn into a cow’s fourth stomach so that you might better know the meaning of the word, but that would take time and impede your testimony. For the moment you are safe. As I understand it, knave, you were the last to see my kinsman Paris alive?

Balthasar: Yes, that, and the first to see him dead, if one doesn’t count Romeo. Count Paris recognized Lord Romeo, and blaming him for the deaths of both Tybalt and Juliet, the latter from grief for her cousin, and fearing also that Romeo intended to commit some villainous shame to both bodies, sought to apprehend him. The Count said, “Vile Montague, obey and go with me, for you must die.”

Prince Escalus: You speak well of my kinsman Paris. ‘Tis true, he upheld the law, unlike those, yourself among them, who conspired with Romeo to evade his rightful banishment. I tire of your testimony; wrap it up speedily.

Balthasar: Addressing Count Paris as “good gentle youth,” it was clear that Romeo, who admitted that he was a desperate man, was looking for a fight. These were fighting words to a man his superior in rank and age, were they not. And telling Count Paris to flee from the churchyard so that Romeo wouldn’t have to sin by killing him was the equivalent, wasn’t it, of breaking a beer bottle over a saloon tabletop? Count Paris had no choice as a man of honor but to draw his sword.

Prince Escalus: Be wary of your words, churl. We all know here that the Count didn’t need someone making chicken sounds at him to do his duty by his dead fiancée and his county.

Balthasar: Disdaining Romeo’s permission to run away (a madman’s mercy my Lord Romeo did call it), Paris drew his sword to apprehend Romeo, whom he declared felon. After a brief, but theatrical swordfight, Count Paris received a mortal blow; he begged Romeo to be merciful and to lay him with Juliet.

Only after Paris died, did my Lord Romeo actually get a good look at the Count’s face; only then did he realize hat he’d slain Mercutio’s kinsman, who may well have married Juliet, given his final words and Mercutio’s advice that the girl would soon be a countess. The last I saw of either Romeo or Count Paris, one man was carrying the other into the tomb. In the darkness, I could not discern which bore which.

I swear that I know nothing about the subsequent goings-on in the tomb, for I didn’t want to discover whether my Lord Romeo, whom I had always admire, was going to lie with both Juliet and Count Paris in an unholy threesome. I may have more to relate tomorrow.

Prince Escalus: I fear not, as I know you will not be in Verona tomorrow. You have committed several crimes. First, you arranged for Romeo’s fast horses in defiance of my decree of banishment. Second, you helped him to desecrate a tomb. Third, you stood by and allowed my kinsman Paris to be slaughtered, when an outcry might have panicked Romeo into fleeing from the churchyard.

I probably should order your death, but I feel benevolent today.
Hence, I order you to take Romeo’s place in exile by departing this county as naked as you did enter it as a newborn babe, save for the brand of the thief that shall be burnt onto your forehead. Did you not steal your owed allegiance from me? When you have entered the territory of Mantua, you may cover your nakedness with whatever rags your traveling companion, Robert the Second and Last of the Downy Pillow, shall deign to offer you. Guards, escort him naked to the apothecary’s cell and from there prod both of them to leave the county in haste.

I now summon to testify Her Holiness, Sister Serena of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Sienna chapter.

[A gasp of amazement overtook the assembled Lords and Ladies. Those who did snicker, that is, those from the baser classes, were taken from the courtroom to be scourged for their insolence with a wet leather strap. Nor were such folk readmitted while Susanna did testify.]

Prince Escalus: I would that Sister Serena’s privacy could be kept privy, but that is impossible on the circumstances. As many in this courtroom have already grasped, Serena was born a male; indeed, as Delicatus the First, my older brother preceded me on the throne of Verona. However, he took holy vows as a nun after being rendered more than a eunuch by the old Duke of Mantua as punishment for being captured in a battle in which he had commanded our forces while dressed as a pregnant Pope Joan. God was with my brother, now my sister, that day for a spear, aimed at his protruding belly did no more than pierce his pillow.

After becoming a religious, Serena joined the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence so that she might befriend and succor the poor, abandoned males who were being laid in Italy’s first hospital, Santa Maria of the Stairs in Siena. It is, as a result, of the keen interest that Sister Serena has subsequently developed in medicine and its practitioners that she is able to enlighten us today about the last hours of Romeo and Juliet. Blessed Sister, my brother, now sister, please commence by telling us how you came to be in the Capulet tomb the night the two teens died.

Sister Serena: Praise be to God! Let us pray that he will grant wisdom to this tribunal, especially the wisdom to see that the Lord works in mysterious ways.

[Amen and hallelujah the lords and ladies did say.]

Sister Serena: Our Lord, the Christ, also promised the resurrection of the dead on Judgment Day, did he not?

[The room remained silent, for all knew this to be a rhetorical question.]

Sister Serena: We who have taken vows to serve God and Jesus Christ have an obligation to help Him — yes, singular, you heathen Unitarians and Gnostics — achieve the resurrection of the dead. And that is why I am a resurrectionist, who liberates male bodies from their tombs so that they might have their day of judgment by the anatomist who toils for my hospital in Sienna.

Prince Escalus: Holy Sister, is that why you were in the Capulet tomb — to hasten the resurrection of a member of this noble family?

Sister Serena: Precisely, dear brother. I knew that Tybalt Capulet was a famous specimen of Veronese manhood, and so meant to resurrect him for final judgment by the hospital, provided that his fatal wound had not done excessive damage to the vital organs. I was closely examining an external organ when his kinsmen entered the tomb with Lady Juliet’s remains.

Forced to hide my presence, lest the family resent my intrusion on their moment of grief, I ended up being shut in the tomb when they locked it, with naught to keep me warm but a lantern. As I dared not use up all the good air in the tomb, I ended up shivering in the dark for hours with nothing but Tybalt’s cold, naked body to keep me warm. I would have died had not Romeo broken into the tomb, with Count Paris’s blood still dripping from his ghastly blade.

Prince Escalus: God surely looked after you, blessed Sister, by using Romeo as a tool to effect your deliverance from the house of death.

[“A house where the nun did go of his own free will,” shouted a low-bred, ashen-faced skeleton of a man sitting in the cheap seats. “He’s a common grave robber and necro defiler! Punish the villain, O Prince, as you would any other, even though he be twice a sister.” The lout might have said more, but he was silenced forever by a quick sword thrust from Count Paris, intent on preserving decorum in the courtroom.]

Prince Escalus: How crass, how uncivilized! A male nun — that would be a sacrilege! It is blasphemy even to suggest that there might be such a thing. In refusing to acknowledge that Sister Serena has been lo these many years a woman cut, the churl showed himself to be a base racist. I will not abide intolerance against the transgendered. Let the bigot’s summary execution be a warning to all that I shall not abide any tumult from those sitting on the wrong side of the curtain tracks that do separate the people of quality in this courtroom from those who possess quantity alone.

Sister Serena, please resume your testimony. We are most anxious to hear it all, now that we know full well that God Himself escorted you safely through the valley of Death.

Sister Serena: After Romeo finished lay Count Paris in the tomb, he turned his attention to Juliet. He marveled that Death had no yet marred her beauty; she was not conquered, for her lips and cheeks were still crimson in color. That should have clued him in that Juliet might be merely sleeping. But Romeo, an impulsive youth who rarely stopped his ceaseless motion long enough to think, next turned to Tybalt’s nude corpse, which still looked enticing in the candlelight, and asked what favor he might do it.

Briefly, liking not Romeo’s wild-eyed look, I feared that he might commit some outrage on an orifice of my poor, defenseless Tybalt, but Romeo, still preferring Juliet, turned back to her. I knew now what his lust intended, for he said “unsubstantial death” had made her attractive and amorous. “Amorous” — that was definitely the word that the pervert used.

[The courtroom fell totally silent for the first time during the inquest, even the young hawkers of condoms and ointments ceasing to name their price.]

Prince Escalus: Hesitate not, Sister Serena. An inquest is, like the morgue, no place for modesty.

Sister Serena: Romeo was getting quite worked up. He told his eyes to look their last, his arms to take their last embrace, and his lips to seal with a kiss his tryst with engrossing death. I think “engrossing” was the word he used, but the word was distorted by his tongue’s being deep in the mouth of Juliet’s corpse, and “endearing” it might have been as well. I fear what sin he might have committed next, had not his tongue awakened Juliet from her death-like slumber.

Prince Escalus: Are you saying that Lady Juliet reawakened with Romeo still alive in the tomb beside her?

Sister Serena: Beside her? He was on top of her, with his tongue inside her.

Prince Escalus: Then what is the truth of the rumor circulating around Verona to this day that Romeo, believing his wife dead, drank the poison provided him by the apothecary, and died after uttering at most a few words? Similarly, what about the rumor that Juliet, upon waking to find her husband dead beside her, killed herself with his dagger?

Sister Serena: Neither tale is true as told in the streets, My Lord, as I should know being the sole witness to their demise. Romeo was very much alive and lively when Juliet reawakened. The falsehoods now making the rounds of Verona’s taverns were concocted, methinks, by the Capulet and Montague clans, to disguise the real flavor of their deaths. God commands that the truth must out.

Prince Escalus: How extraordinary that I, a Prince, did buy into the Big Lie. I insist on the truth being told, no matter how it reflects on the much depleted Capulet and Montague families. Fidelity to the memories of Mercutio and Count Paris demands as much.

Sister Serena: When Juliet awoke, she struggled for breath until her lord and husband stopped blocking her airway with his blood-hardened tongue. Her first words were, “Here I am. Oh, oh my, dear Romeo.” She then kissed his lips, attempting to get a taste of his very essence. Well, one thing led to another, and as a nun, I must leave him out the naughty bits. Suffice it to say that Romeo and Juliet each stripped off his or her own clothes, taking advantage of the dark shadows cast by the single lantern to preserve their modesty until they stood naked before each other.

I knew it to be the first time that they had ever seen each other thus, for they simultaneously gasped with despair. “But you are a female,” Juliet said to Romeo, and he (I of all who persons cannot say “she” to describe a crossdressing female) gasped, “And you are a male.”

Prince Escalus: Let me get this straight (if that be possible in Verona) for the benefit of the scribe and all in attendance. You are saying that Romeo was born a female, and Juliet, a male, and that both retained the sexual attributes that God bestowed on them at birth?

Sister Serena: Precisely, though both had clearly assumed the opposing gender. Romeo did ask whether Juliet’s family or Count Paris knew her to be a transgender. Juliet replied that they knew not, for no one but Nurse had ever seen her naked, and he had good reason to keep her secret.

Prince Escalus: Pardon the interruption, dear Sister, but you just used the masculine pronoun for Nurse, whom we all believe to be the woman who wet-nursed Juliet for thirteen years. Did you misspeak perchance?

Sister Serena: Surely I did not. Like Romeo, Nurse has long been a crossdressing male, in his case long before he midwifed Juliet’s birth. Nurse saw that it was a boy, but assured everyone else, including Lady Capulet (who cared not to hold a baby stained with her fluids,) that it was a girl. Before you ask, Nurse conceived this deceit because she regarded the baby as her own to raise, and wished it to grow up to be just like her — a man in skirts. As for being Juliet’s wet nurse, that was easily achieved even for a man, for there are herbs that swell men’s breasts with milk to be drained by the babes they suckle. I myself know that for a fact.

Prince Escalus: I fail to understand, given what you tell us, why Romeo and Juliet are dead. If only one were a crossdresser, I can understand that the other, feeling trapped into love under an illusion, might use words so wounding that both of them, one from hurt, the other from having cause the hurt, could not bear to see another dawn. But why did these two not run off together to a desert island, for they were both committed to eternal love between a man and woman, and did it really matter which was the man, and which the woman?

Sister Serena: There were no hurtful words, only tears of mutual remorse. Both held that they could never love another person. They had each found their one true love. But they could not consummate their marriage. They could never live together as man and woman in constant sexual embrace. And why is that? Because both were incapable of making love to the opposite sex.

Prince Escalus: Then you are saying that the widespread rumors of a sexual liaison between my kinsman Mercutio and Romeo are false? If so, praise the Lord, not that there is anything wrong with being a homosexual and catamite.

Sister Serena: When Juliet, wondering after the gossip, queried him about Mercutio, Romeo replied that Mercutio, having playfully stripped Romeo of his tights while feigning to wrestle, did once see Romeo’s privy parts. The shock was such that Mercutio never thought again of sex with Romeo. In briefs, they no more than kissed, as siblings do. However, they did spent countless nights together, but awake at a table, not asleep in a bed. They did innumerable Tarot readings for each other, hoping against hope that the early deaths foretold by the cards could be reversed by a lucky shuffle. Alas, it was not to be. The cards always pointed to a dissembling girl as the ultimate cause of their untimely demise.

Prince Escalus: What fools those two youths were! They should have consulted a tarot-reader in buskers’ alley, and then paid for the reading they wanted. Were I them, I would have proceeded thus. However, as Prince, I simply imprison those who dare to predict a future I do not want. I am no longer at risk of a contrary reading. Blessed Sister, you have not yet told us most certain why Romeo and Juliet slew themselves, though the wisest among us have surmised the precipitant cause.

Sister Serena: You’re correct as usual, my brother. Romeo used the poison he’d brought and Juliet a dagger he gave her after both decided that they were unable to live either apart or together. Juliet offered that by dying together that they would become lovers for all eternity, for spirits and angels in heaven had no gender to impede a love as pure as theirs. On earth, they could not abide the sight of each other’s form corporal; in heaven, there would be no flesh to prevent them from seeing and cherishing each other’s soul immortal. I did weep as they offed themselves.

As Romeo was clearly dead, I endeavored to keep Juliet alive by stripping off all her clothes so that I might use them to fill the knife wound; and when that failed, I tried to arouse her from her agony by giving her the breath of life at diverse places along her body. For a long while I believed that she was coming round when the midpoint of her body responded ardently to my lips. I’ll never know how much life force Juliet as yet retained, for I overheard a servant of Count Paris and the cemetery’s watchmen outside the tomb and so decided, albeit reluctantly, that discretion required me to steal away to a dark corner. They soon discovered and reported to the world outside that the tomb had three new bodies. That is my report.

Prince Escalus: It is probably a blessing, dear Sister, that you were unable to arouse Juliet from the abode of the spirits, for she did not care to live without her Romeo. Sister, may God protect you as you return to Siena with the remains of Juliet, Paris and Tybalt for the Last Judgment by you and the anatomist at Sancta Maria of the Stairs. The Capulets are to be commended, as should I, for our donatives to medical research. We know that the three corpses, all males it seems, are in good hands when they are in your keeping, dear Sister. We all bid you a thankful farewell.

The last words at this inquest shall be mine, as is my personal custom and hereditary right. First, in answer to Friar Laurence’s request to have his old life sacrificed upon the rigor of the severest law if I decided that the deaths of Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris, and Lady Montague, who died of grief after hearing of Romeo’s banishment, were in any way his fault. I have not so decided, for Friar Laurence is a holy man.

As for Bello Ragazzo, were he indeed more than the semblance of a man, I should probably punish him for not coming directly to the aid of Lord Paris during his swordfight with Romeo. But what can one expect of a feeble woman? Count Paris should have known better than to depend on a girl for his defense, no matter how good she looked in male hosiery.

[“I am not so feeble, Your Excellency. I have strong muscles if you care to feel them. And I was oft the stallion to my beloved Count’s mare.” With such words a callow youth did dare to interrupt the summation by the Prince.]

Prince Escalus: Bello Ragazzo (or should I call you Bella Ragazza?) dare you at this late hour to impugn the memory of my kinsman Paris by intimating that he was so tame that he would let a young girl ride him? I think not, though it might explain his passion for Lady Juliet; perhaps he suspected her true gender. Yet even were I to accept that Count Paris was gay, as surely he must have been to have been bested in a duel by a crossdressing female named Romeo, how could you conceivably have performed the stallion’s role when you lack his major part? Come to the stand to answer my questions, o handsome youth.

Bello Ragazzo: My name is definitely Bello Ragazzo, My Lord Prince; never again will I female be in name or attire. While, as a male, I have pleased many men as their filly, for those who prefer a more coltish lover, I have devised a polished wooden shaft, nine inches by two inches, which I attach most cleverly by leather straps to my waist. It pleased the Count, my lord and mistress, for me to use it repeatedly like a sword, burying its shaft deep inside until he moaned like a woman.

Prince Escalus: This device you have most cleverly invented, by what name do you call it?

Bello Ragazzo: I call it a tampon, my lord, because it plugs a body cavity, albeit at intermittent intervals.

Prince Escalus: You are indeed a clever g … boy. I have but two questions yet to pose. First, did you have the foresight to consult with Father Laurence, our herbalist, in a timely fashion? And second, am I to infer from your testimony that Count Paris was, to put it most delicately, a transvestite dyke?

Bello Ragazzo: Your Excellency, distress yourself on neither account. Count Paris was indeed a male at both his birth and death. It pleased him, however, to be treated like a woman in bed by a woman dressed as a man. That’s a common enough whimsy in Verona, is it not?

The tragedy is that, as he did explain once to me, that he had to marry a maiden to safeguard his public image. He planned, however, to whip his bride into taking my place, whereby she played the male stud in bed while using a tampon borrowed from me. Alas, had Count Paris known the truth about Romeo, the Count might have shifted the object of his affection away from Juliet and toward the crossdressing Montague, thereby saving six lives.

As to the first question — did I consult an herbalist in timely fashion? I did so on my twelfth birthday, My Lord Prince. Thanks to Friar Laurence’s herbal mixtures, my chest is, like the rest of me, firm, unfeminine and fat-free. There is one part of me I could not alter, but one sees it not when I am wearing a tampon.

Prince Escalus: Even at twelve you were wise to the needs of men. I cannot conceive of punishing a youth of your nobility and talent. Nor should you languish amongst my footmen. I need you closer to my head. You shall take care of my Princely needs on weekends. Each time bring your tampon; I am most anxious to learn more about its use. You are dismissed from the stand, but definitely not from my service.

As for you, Capulet and Montague, I ask you to consider what a scourge was laid upon your hate. Heaven found means to kill your joys. Even I, for not punishing your discords more severely in the past, have lost two kinsmen.

I also erred in tolerating the rampant transgenderism in this county. To be candid, that has been the one thing that I could never stand about Verona — too many trannies. They have always been as thick on the ground here as vampires in Santa Clara, California or Forks, Washington. But it was a vice, I always believed, that afflicted only the hoi polloi, those that like Nurse have little status to forfeit by dressing as a woman, inasmuch as they are already much despised. And women who dressed as men I thought a positive asset to this county, as they could more easily be persuaded to prove their “manhood” by becoming crossbow fodder.

However, when transgenderism spreads like a virus into the ranks of the nobility and traps two of my kinsmen into chasing after a man in skirts, then gender-bending has gotten completely out of hand. It must be stopped cold by sending its adepts to the cold, cold North. I have heard that men may openly wear skirts in Scotland, about as cold a place as I can conceive. I therefore decree that anyone caught crossdressing in Verona from tomorrow onward shall be exiled to Scotland or to one of the lesser nations with which it shares the British Isles. Shivering, knocking, red-chapped knees may knock sense into these miscreants.

Lord Capulet, you are to be commended for waiving your right to have an estate bestowed on Juliet by the Montagues at the time of her wedding (to sustain her if she became widowed). And you Montague are to be lauded for promising to raise a statue to Juliet in pure gold to preserve the memory of a true and faithful wife as long as the name of Verona survives. I also thank you for agreeing, after some resistance, that the statue should be fully clothed, as befits a maid. A statue exposing her manhood for all to ponder would, in my opinion, be inappropriate.

Lord Montague: As you’ve continually maintained, My Liege, but what does “inappropriate” mean other than disapproval? You never gave the cause.

Prince Escalus: I thought it appropriate to say that a naked statue of Juliet in the guise of Adonis would be inappropriate. That explanation should suffice. Lord Capulet understood at once that the statue he planned to erect of Romeo could show no nakedness, even from the waist up, as there was no need to remind this county for all time to come that Romeo had nothing to erect. It is surely best that Romeo and Juliet be remembered as they lived, as a Montague son and Capulet daughter.

This inquest does now officially find that Romeo and Juliet died each of their own hand and volition because they realized that they could never consummate their marriage. They did not wish to sin before God by living together without frequent attempts at procreation. I have already decreed suitable punishment for those of low and common birth whom I hold responsible for the diverse deaths we have these last past three days discussed.

Some of you, I know, believing that Father Laurence might be a closet Jew, have feared for his life, but I assure all those present that the holy friar has, by pulling up his robe, given me visible, tangible proof of his lifetime commitment to Christianity. He leaves here with his head held high and, thanks to the gossip, his reputation enhanced.

I declare an end to this inquest. Go hence to talk more of these sad things, though not about the true sex of the tragical lovers. Tell their story as it should be told — that never was a story of more woe than this of two very straight heterosexuals, Juliet and her Romeo.

I cannot predict what Shakespearean scholars will make of this find. As it invalidates much of what they have written, I suppose they will become deniers and allege some sort of government conspiracy. They may even suborn a library official to tell a gullible reporter from the New York Times or National Enquirer that his institution has always considered the manuscript a forgery, hence its treatment as pornography (whatever that might be).

But before the “experts” have a chance to divert the debate into a meaningless discussion of whether the paper and ink of the Italian original date from the fourteenth century, let me make the following points: First, that transgenderism seems to have been surprisingly prevalent in Northern Italy in the fourteenth century, at least in Verona;

Second, that the scandalous demise of Romeo and Juliet caused a crackdown on transgenders in Verona, and possibly elsewhere (unquestionably in Scotland after that country became overrun by Italian men wearing plaid skirts).

Third, that many of our terms for transgenderism (including that one) appear to have their origins in fourteenth-century Verona, possibly through the circulation of this manuscript. Personally, I had no idea that words like “tranny” and “trap” were of such ancient vintage.

Fourth, that the dildo seems to be an example of simultaneous invention, inasmuch as it appears to have been invented in both Verona and in Newfoundland, for in both it received a markedly different name. Fortunately, the Veronese name for this marital device did not long survive, unlike that of Newfoundland, or else when a modern woman asked her husband to find her a tampon to use, there would be great confusion as to what was to go where and how.

Fifth, a comparison of the inquest proceedings and of Shakespeare’s play strongly suggests that Shakespeare had access to the former at the time he was writing. There are just too many words and phrases in common, too many persons and names in common, and too much similarity between the structure of the inquest and of Bill’s play for it to have been otherwise. When he wrote Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare veered mighty close to plagiarism and a lawsuit that would have shut down production. It’s no wonder that the name “Shakespeare” was probably a pseudonym.

My final point is one that any transgendered, crossdressing author would make: by going along with the myth that Romeo and Juliet were a normal straight couple, a myth that he knew to be an outright lie after reading the inquest into their suicides -- Shakespeare did great harm to everyone who believes he, she or s/he has a right to do “it” their way or anyway they please so long as it doesn’t involve kids (of whatever specie — goats have rights too!).

Why did Shakespeare not use his play about Juliet and Romeo to advance the cause of equal rights for the transgendered? Well, I doubt he was normally unkind to our kind because he assigned all the female roles in his plays to boys. His plays often had great fun with gender reversal by giving girl’s parts to his male actors, who at some point in the play had to be a girl who was pretending to be a boy. His comedies were just like the world of Juliet’s Verona, where gender was as mutable as the weather.

So why did a playwright so sympathetic to the transgendered leave buried the most compelling case for tolerating us? The answer is simple: The real reason that Bill Shakespeare kept everyone guessing about his true name and identity is that he did not want them guessing about Bill’s true sex.

Is it not possible that the real reason that Bill’s “wife” Ann Hathaway mysteriously disappears from his life story and the historical record is that she finally decided to live permanently as a man by the name of William Shakespeare?

I ask questions; but I lack answers.

It’s sad what happened to Romeo and Juliet. They were my kind of people.