What is Friar Lawrence trying to say in his Soliliquey?

Question

Act II, scene iii, 1 – 16 (Friar Laurence)

Original text

1 Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,

The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,

I must up-fill this osier cage of ours

With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.

5 The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;

What is her burying grave that is her womb,

And from her womb children of divers kind

We sucking on her natural bosom find,

Many for many virtues excellent,

10 None but for some and yet all different.

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities:

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give;

15 Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use,

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

Answer 1

Which one?

Answer 2

I don't think there is a lot of subtly in this speech. The friar is obviously interested in herbs. He reveals the core part of his personality. He sincerely believes that drugs have the power to change good to bad, and bad to good if they are administered by a wise man. Clearly he thinks that he fits the mold of this wise person.

   You see later in the play that he is more concerned about his power to change society than he is about Romeo and Juliet.

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I assume you realize that you only copied 16 lines of a 30 line soliloquy .

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NO FEAR SHAKESPEARE VERSION (whole speech)

The smiling morning is replacing the frowning night. Darkness is stumbling out of the sun's path like a drunk man.

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Now, before the sun comes up and burns away the dew, I have to fill this basket of mine with poisonous weeds and medicinal flowers. The Earth is nature's mother and also nature's tomb. Plants are born out of the Earth, and they are buried in the Earth when they die. From the Earth's womb, many different sorts of plants and animals come forth, and the Earth provides her children with many excellent forms of nourishment. Everything nature creates has some special property, and each one is different. Herbs, plants, and stones possess great power. There is nothing on Earth that is so evil that it does not provide the earth with some special quality. And there is nothing that does not turn bad if it's put to the wrong use and abused.

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Virtue turns to vice if it's misused. Vice sometimes becomes virtue through the right activity.

Answer 3

Francis has multiple soliliquey, but in the most important one, the simple sypnosis is that Hero should pretend to be dead. His explanation is that by Hero pretending to be dead, she will make Claudio realize his mistake in accusing her of being untrue. And, he notes, if it doesn't work for her to pretend to have died, she can instead go and lead a religious life, where her new reputation of being false would not follow her. Really, at this point, Francis is the only one besides Beatrice who is really on Hero's side and he's trying to help her although Leonato is convinced that the accusations fired at his daughter by Don Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick are true.

And Francis made a good suggestion! It worked~~