Within the peaceful confines of the Capulet orchard, Juliet looks forward to the "amorous rites" of her marriage to Romeo. Juliet's impatience in anticipation of the nurse's arrival echoes her excited anticipation in Act II, Scene 5, when she had to wait for news of the wedding arrangements. A considerable sense of impending doom hangs in the atmosphere. Although she is unaware of the tragic news that awaits her, Juliet's soliloquy fantasizing about her wedding night embroiders tragic images into the fabric of her epithalamion, or wedding song.
Light and dark imagery again play important roles in creating mood, foreshadowing action, and giving fate a vehicle by which to visit itself upon the characters in the play. Juliet beckons the darkness because it has been a sanctuary for the couple, "if love be blind, / It best agrees with night." She and Romeo met under the cover of night; they agreed to marry as they were shrouded in darkness and were forced to part as dawn broke; they consummate their marriage at night; and they ultimately die together under the cover of night. Their affinity for the darkness illustrates their separation from the temporal, feuding world.
Although external light (the "garish sun") has become their enemy, the lovers have often provided light for each other. Juliet's eyes were like the stars in Act II, Scene 2, in Act I, Scene 5, she "doth teach the torches to burn bright!," and Juliet was Romeo's sun in the balcony scene. Here, Romeo brings "day in night." Juliet begs fate to "cut Romeo out in little stars" so that "all the world be in love with night." These stars represent both the timeless quality of the couple's love and their fate as "star-cross'd lovers" who will only truly be united in death.
