Romeo's sudden sense of compassion for the dying Paris may be understandable. When Romeo courted Rosaline, he found her cold and unresponsive to his amorous desires. Like Romeo, Paris received little beyond polite conversation from Juliet; her love was entirely dedicated to Romeo. Like Romeo, Paris is a worthy suitor of good character and noble intent. The pain of an unrequited love is not foreign to Romeo, and the fact that Paris will die, like Mercutio, without enlightenment or exposure to true, transcendent, spiritual love catalyzes great compassion and sympathy in Romeo.
Rather than demonstrating weakness or a distracted mindset, Juliet's death indicates her dignity and strength of character. The Romans regarded stabbing as the most noble form of suicide. Juliet ignores the Friar's warnings and deliberately follows through with her vow to be with Romeo in death.
Thus the play concludes with the reconciliation of the families — a somewhat Pyrrhic triumph. As the originators of the feud stand amidst the dead bodies of their city's youth, the rift is healed. Romeo and Juliet have achieved spiritual reunion in death, and their lives will be memorialized in gold as witness to their sacrifice. The conclusion seems somewhat empty because Romeo and Juliet triumph in death — an ending that manifests the very essence of the tragedy itself. However, measuring the tragedy by the crude barometer of the moral lessons that the survivors learn seems obtuse. The tragedy can be appreciated in the context of the protagonists' understanding of their own lives. The soul of the tragedy is not constituted in the joy they had and lost; rather, the soul of the tragedy lies in the joy that could never last in this world.
