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What does the "poison" foreshadow in Romeo and Juliet?

In Act 2, Scene 3, just prior to Romeo's arrival at his cell, Friar Lawrence is working with his plants.  He says that within one "weak flower / Poison hath residence and medicine power" (2.3.23-24).  In other words, one plant has the ability to help or harm, depending on the dosage.  This seems to foreshadow the plan that the Friar will later make, where he will provide Juliet with a medicinal potion that will make...

In Act 2, Scene 3, just prior to Romeo's arrival at his cell, Friar Lawrence is working with his plants.  He says that within one "weak flower / Poison hath residence and medicine power" (2.3.23-24).  In other words, one plant has the ability to help or harm, depending on the dosage.  This seems to foreshadow the plan that the Friar will later make, where he will provide Juliet with a medicinal potion that will make her seem dead.  The plan is to use this distillation to allow Juliet to fake her own death and run away with Romeo.


However, the Friar also says that the flower is also like a person because "Two such opposed kings encamp them still / In man as well as herbs -- grace and rude will; / And where the worser is predominant, / Full soon the canker death eats up that plant" (2.3.28-31).  He draws attention to humankind's ability to be both loving and hateful, and where hatred rules, there can only be destruction.  This seems to foreshadow that, although Romeo and Juliet love each other, showing the better side of humanity, the hatred with which they are surrounded will eventually overcome and destroy them, showing the worse.

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