Tear Jerker / Romeo and Juliet

For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

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• Possibly even sadder than the loss of the title pair is the fate of those who remain. Here's the Nurse, Lady Capulet, and Lord Capulet, who loved Juliet so much. They've just lost Tybalt, the closest thing to a child they had besides Juliet. And, having already lost Juliet once (when they thought she was dead), they have to go through the pain all over again, knowing that they could have saved her if they'd only known, knowing that their poor, extremely young daughter spent the last moments of her life in pain and heartbreak. Lord Capulet has to live with the fact that, in one of his last conversations with her, he frightened and threatened her, expressing that he wished she had never been born, and that his actions probably were what drove her to fake her own death. The Nurse was in on the marriage but didn't know enough to save Juliet (and in the original tale, she's banished for her part in helping Juliet). Then there's Lord Montague, who's all alone now that his wife and his only son are dead, poor Benvolio, who (if he's even alive) has lost his two best friends, and the Prince, who has lost two kinsmen and blames himself for not putting his foot down sooner... take it all together, this might just be the saddest ending in the history of literature.
• Lord Capulet's reaction to Juliet's "death," before she actually does die. Yes, he acted like an ass, but how can you not feel sorry for him?
  "My child is dead; And with my child my joys are buried."
• The suicides. No matter how clichéd you find it, no matter how much you hate the story, no matter how much you want to smack the leads, if your production's Romeo and Juliet are doing it right, they'll have at least a couple of audience members in tears.
• Mercutio's death is heartbreaking. Up to this point, Romeo was refusing to fight Tybalt because Tybalt was his relative by marriage. Then Mercutio jumps in and fights because he thinks Romeo is being a wimp. Tybalt stabs him and then Romeo kills him in a righteous grief. Prince Escalus's reaction is Papa Wolf and Tranquil Fury as the bloodbath starts. He gets mad at Lady Capulet for trying to defend Tybalt and tells her that he's fining her family for the loss. Then he banishes Romeo as a Cruel Mercy.
• Every sweet, tender, or adorable moment between the two lovers become this since you know what happens to them in the end.
• Lord Montague is known to have a living heir (his nephew Benvolio). Lord Capulet has none that we know of.
  • And the First Quarto has him revealed to die too. If this is canon, Lord Montague loses his son, wife and nephew all in one day.
• The Nurse lost her husband and daughter Susan before the events of the play and has come to view Juliet as a surrogate daughter (and is a better mother to her than Lady Capulet). She has to come to terms with essentially losing a daughter all over again twice. And she also must realise that she failed her mistress when she needed her the most, and her refusal to help Juliet pretty much set her on the path to her eventual death.

Adaptations

• The French musical adaptation, particularly Roméo's song before his death:
  It's over, I'm done
  I wanted to know about life, now I know
  I am so tired
  I don't want anything but
  To simply lie down, and take her hand
  Put it on my heart, forget my pain
• And Benvolio's song about having to tell Roméo about Juliette's death:
  Yesterday, we were still
  So far, so far from death
  She's fallen on the village
  Like a spider spinning her web.

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