The Nurse is the one to tell the pair of their true identities. During the merriment of the ball, she spies Romeo kissing her charge. Knowing herself who Romeo is, she breaks them up by claiming, "Madam, your mother craves a word with you" (1.5.110). Romeo innocently inquires who the "lady of the house" is. When told, he is crestfallen. "Is she a Capulet? / O dear account. / My life is my foe's debt," he wails (1.5.115-116).
Alone with her Nurse, Juliet too wants to know her admirer's identity. When told, Juliet is heartbroken, exclaiming, "My only love sprung from my only hate. / Too early seen unknown, and known too late. / Prodigious birth of love it is to me / That I must love a loathed enemy" (1.5.137-140).
As to the ending, the audience knows going in that is a tragedy. What is interesting about the conclusion is the hand-holding, statue-building promises and cries of regret for past behavior. Will this moment of clarity be enough to truly revise generations of enmity? Perhaps. But pain fades, statues tarnish and become overgrown with weeds. The Prince's final words, I think, are meant more for the didactic lesson than any real hope of change for the feuding families. "Go hence to have more talk of these sad things," he directs, "Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished, / For never was a story of more woe, / than this of Juliet and her Romeo" (5.3.306-309)
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