Note on the Libretto by D. Kern Holoman

The libretto provided by the poet and essayist Emile Deschamps (1791-1871) for Berlioz's symphony is of three sorts: 1) synopses of the action in Shakespeare's play, delivered by the prologue chorus; 2) verses which reflect, in the manner of a Greek chorus, upon the events that have transpired, notably the Strophes for contralto solo ("Premiers transports") and Friar Laurence's air ("Pauvres en/anis que je pleure"); and 3) speeches and incidents drawn directly from or at least based on Shakespeare, i. e., Mercutio's Queen Mab scherzetto, certain parts of Friar Laurence's monologue, and the chorus text for the Funeral Procession. The first two of these categories were written expressly for Berlioz; the third category goes back to a translation of the entire play by Deschamps and Alfred de Vigny prepared in 1827 and revised in subsequent years.
We do not know the order or even the approximate time when Deschamps gave Berlioz a libretto; it seems possible that the librettist made his translation of the play available to the composer as early as 1828. We do know that the Strophes arrived early in 1839.

Berlioz's text for the scherzetto Mab la messagère is drawn directly from Deschamps's translation of Shakespeare's monologue. The Sermon of reconciliation, a text found neither in Shakespeare nor in the version by Garrick and Kemble performed in Paris in 1827 (which ended with the death of Juliet), was written by Deschamps. Whether Berlioz took the idea from Deschamps or suggested it to him is not entirely clear; probably it was Berlioz who first wanted to include the scene.
A strong influence on Berlioz and Deschamps was the performing version of the play used by Kemble in 1827, which was in turn based on the version of the English actor David Garrick (1717-79). The principal feature of Garrick's version, which was popular in England as well as France, was its denouement in which Juliet awakes and shares a few last moments of ecstasy with Romeo before the deaths of the lovers (movement 6). This was a scene well known to the Parisian romantics: Stendhal wrote of his preference for it, as did Deschamps. Berlioz knew it intimately, and discusses the scene in bis Memoirs.
The Garrick version also calls for a funeral procession for Juliet in lieu of the scene of Catling, Peter, and Rebeck at the end of Shakespeare's Act IV. Deschamps's stage direction caîls for such a cortège, but the text for the Funeral Procession was newly written for Berlioz. The image of strewn flowers cornes from Paris's line in Shakespeares Act V, sc. 3: "Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridaI bed I strew."

Four lines in the final version are known to be by Berlioz himself, the reprise du prologue after the Scherzetto. This strophe was sketched during the revision in Prague in 1846.