What does The heavens do lower upon you for some ill Move them no more by crossing their high will mean?

Answer 1

This is a warning given by the Friar to the Capulets. He says the heavens are angry at you because you did some evil deed, don't anger them any further by going against their wishes.

This warning is to help gather momentum in the tragic inevitability of the drama so far.

Answer 2

The line is from Romeo and Juliet. Friar Lawrence says it:

Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;

And go, Sir Paris; every one prepare

To follow this fair corse unto her grave:

The heavens do lour upon you for some ill;

Move them no more by crossing their high will.

The friar is addressing the Capulet family who have just discovered Juliet to have apparently died the night before her wedding. You have to remember that in Romeo and Juliet, the "stars" are constantly being invoked as a symbol of overriding fate: "star-crossed lovers", "I defy you stars" and so on. Fate is also invoked using other language, like "Fortune's Fool". "The heavens" here can represent this fate or alternatively some kind of divine retribution. Talking about the heavens "lowering" or "louring" is reminiscent of Richard III "and all the clouds that lour'd upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried." A "louring sky" in both passages is a sign of bad luck.

One of the reasons you might want to think of "the heavens" as an angry God is that the Friar says that they lour "for some ill". The Capulets have done wrong, and so therefore the heavens are giving them bad luck.

"Crossing" in many places in Shakespeare means "opposing, contradicting, thwarting". In The Taming of the Shrew Petruchio describes Kate's argumentative nature as crossing: "Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,

You are still crossing it." So, "crossing their [the heavens'] high will" means opposing the will of this angry deity the Friar is proposing, which he makes them fear will move them [the heavens] more, or in other words make them create more bad luck.

So the two lines mean something like "You have offended an angry god somehow. Don't make it worse by opposing his will even more."

Of course, the Friar is talking through his hat. The Friar is the angry god who has caused Juliet to apparently die for the ill the Capulets have done, by trying to force her to marry Paris. It is now his will that he does not wish to see crossed. There is no supernatural agency involved at all, and he knows it.