Quote 1
NURSE
Hie you to church. I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark.
I am the drudge and toil in your delight,
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
(2.5.77-81)
The Nurse says she'll "fetch a ladder" for Romeo to climb up so the lovers can spend their wedding night together, managing to turn her description of Romeo "climbing" the ladder into Juliet's "bird's nest" into an image of the kind of sex the couple is going to have later that night: Juliet will "bear the burden" of Romeo. (This is a lot creepier when you remember that the Nurse has practically raised Juliet.)
Quote 2
NURSE
She's dead, deceased. She's dead, alack the day!
LADY CAPULET
Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead.
CAPULET
Ha! let me see her! Out, alas, she's cold.
Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
NURSE
O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET
O woeful time!
CAPULET
Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.
(4.5.28-38)
Juliet's family tries to describe her death in gentle terms – "an untimely frost" – to make her loss less horrific to them.
NURSE
Ah, weraday, he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone.
Alack the day, he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead.
JULIET
Can heaven be so envious?
NURSE
Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo,
Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!
JULIET
What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roared in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'Ay,'
And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
I am not I, if there be such an 'I,'
Or those eyes shut that make thee answer 'Ay.'
If he be slain, say 'Ay,' or if not, "No."
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
NURSE
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes
(God save the mark!) here on his manly breast—
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse,
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,
All in gore blood. I swoonèd at the sight.
JULIET
O, break, my heart, poor bankrupt, break at once!
To prison, eyes; ne'er look on liberty.
Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.
(3.2.42-66)
Without Romeo, Juliet thinks her only option is death. She is no longer herself without him.
Quote 4
NURSE
O, he is even in my mistress' case,
Just in her case. O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubb'ring.—
Stand up, stand up. Stand an you be a man.
For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
(3.3.92-97)
Nice to know some things don't change (not): excessive "weeping and blubbering" was considered just as unmanly in the sixteenth century as it is today.
Quote 5
NURSE
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
I nursed her daughter that you talked withal.
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks. (1.5.125-130)
When Juliet's Nurse says that any man lucky enough to marry Juliet "shall have the chinks," she means that he'll make a lot of money. Juliet's parents have plenty of dough and Juliet, an only child, will have a large dowry. In the 16th century, marriage was often seen as an economic transaction. But, as we soon learn, Romeo and Juliet don't feel this way. Keep reading…
Quote 6
NURSE
Pray
you, sir, a word. And as I told you, my young lady
bade me inquire you out. What she bade me say, I will
keep to myself. But first let me tell you, if you
should lead her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it
were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say. For
the gentlewoman is young; and therefore, if you
should deal double with her, truly it were an ill
thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very
weak dealing. (2.4.165-174)
Because Romeo and Juliet are convinced that their feuding families will never understand them, they turn to their mentors (Juliet's Nurse and Friar Laurence) for help. Here, the Nurse makes arrangements that help facilitate the young lovers' union. Nice, right? Yes—until Romeo is banished from Verona, and the Nurse tells her to get over it and move on.
NURSE
Shame come to Romeo!
JULIET
Blistered be thy tongue
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit,
For 'tis a throne where honor may be crowned
Sole monarch of the universal Earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
NURSE
Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?
JULIET
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy
name,
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have killed my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my
husband.
All this is comfort.
(3.2.98-118)
After (initially) rejecting Romeo for killing her cousin, Juliet is caught between her loyalty to her family and her loyalty to her new husband. She eventually chooses Romeo and confesses that she's relieved her husband wasn't killed in the duel. If Romeo hadn't killed Tybalt, Tybalt surely would have killed Romeo.
NURSE
There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where's my man? give me some aqua vitae.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me
old.
Shame come to Romeo!
JULIET
Blistered be thy tongue
For such a wish! he was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit,
For 'tis a throne where honor may be crowned
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
NURSE
Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?
JULIET
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy
name
When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have killed my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my
husband.
All this is comfort. Wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,
That murdered me. I would forget it fain,
But, O, it presses to my memory
Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds:
'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo--banishèd.'
That 'banishèd,' that one word 'banishèd,'
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. (3.2.92-125)
Juliet's anger at Romeo and horror over Tybalt's death (see previous passage) quickly turns to horror over Romeo's banishment. Juliet feels guilty about "mangl[ing]" Romeo's name (speaking ill of him) and she's also not too pleased with the Nurse, who criticizes her new husband. What interests us most about this passage, however, is the way Juliet says that Romeo's exile from Verona is "ten thousand" times worse than her cousin's death. She also suggests that, if she had heard "some word" that Romeo had been killed, it would have "murder'd" her.
NURSE
Romeo is banished, and all the world to nothing
That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you,
Or, if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the County.
O, he's a lovely gentleman!
Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead, or 'twere as good he were
As living here and you no use of him.
(3.5.226-238)
After her parents threaten to turn her out on the streets for refusing to marry Paris, Juliet turns to her Nurse for guidance. The Nurse's advice to Juliet (who is already married to and in love with Romeo) is pretty callous—she recommends that Juliet forget about Romeo, who has been banished from Verona, and go ahead with a marriage to Paris. After all, the Nurse reasons, Romeo can't exactly come back to Verona to challenge the wedding. But, Juliet, as we know, has no intension of getting hitched to Paris.