Unaware of the deadly fight between Mercutio, Romeo, and Tybalt, Juliet waits for her husband to come to her room to spend the night. Her nurse arrives, bringing bad news. When Juliet hears of Tybalt’s death, she’s horrified. But she then realizes that, if faced with the choice between her cousin Tybalt and her husband Romeo, she would choose Romeo. She forgives her husband and grieves over his exile. The Nurse agrees to find Romeo and to send him to Juliet’s chamber for the night as planned.
Juliet
Come on, sun, hurry up and set. I wish some god would whip you forward so the cloudy night would come immediately. Let night wanderers blink and miss us and let Romeo leap into my arms unseen. Lovers can see well enough to make love by the light of beauty, and if they can’t, it won’t matter in the dark of night anyway. If only night would come like a proper widow dressed in black and teach me how to gain something by losing my virginity.
Cover the virginal blush in my cheeks with your dark cloak until the strangeness of sex goes away and this act of true love seems natural and modest. Come on, night. Come on, Romeo, the bright part of my night. Through the dark you’ll seem like white snow on a raven’s back. Come dark and loving night, give me my Romeo. When I die, take him and cut out little stars from him and he will make the night sky so beautiful that the whole world will fall in love with night and forget the garish sun.
I have a love, but haven’t possessed it, like an empty house I don’t yet live in. I belong to Romeo but he hasn’t taken possession of me. This day of waiting is as tedious as the night before a big festival is to an impatient child who has a new dress and hasn’t had an occasion to wear it yet. Oh, here comes my nurse, and she’s bringing some news. Everyone who reports something about Romeo sounds like they’re speaking in beautiful poetry. Nurse, what is the news? What do you have there? Is that the rope-ladder that Romeo asked you to get?
Nurse
Yes, yes, the ropes.
Juliet
Oh no — what is this news? Why are you wringing our hands?
Nurse
Oh, what a day! He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead! We’re ruined, lady, we’re ruined! Alas! He’s gone, he’s been killed, he’s dead!
Juliet
Can heaven be so jealous of me?
Nurse
Romeo can, if heaven can’t. Oh Romeo, Romeo! Who would have thought it? Romeo!
Juliet
What kind of devil are you to torment me like this?
This is torture to my ears and fit only to be screamed in a dismal hell. Did Romeo kill himself? Just say “aye,” and that short sound “aye” will kill more surely than the eye of a basilisk that turns its onlookers to stone. I don’t even want to be an “I” if there is such an awful “aye” in the world, or if Romeo’s eyes are shut and thus make you answer “aye.” If he was killed, say “aye,” and if not, say “no.” The brief sounds in these answers will decide whether I will be happy or sad.
Nurse
I saw the wound, I saw it with my own eyes — forgive my explicitness! — right here on his breast. A pitiful corpse, a bloody pitiful corpse. He was pale, as white as ashes, all splattered with blood, gory blood. I fainted at the sight.
Juliet
Oh let my heart break! Poor devastated heart, break now! Let my eyes be imprisoned and never look freely! Let this vile body I have die and return to the earth, stop living now, and let my casket join Romeo’s in a double burial!
Nurse
Oh Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had! Oh courteous Tybalt! Honest gentleman! I can’t believed I’ve lived to see you dead!
Juliet
What’s this outburst that sounds so different? Romeo’s been killed and Tybalt’s dead? My beloved cousin and my husband whom I love even more?
If so, then let a trumpet announce that Judgment Day has come! Who’s alive if these two are gone?
Nurse
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo’s banished. Romeo killed Tybalt, and he has been banished.
Juliet
Oh God! Was Tybalt’s blood shed by Romeo’s hand?
Nurse
It was, it was, alas the day, it was!
Juliet
Oh Romeo has the heart of a serpent masked by the face of spring flowers! Was there ever an evil dragon that lived in such a beautiful cave?
What a beautiful tyrant! What an angelic devil! A raven with the feathers of a dove, a lamb that devours wolves! What cursed substance hidden in divine appearance! You are the exact opposite of what you truly seemed to be, like a damned saint or an honorable villain! Nature, what were you doing in hell when you put the spirit of a devil in such an angelic form as Romeo? Was there ever such a vile book with such a beautiful cover? Oh how could deceit be found in such a gorgeous place?
Nurse
There’s no trust, faith or honesty in men. They all lie under oath or deny the oaths they took. They are nothing but fakes. Ah, where’s my servant? Bring me a strong drink. All these sorrows make me feel old. Shame on Romeo!
Juliet
Your tongue should have blisters for wishing such a thing! Romeo is not shameful. Shame could never sit on his forehead because his face is a throne where only honor can reign, and shame itself would be ashamed to be on his face. What an ass I was to criticize him like that!
Nurse
Will you speak well of the one who killed your cousin?
Juliet
Will I speak ill of my husband? My poor lord, who’s going to clear your name after I, your wife of three hours, spoke like that? But why, poor fool, did you kill my cousin? That poor foolish cousin would have killed my husband. No, go back to where you came from, tears. You should flow at sadness and I’ve mistakenly cried at joy. My husband lives though Tybalt wanted to kill him, and Tybalt cannot kill him now that he’s dead.
This is a relief, so why am I crying? The nurse uttered a word worse than “death” — a word that killed me. I would love to forget that I heard it, but it sticks in my memory like a crime a guilty person cannot forget: “Tybalt is dead and Romeo is banished.” That one word “banished” is worse than ten thousand times Tybalt’s death. Tybalt’s death was painful enough on its own. If the news of his death needed to have the company of other miseries, why couldn’t it have been followed by news of my mother’s or my father’s death, which would have caused just the ordinary level of grieving.
But to finish with “Romeo is banished” is as horrible as to say they’re all dead — mother, father, Tybalt, Romeo, and me. There’s no end or limit or boundary to the destruction in that word “banished.” No words can express or measure that sorrow. Nurse, where’s my mother and father?
Nurse
They’re weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corpse. Will you go to them? I’ll bring you over there.
Juliet
They can wash Tybalt’s wounds with their tears. Mine will flow for Romeo’s banishment when their tears for Tybalt have dried up.
Let me have these ropes—poor rope ladder, it has been deceived, like me, now that Romeo has been exiled. Romeo made you to be a pathway to my bed. But now I’ll die a widowed virgin. Come kill me, ropes, and nurse, this will be my wedding-bed. Let death, not Romeo, take my virginity!
Nurse
Hurry to your room. I’ll find Romeo to comfort you. I know exactly where he is. Look, your Romeo will be here at night. I’ll go to him. He’s hiding at Friar Laurence’s cell.
Juliet
Oh you must find him! Give this ring to my true knight, and tell him to come and say a last goodbye.
