Scene summary
Alone, Juliet asks the horses of the sun to run toward night, so that Romeo may come to her arms unseen, and says she has bought the house of a love without having possessed it. The Nurse arrives with the ropes Romeo asked for and, bewildered, says he is dead, without saying who. Juliet concludes it is Romeo and asks whether he killed himself. The Nurse replies that she saw the wound and begins to lament Tybalt, the best friend she ever had. Juliet, confused, asks whether both have died, and only then does the Nurse explain: Tybalt died, and Romeo, who killed him, was banished.
Juliet calls him a serpent's heart beneath a flower's face, a dragon in a lovely cave, a raven with a dove's feathers, an angelic devil. The Nurse says there is no trust in men and wishes shame on Romeo, and Juliet rebukes her and corrects herself: her husband lives, and the cousin who would have killed him is dead, which is a consolation. What kills her is a word, "banished," which has slain ten thousand Tybalts and contains father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, and herself. She asks about her parents, who weep for Tybalt, and says her tears will be for Romeo's banishment. She looks at the ropes: the Nurse brought them for a path to the marriage bed that Romeo will not walk, and she will die a widow, never truly having been a wife. The Nurse says she knows where Romeo is hiding, in Friar Laurence's cell, and promises to bring him that night; Juliet gives her a ring for him.
Analysis
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