Juliet thought, of course, that the nurse referred to Romeo, especially when she went on weeping and wailing and saying that she had seen him lying dead with her own eyes. Juliet’s heart was nearly broken at the dreadful news, when suddenly the stupid old woman, in her confused style began to lament:
“O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had! O courteous Tybalt! Honest gentleman! That ever I should live to see thee dead!”
“What do you mean?” said poor, bewildered Juliet. “Is Romeo slaughtered, and is Tybalt dead? My dear-loved cousin and my dearer lord?”
“Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,” said the nurse. “Romeo that killed him, he is banished.”
Her words were plain enough now. Juliet shrank back in horror.
“Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?”
“It did—it did. Alas the day, it did!”
Juliet’s first impulse was to heap reproaches on her newly made husband, who hid so vile a nature under so fair a seeming; but when the nurse chimed eagerly in, and said there was no trust, no faith, no honesty in man,— they were all perjured, all dissemblers, Juliet immediately changed her tone, and broke into an indignant defence of Romeo.
“Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?” asked the nurse.
“Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” cried Juliet. “Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name when I, thy three-hours wife, have wronged it?”