And this, by one of those quick transitions of feeling which belong to the character, is immediately succeeded by a gush of tenderness and self-reproach—
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it?
With the same admirable truth of nature, Juliet is represented as at first bewildered by the fearful destiny that closes round her; reverse is new and terrible to one nursed in the lap of luxury, and whose energies are yet untried.
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself.
While a stay remains to her amid the evils that encompass her, she clings to it. She appeals to her father—to her mother—
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak one word!
* * * *
Ah, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month,—a week!
And, rejected by both, she throws herself upon her nurse in all the helplessness of anguish, of confiding affection, of habitual dependence—
O God! O nurse! how shall this be prevented?
Some comfort, nurse!