At the end of Act III, Scene 5, after being chastised by her father over refusing to agree to the arranged marriage with Count Paris, Juliet seeks comfort and advice from her mother and then the Nurse. When Lord Capulet storms from the room Juliet pleads with her mother to delay the marriage and ambiguously threatens suicide, which could be interpreted as foreshadowing:
O sweet my mother, cast me not away.Delay this marriage for...
At the end of Act III, Scene 5, after being chastised by her father over refusing to agree to the arranged marriage with Count Paris, Juliet seeks comfort and advice from her mother and then the Nurse. When Lord Capulet storms from the room Juliet pleads with her mother to delay the marriage and ambiguously threatens suicide, which could be interpreted as foreshadowing:
O sweet my mother, cast me not away.
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
Her mother will not help her, saying,
Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
With no sympathy from her parents, who are totally unaware of Juliet's relationship with Romeo, Juliet turns to the Nurse, who does know about Romeo, asking for "some comfort." The Nurse surprises Juliet by telling the girl to forget Romeo and go through with the marriage to Paris. She now claims, in contradiction to her earlier statements, that Paris is a better match for Juliet and that Romeo is nothing compared to the Count. She argues that since Romeo is banished Juliet should forget him. Moreover, Romeo will never be able to return to Verona to claim Juliet. She should simply consider Romeo dead. The Nurse says,
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.
After this statement, a shocked Juliet vows never to listen to the Nurse again. Even though the Nurse had been an extremely close confidant and friend, Juliet basically ends the relationship with her in an aside at the close of the scene:
Ancient damnation, O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath praised him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counselor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
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