Throughout most of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the Nurse is a devoted confidant to Juliet. She seems to have the girl's best interests at heart and even agrees to act as Juliet's accomplice in the relationship with Romeo. In Act II, Scene 5, after she returns with news of Romeo's plan to marry Juliet, she heaps praise upon the young man, saying,
Though his face be better than any man’s, yet his leg
excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot and a
body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they
are past compare.
She is genuinely happy over Juliet's new found happiness and willingly tells Juliet to go to Friar Laurence's cell for the wedding. She even agrees to procure a rope ladder so that Romeo may climb into Juliet's bedroom in order to consummate the marriage. Later, however, her decisive attitude toward Romeo and Juliet wavers.
In Act III, Scene 5 the Nurse seems to change her mind about Romeo. Because of Tybalt's death, Lord Capulet arranges for Juliet to marry Count Paris. Juliet becomes distraught when she learns what her father has planned and promptly refuses, which only brings an angry response from her father. Having nowhere to turn, she seeks counsel from the Nurse who, in a total about face, urges her to forget Romeo and marry Paris. She even says that Paris is a far better match:
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.
While the Nurse's opinion is pragmatic, it also proves to be indecisive as she has sent mixed messages to Juliet, who very much needed an adult to help her as the circumstances of her life become confused and desperate.
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