The Nurse and Friar Lawrence: the two adults who help

Two adults in this play love Juliet: the Nurse who brought her up, and Friar Lawrence, the priest who marries her. Between them they arrange her secret wedding, give her a drug that makes her look dead, and tell her to take a second husband while the first is alive. And at the end, one of them leaves her alone in a tomb. That is a strange kind of help.

The Nurse and the Friar share a video because they do the same job in the play, and the story itself is in the Overview.

Shakespeare writes the Nurse and the Friar as stand-in parents, the adults Juliet and Romeo trust more than their own families. The Nurse fed Juliet as a baby and has looked after her ever since. In the plot her job is carrying messages, and she is slow. Juliet waits three hours for her and complains about old people: But old folks, many feign as they were dead, Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead. Delay is the Nurse's job in the plot, and Shakespeare makes Juliet complain about it in the same breath as the audience. Friar Lawrence is a priest who grows herbs and medicines, and Romeo tells him everything. Before the wedding he warns Romeo: These violent delights have violent ends. He sees the danger clearly and marries them anyway, because he hopes the match will turn the families' hatred into love. The warning counts against him, not for him. Count their plans: the secret wedding, the wedding night, the drug that fakes Juliet's death, and the letter to Romeo in Mantua. Which of those four plans could the Nurse or the Friar have made in the open? None of them. Neither has a parent's power to agree to a marriage, so every plan has to be hidden.

That is how two kind adults do so much damage. A secret plan can only be held together by messages, and this play kills people with a letter that never arrives.

Shakespeare shows the Nurse failing first, on Monday, when she brings the news that Romeo has killed Tybalt. She deals with disaster by talking about all men at once: There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men, all perjured, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. Perjured and forsworn both mean oath-breakers, and dissemblers are people who pretend. For the first time, her advice is no use to Juliet at all. Then she turns the disaster towards herself: Ah, where's my man? Give me some aqua-vitae; These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Aqua-vitae is strong spirits, a stiff drink. Juliet's husband has killed her cousin, and the Nurse is talking about her own age. On Tuesday she goes further, and tells Juliet to forget the banished Romeo and marry Paris. Why is that advice kind and terrible at the same time? Kind, because it would keep Juliet safe at home. Terrible, because she already has a husband, so the Nurse is telling her to commit bigamy. Bigamy means marrying a second time while still married, which the Church called a sin. From then on Juliet stops confiding in her, and goes to the Friar alone.

The Friar's turn comes on Tuesday, when Juliet arrives at his cell ready to kill herself. He stops her with a plan: Hold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope, Which craves as desperate an execution As that is desperate which we would prevent. He calls her daughter, a parent's word. And he measures his hope by how desperate it is, so he knows it is a bad plan while he is offering it. Then he names what the drug is for: A thing like death to chide away this shame. To chide away means to drive off. His word is shame, which is the family's problem, rather than Juliet's danger. The plan needs one more piece, a letter to Romeo, and that letter never leaves Verona, because the messenger is shut inside a house feared to have plague. In the tomb, Juliet wakes beside Romeo's body, and the Friar hears the night watch coming. Who does the Friar blame for the failure of his own plan? Heaven. A greater power than we can contradict Hath thwarted our intents. Then he leaves her there, and runs. Neither of them is a villain, and neither is a fool. They are adults standing in for parents without a parent's authority. That is why every plan they make is secret, and why each one fails.

Three lines to finish, and then a question that sets Capulet beside these two. The Nurse's griefs, woes and sorrows make her what? Old. These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old. Next, the Friar's warning: these violent delights have what? Violent ends. These violent delights have violent ends. Now his plan: a thing like death to chide away this what? Shame. A thing like death to chide away this shame. Here's a different one: why can Capulet act in the open when the Friar cannot? Because Capulet is her father and has the authority. The Friar has none, so his help has to be secret, and secret help runs on messages.

When you can say what each of these two did, why it was kind and why it failed, this one's yours, and a thumbs up records it. If it is not there yet, save it; this one often lands on a second viewing.

Next in the chapter: The ball: two things start at once.

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