NURSE There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men, all perjured,
All foresworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua-vitae;
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo!
JULIET Blistered be thy tongue
For such a wish! (3.2.85-91)
Men! What are they like? The Nurse hasn’t grasped what this means to Juliet, not at all. It’s on its way to becoming just more ammunition for the all-men-are-pigs conversation, able to be paused and resumed at will, preferably over a drink. (The Nurse definitely needs a drink, and typical, her man, her servant, isn’t there to provide one.) But she’s changed her tune: rather than condemn Romeo for actually killing Tybalt, instead it’s a standard comic line: Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, men were deceivers ever. Juliet is not interested in this; her response has been all about the specifics of the situation: Romeo is not a typical man, not at all – he is Romeo, he is her husband, her lord, her love. He is her Romeo, and no one else is allowed to speak ill of him, no matter what he’s done.