NURSE O she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps,
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then falls down again.
ROMEO As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursèd hand
Murdered her kinsman. O tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.
[He offers to stab himself, and Nurse snatches the dagger away.] (3.3.99-108)
We know that this is what Juliet’s doing – we’ve seen it – and the Nurse’s description has the effect not just of telling Romeo and reminding us, but also suggesting that Juliet’s agony is continuing; we can indeed imagine that she and Romeo have been doing the same thing, blubb’ring and weeping, weeping and blubb’ring, in their separate scenes, their different locations, at the same time. She calls for Tybalt, knowing that he is dead and gone forever; she cries for Romeo, knowing that he cannot come to her, that he might as well be dead. And here are names again, and that’s what Romeo picks up: if banishment is the word that kills him, then he imagines that his name kills Juliet. The deadly level of the gun is striking here, deadly but also less immediate and proximate than the stab. (In the early days of firearms, also potentially messier, more violent, more unpredictable. Compare the Friar in the wedding scene, invoking fire and powder: these violent delights have violent ends.) And this speech is grounded in the balcony scene: Romeo’s furious, desperate questioning of the Friar – tell me, in what vile part of this anatomy, doth my name lodge?– echoes Juliet: ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot, nor arm nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O be some other name! What’s in a name? And so on. It hasn’t worked: Romeo is still a Montague, is still his name, and that is why Tybalt has picked a fight with him and that is why Mercutio is dead and Tybalt is now dead too. In offering to kill himself, to kill this name which itself has killed, he offers to sack the hateful mansion, as if his body is a building – but also echoing, with terrible poignancy, Juliet’s I have bought the mansion of a love, but not possessed it. In the language of physical wholeness and completeness that the lovers share – the one flesh thing – Juliet has imagined their love, their marriage, their wedding night, as a glorious new house that they will inhabit for the first time together, as if they take full possession of themselves, their bodies, their identities, in possessing and being possessed by each other. In Romeo’s version of the conceit, the place has been trashed beyond repair before they’ve even had a chance to move in.
