[4.5]

NURSE            Mistress, what mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.

                        Why, lamb! why, lady! fie, you slug-a-bed!

                        Why, love, I say! madam! sweet heart! why, bride!

                        What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now;

                        Sleep for a week, for the next night I warrant

                        The County Paris hath set up his rest

                        That you shall rest but little. (4.5.1-7)

How long is this going to be spun out? And is it going to work? All that nervous energy and bustle of the previous scene lands here. How close does the Nurse get on Fast, I warrant her, she: we hold our breath – will she look? Or is she just judging by the lack of vocal response from Juliet? (The bed-curtains are, after all, at least partly drawn.) There’s a clever, and touching, variation in the various names and titles that the Nurse employs. Here she is, waking her beloved girl, whom she still thinks of as (who still, in many ways is) a child: lamb, sweet heart, even slug-a-bed. But Juliet is also – as the Nurse thinks – on the brink of adulthood, about to marry (bride; the Nurse has seemingly forgotten that she already is a married woman) and so she uses the more formal, adult titles too: mistress, lady, madam. We hold our breath for the second time: what, not a word? Will the Nurse try to wake Juliet at this point, get close enough to see that this is not sleep but, apparently, death? Not yet. She’s busy, garrulous as ever, talking to herself – and as always, tipping over into inappropriate bawdry, suggesting that Paris won’t let Juliet get any sleep that night. (Bit grim, especially in the context of the childish lamb and sweet heart. As the Nurse herself will recognise in her next breath.)

It hasn’t particularly struck me before, and it’s applying a standard of realism that I usually resist, but this is a play where all the main characters experience serious sleep deprivation. (We usually think of Macbeth as The One With The Insomnia.) Romeo doesn’t sleep at all after the balcony scene. The lovers surely don’t get much, if any, sleep on their wedding night. And now the Capulets and the Nurse have been up most of the night too. Perhaps there are some serious power naps going on during those hot Verona afternoons.