ROMEO           Nurse! [He rises.]

NURSE            Ah, sir, ah, sir, death’s the end of all.

ROMEO           Speak’st thou of Juliet? how is it with her?

                        Doth not she think me an old murderer,

                        Now I have stained the childhood of our joy

                        With blood removed but little from her own?

                        Where is she? and how doth she? and what says

                        My concealed lady to our cancelled love? (3.3.91-98)

He rises is the stage direction in Q1, but not in any of the other early texts, and I wonder if it’s more effective for the Nurse to get down to his level (as one would to comfort a child), helping him up. For all her faults and failings, her first instinct is always to console; perhaps she gives him the hug that I think he needs more than anything in this moment. It’s effective for Romeo to take some time to register her presence and recognise her, and his first concern is for Juliet. He names himself as a murderer, an old murderer, in contrast to the childhood of our joy (which also emphasises their youth), and I think he could choke or stammer on the word, such a contrast to the epithets and titles that have been more usually applied to him (Lover!) His admission that he has stained the childhood of our joy also echoes Juliet’s anticipation of their wedding night as a winning match played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: in the death of Tybalt, the lovers have indeed lost their innocence, but not in the way that they were so joyously anticipating. Their love is cancelled not simply in the sense of the cancellation of a particular event, but also legally; the banishment effectively annuls their marriage, making (as Romeo assumes) its consummation impossible and rendering Romeo a non-person in Verona. Romeo’s questions about Juliet – is she alright, has she sent me a message? – are a version of all lovers’ questioning of go-betweens (as Juliet has earlier questioned the Nurse: what says my love? what says my Romeo?) but here there’s another, darker, question implicit: does Juliet still love me? does she still want to see me, be with me, now that I’ve done this terrible thing?