“Thy head is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat,
And yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling”.
Mercutio uses a lot of rhetorical questions here; this is to provoke a reaction of Benvolio, and to prove a point.
Benvolio is feels worried, agitated, and anxious to get out, in case a fight does start, as both families have been told if they start a fight again something will be taken away from them, and in this case it is Romeo.
Mercutio is playing around, saying he does not care if he causes a fight,
“By my heel, I care not”.
As he says this, Tybalt turns up, looking for Romeo. Shakespeare has timed like this to make it more dramatic. The reason he is looking for Romeo is that Romeo turned up at the Capulet party, when he wasn’t supposed to be there. As Romeo isn’t there, Mercutio starts arguing with Tybalt.
“And but one word with one of us?
Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow”
This annoys Tybalt, because Mercutio is using sexual references. Tybalt says he will not fight with Mercutio, as he is looking for Romeo and not fight but he is also scared that he will lose against Mercutio. Mercutio will not accept this, and will do anything to fight with Tybalt. This is when Romeo does turn up, after just being married to Juliet. This is dramatic irony as the audience knows about the marriage, but the actors don’t, which causes drama. Shakespeare has also using dramatic timing again.
“Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man”
This annoys Mercutio, because Tybalt has said, ‘here comes my man’, this is not true, and Mercutio points out that, by saying that Romeo doesn’t wear the Capulet uniform, he wears the Montague uniform, also if Romeo was Tybalt’s man, he would be his friend. And follow him if he was in trouble, like onto a battlefield, which Romeo wouldn’t do.
Mercutio is winning at this point, because he is using words, rather than actions, which is what Tybalt uses, so when Romeo walks in Tybalt is happy to walk away from Mercutio, and get to what he originally arrived for.
Tybalt walks away from Mercutio and up to Romeo.
“Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries,
That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw”
This is where Shakespeare uses dutiful love, as Romeo must love Tybalt due to the fact that he is married to Juliet, who is Tybalt’s cousin, but to Mercutio, Benvolio and Tybalt, this looks like Romeo doesn’t want to fight with Tybalt because he is scared. Love also is almost the opposite mood of everyone else, as they are all tense, but Romeo is happy, in love and calm.
Then Mercutio stands in front of Romeo, and tells Tybalt to fight with him,
“Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?”
This makes the audience and Tybalt’s followers laugh, as they all know that Tybalt was originally a cat’s name. First of all, Tybalt won’t fight with him, but then he does.
Mercutio uses words such as ‘Alla Stoccata’ and ‘Passado’, which shows that he is a well-trained swordsman, and he is good at fighting physically as well as mentally.
This is where Romeo tries to stop them from fighting, but as he does, he blocks Tybalt’s view, and Tybalt stabs Mercutio from under Romeo’s arm. Tybalt runs away afraid of what he has done, and of getting caught.
This is where Mercutio ‘curses’ the houses
“A plague o' both your houses!”
This is foreshadowing, as something dear to both houses is lost nearer to the end, these being Romeo and Juliet.
He sends the page to go and get a doctor, and the page goes. Mercutio revelled in using puns, and even at the point of death he still puns. He is still the joker at the point of death.
“Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man”
He asks Romeo why he got in the way for him and Tybalt fighting. Romeo replies that he thought it was for the best. At this point, Benvolio drags Mercutio off, and he dies, but just before he dies, he repeats the ‘curse’ again.
Tybalt now returns, to finish what he started,
“Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.”
Romeo walks up to Tybalt, and starts arguing with him, as he had just killed one of his friends. Tybalt says that he will kill Romeo the same way as he killed Mercutio, and that Romeo will go to the same place. They fight, and Romeo kills Tybalt.
This is where the theme of fate comes in, and Romeo shouts
“O, I am fortune's fool!”
Which means that it was bound to happen, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, it also has a strong effect on the audience, as, in the Elizabethan times, they loved talking about fate.
Romeo runs away, and some citizens arrive, asking for Tybalt, but then they realise that he is lying on the floor, dead.
Then the Prince, Montague, Capulet, Lady Montague and Lady Capulet arrive. The Prince asks who started this battle, so Benvolio explains
“O noble prince, I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl:
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio”
Lady Capulet can’t believe that one of her rivals had killed her nephew. Benvolio explains in more detail what happened, but Lady Capulet says he is lying, as he is a kinsman to Romeo,
“He is a kinsman to the Montague;
Affection makes him false; he speaks not true”
And Romeo should be killed.
Then the Prince says that as it is the law, Romeo will have to be banished, but it will be because of the families fighting.
I think this scene was more dramatic than any other scene because lots of people get affected. These are the nurse, because Juliet gets depressed and comes to her for help, Friar Laurence, because he has to send notes to Romeo, and Juliet comes to him, asking for a potion to make her look dead, and he doesn’t no what to do first of all. The parents are also affected, because their only sons/daughters get killed.
It affects the rest of the scene, because Romeo killing Tybalt caused Romeo to get banished. This causes Juliet to pretend to kill herself.
