Mercutio responds with his usual good-natured humour, but his invention seems slower than usual; probably he too feels hot and rather tired. His energy is restored when Tyblat appears, in search of Romeo and determined to fight. Tybalt stops exchanging insults with Mercutio when Romeo arrives. Tybalt and Mercutio don’t understand why Romeo won’t fight when it was he who challenges him.
Mercutio is bored and tenses Benvolio suggesting Benvolio will argue over anything.
“Thou must quarrel with a man for coughing on the street.”
Tybalt then insults both Romeo and Mercutio when he says, “Mercutio, thou consortest”. Mercutio is outraged when Romeo receives Tybalt’s abuse with mildness and draws his own sword to attack the Capulet.
“…to such a greeting. Villain am I none.”
Romeo tries to stop the fight. His interference seems to confuse Mercutio, and he fails to evade Tybalt’s sword. We are shown the accuracy of Tybalt’s fencing, described earlier by Mercutio: ‘one, two, and the third in your bosom’. Even at the point of death, Mercutio is witty. His wit, as much as his curse on the houses of Montague and Capulet alike, awakens Romeo’s sense of honour. Romeo takes out his sword to attack his wife’s cousin in act of vengeance for the death of Mercutio. The citizens of Verona rush to the scene of the fighting; and once again Prince Escales appears and tries to enforce peace. Mercutio’s body has been taken from the scene, but Tybalt lies at Romeo’s feet and the bloodstained sword is in Romeo’s hand.
Prince Escales hears of the sequence of events from Benvolio’s mouth, and he listens to the pleas of Lady Capulet and Old Montague, who speaks as representatives of the warring families. Escales promises strict justice and his first ruling is to banish Romeo from Verona. He can do neither more nor less. Romeo has broken the law and must be duly punished; otherwise, all civil law will break down and a state of anarchy will result.
As we get to the end of the scene, we can see that Romeo’s attitude has changed towards the Montagues.
Romeo has broken the law and must be punished otherwise, all civil law will break down and a state of anarchy will result:
“Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.”
At the beginning of the scene, there is already a lot of dramatic tension created for the audience. This is because there is an ancient feud between the Montagues and Capulets; Romeo has met and married Juliet, daughter of Capulet; Tybalt is angry at Romeo for having gate crashed his uncle’s party; both Tybalt and Mercutio are types of characters who enjoy challenges, fighting and quarrelling, becoming angry quickly.
This scene causes tension between a member of characters. This begins with the actions of Mercutio at the start. He is provocative, frustrated and the heat is getting to him. He tries to wind Benvolio up. We expect something to happen when Benvolio warns, “the Capels are abroad.” The atmosphere is quite light hearted with Mercutio in joking mood.
Verbal challenges between Montagues and Capulets become physical fights, which result in deaths.