‘Well, peace be with you, sir, here come my man.’
This quote shows that when Romeo enters the streets of Verona Tybalt says that his man has arrived, the man he had been looking for so that he can fight and kill him.
‘Romeo, the love I can bear thee can afford
No better term than this: thou art a villain.’
Tybalt is calling Romeo a villain or a scoundrel; this shows his hate for Romeo and the Montague’s, but he now hates Romeo even more as he has tried to marry a member of his family and this just would not work as the growing hate between the two families would get in the way of their relationship.
Then Tybalt tries to fight with Romeo, but Romeo refuses and says:
‘I do protest I never injured thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise,
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;
And so, good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.’
Romeo turns down the offer of a fight to Tybalt and this enrages Mercutio as he thinks that Romeo is being a coward not fighting Tybalt:
‘Come, sir, your ‘passado’’
Mercutio is telling Tybalt to thrust at him and fight him because Romeo did not take up the challenge. This fight then leads to the death of Mercutio when Romeo steps in between the two whilst they were duelling. Slyly Tybalt stabs Mercutio under the arm of Romeo:
‘A plague a’ both houses! I am sped.’
Mercutio tells the people that both houses will be cursed by the price for this death.
From this summary of the events that occurred I can see that there were a number of reasons why Mercutio died. The fact that Romeo and Juliet were married made Tybalt angry and made him want to fight Romeo, when Romeo didn’t want to fight and Mercutio fought instead. Then Romeo stepped in and decided to stop the fight, this was when Mercutio was killed by Tybalt. One thing seemed to lead to another; the marriage of Romeo to Juliet caused Tybalt to want to fight Romeo and because Romeo didn’t want to fight Mercutio did. Therefore I think that the marriage of Romeo to Juliet was the main cause of conflict between Tybalt and the Montague’s and their friends and therefore lead to the death of Mercutio.
