Mercutio: the funniest man in Verona, and the first to die

Mercutio is not a Montague and he is not a Capulet. He has no stake in this feud at all, and he is the first person it kills. Shakespeare kills the outsider first, and the reason has to do with what kind of play this is.

Mercutio gets this video to himself within the collection; for the plot in order, go to the Overview.

Shakespeare makes Mercutio the play's joker: Romeo's friend, a relative of the Prince, and a man who cannot leave a word alone. On the way to the Capulet feast, Romeo says he has had a bad dream. Mercutio answers with a long speech about Queen Mab, a tiny fairy who gives sleepers their dreams. Halfway through, the fairy tale turns violent. A soldier, he says, gets a dream of war: And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats. Look at what that does to the mood. A comic speech suddenly has blood in it, and it runs on until Romeo has to stop him, so the comedy has an edge before the story does. It is tempting to read that line as a prediction of what happens to Mercutio. One examiner's report puts it this way: some responses overstated the extent to which Mercutio's Queen Mab speech foreshadows what happens next in the play. The soldier in the dream is not Mercutio, and Tybalt is nowhere in it. The fix is to write about what the line does, darkening the tone, instead of what it predicts. Then he knocks his own speech down: I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy. He is the one character who says out loud that dreams mean nothing, and less than a day later a piece of bad timing kills him. After the feast, Romeo slips away from his friends, and Mercutio and Benvolio go looking for him, making jokes about the girl he is in love with. Which girl do Mercutio and Benvolio think Romeo loves: Juliet, or Rosaline? Rosaline. Neither of them knows Juliet exists yet, because Romeo has told nobody. Mercutio mocks the whole lovesick pose: If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. A separate examiner's report names this as a misconception: many candidates believed that Benvolio and Mercutio are talking about Romeo's love for Juliet. The habit that avoids it is to place the scene first. It comes straight after the feast and before the window scene, so every joke is aimed at Rosaline. And moments later Romeo is under Juliet's window, speaking a language Mercutio has never heard from him.

Monday afternoon, Act 3 Scene 1, is hot, the Capulets are out in the street, and Mercutio is spoiling for a fight. When Romeo refuses Tybalt's challenge, Mercutio hears it as cowardice: O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Three words for Romeo's calm, and the middle one is the code Mercutio lives by: for him, refusing to fight is a loss of honour. So he picks the fight himself, with a joke: Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk? Tybalt shares his name with the cat in an old animal story, which makes him a rat-catcher. Romeo steps between them, and Tybalt stabs Mercutio under Romeo's arm. Here is how Shakespeare writes the next minute. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door – but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. He is still measuring the wound, still being funny, and telling the truth about it for the first time. Then he turns the joke on himself. Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man. A grave man is a serious man and a man in a grave. It is his last joke, and he makes it about his own death. A plague o' both your houses! I am sped. I am sped means I am finished. He curses both families because he belongs to neither, and the outsider's curse is the play's own verdict on the feud. Why can the play no longer end in a wedding once Mercutio is dead?

His death is the hinge. Up to this scene the play is shaped like a comedy: a secret wedding, a joker, a plan. With Mercutio gone, the joker is gone, and within minutes Romeo kills Tybalt.

That is why Shakespeare kills the outsider first. With him goes the chance of a comic ending, and the play can only finish one way.

Four questions on Mercutio now, and the last one tries his friends' mistake on a different scene. Mercutio says dreams are the children of what? An idle brain. The children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy. Next: in Act 2 Scene 1, which girl are Mercutio's jokes about? The girl is Rosaline, since neither he nor Benvolio knows that Juliet exists yet. Now finish his insult: O calm, dishonourable, vile what? Submission. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Try the placing habit: in Act 1 Scene 1, is Romeo pining for Juliet or Rosaline? Rosaline again, because Act 1 Scene 1 comes before the feast, so Romeo has not yet met Juliet.

Once you can explain why the outsider's death turns the play, you own this one, so mark it with a thumbs up. If it went by too fast, that is normal, because nobody gets the hinge first time; save it, and it is here when you want it.

Next in the chapter: Lord Capulet: the good father who changes his mind.

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