Mercutio is a friend of Romeo. He is an outspoken and lively character, who often provides comic relief in the play of Romeo and Juliet. He is also fiercely loyal to his friends, and is willing to fight anyone who insults them.
Mercutio is killed in a duel with Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. This event in Act III sets off the series of tragic events that leads to the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet.
Mercutio’s Lines in Romeo and Juliet
| # | Act, Scene, Line | Speech text |
| 1 | I,4,509 | Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance. |
| 2 | I,4,513 | You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings, And soar with them above a common bound. |
| 3 | I,4,519 | And, to sink in it, should you burden love; Too great oppression for a tender thing. |
| 4 | I,4,523 | If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down. Give me a case to put my visage in: A visor for a visor! what care I What curious eye doth quote deformities? Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me. |
| 5 | I,4,536 | Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word: If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick’st Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho! |
| 6 | I,4,541 | I mean, sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits Five times in that ere once in our five wits. |
| 7 | I,4,547 | Why, may one ask? |
| 8 | I,4,549 | And so did I. |
| 9 | I,4,551 | That dreamers often lie. |
| 10 | I,4,553 | O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep; Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spider’s web, The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, Not so big as a round little worm Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid; Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight, O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees, O’er ladies ‘ lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail Tickling a parson’s nose as a’ lies asleep, Then dreams, he of another benefice: Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night, And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes: This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage: This is she— |
| 11 | I,4,598 | True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. |
| 12 | II,1,801 | He is wise; And, on my lie, hath stol’n him home to bed. |
| 13 | II,1,805 | Nay, I’ll conjure too. Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh: Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied; Cry but ‘Ay me!’ pronounce but ‘love’ and ‘dove;’ Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, One nick-name for her purblind son and heir, Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid! He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not; The ape is dead, and I must conjure him. I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes, By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh And the demesnes that there adjacent lie, That in thy likeness thou appear to us! |
| 14 | II,1,822 | This cannot anger him: ‘twould anger him To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle Of some strange nature, letting it there stand Till she had laid it and conjured it down; That were some spite: my invocation Is fair and honest, and in his mistress’ name I conjure only but to raise up him. |
| 15 | II,1,832 | If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he sit under a medlar tree, And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone. Romeo, that she were, O, that she were An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear! Romeo, good night: I’ll to my truckle-bed; This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep: Come, shall we go? |
| 16 | II,4,1159 | Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home to-night? |
| 17 | II,4,1162 | Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline. Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. |
| 18 | II,4,1166 | A challenge, on my life. |
| 19 | II,4,1168 | Any man that can write may answer a letter. |
| 20 | II,4,1171 | Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a white wench’s black eye; shot through the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft: and is he a man to encounter Tybalt? |
| 21 | II,4,1177 | More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause: ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hai! |
| 22 | II,4,1187 | The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! ‘By Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good whore!’ Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these perdona-mi’s, who stand so much on the new form, that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their bones, their bones! |
| 23 | II,4,1198 | Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! there’s a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night. |
| 24 | II,4,1209 | The ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive? |
| 25 | II,4,1212 | That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. |
| 26 | II,4,1215 | Thou hast most kindly hit it. |
| 27 | II,4,1217 | Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. |
| 28 | II,4,1219 | Right. |
| 29 | II,4,1221 | Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular. |
| 30 | II,4,1226 | Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint. |
| 31 | II,4,1228 | Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five: was I with you there for the goose? |
| 32 | II,4,1234 | I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. |
| 33 | II,4,1236 | Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce. |
| 34 | II,4,1239 | O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad! |
| 35 | II,4,1243 | Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole. |
| 36 | II,4,1249 | Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair. |
| 37 | II,4,1251 | O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short: for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer. |
| 38 | II,4,1256 | A sail, a sail! |
| 39 | II,4,1261 | Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan’s the fairer face. |
| 40 | II,4,1264 | God ye good den, fair gentlewoman. |
| 41 | II,4,1266 | ‘Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon. |
| 42 | II,4,1278 | Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i’ faith; wisely, wisely. |
| 43 | II,4,1283 | A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho! |
| 44 | II,4,1285 | No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent. [Sings] An old hare hoar, And an old hare hoar, Is very good meat in lent But a hare that is hoar Is too much for a score, When it hoars ere it be spent. Romeo, will you come to your father’s? we’ll to dinner, thither. |
| 45 | II,4,1297 | Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, [Singing] ‘lady, lady, lady.’ |
| 46 | III,1,1503 | Thou art like one of those fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword upon the table and says ‘God send me no need of thee!’ and by the operation of the second cup draws it on the drawer, when indeed there is no need. |
| 47 | III,1,1509 | Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved. |
| 48 | III,1,1513 | Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? 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: thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling! |
| 49 | III,1,1531 | The fee-simple! O simple! |
| 50 | III,1,1533 | By my heel, I care not. |
| 51 | III,1,1537 | And but one word with one of us? couple it with something; make it a word and a blow. |
| 52 | III,1,1541 | Could you not take some occasion without giving? |
| 53 | III,1,1543 | Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here’s my fiddlestick; here’s that shall make you dance. ‘Zounds, consort! |
| 54 | III,1,1551 | Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze; I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I. |
| 55 | III,1,1555 | But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery: Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower; Your worship in that sense may call him ‘man.’ |
| 56 | III,1,1571 | O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Alla stoccata carries it away. [Draws] Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk? |
| 57 | III,1,1576 | Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by the ears? make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out. |
| 58 | III,1,1585 | Come, sir, your passado. |
| 59 | III,1,1593 | I am hurt. A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped. Is he gone, and hath nothing? |
| 60 | III,1,1597 | Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, ’tis enough. Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon. |
| 61 | III,1,1601 | No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough,’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both your houses! ‘Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm. |
| 62 | III,1,1611 | Help me into some house, Benvolio, Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses! They have made worms’ meat of me: I have it, And soundly too: your houses! |
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Link will appear as Hanson, Marilee. "Mercutio" https://englishhistory.net/shakespeare/character/mercutio/, February 24, 2022