Romeo and Juliet – Mercutio
Essay title: Romeo and Juliet – Mercutio
At the time Mercutio makes his famous “Queen Mab” speech in Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, he and Romeo, together with a group of their friends and kinsmen, are on the way to a party given by their familys arch-enemy, Lord Capulet. Their plan is to crash the party so that Romeo may have the opportunity to see his current love, Rosaline, whom they know has been invited to the Capulets masque that evening.
Romeo, whom his friends seem to consider generally very witty and fun, originally thought the party-crashing would be a wonderful idea, but suddenly is overcome by a sense of great foreboding; although they “mean well in going to this mask . . . tis no wit to go” (I, iv, 48-49). This annoys Mercutio, who does not recognize Romeos reluctance as a genuine premonition, but feels it is simply another example of Romeos lovesick whims. Romeo tries to explain to Mercutio that it is based upon a very disturbing dream, and Mercutio passes that off as silly, telling him that “Dreamers often lie.” Here he is not saying that Romeo himself is a liar, but that people should put no faith in dreams. But Romeo is insistent; dreamers lie “in bed asleep, they do dream things true” (I, iv, 52).
This suddenly launches Mercutio into a speech that alters the entire pace of the scene. Up to now, the conversation has been typical of a group of people walking through the streets-short phrases, a generally relaxed mood. With Mercutios words, “O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you!” he plunges into a forty-two line speech which is actually composed of only two sentences, giving him barely enough breath to pause between phrases. The gist of the speech concerns Mab, whom Celtic mythology considered to be the midwife of the fairies, and who also is held to be responsible for human beings dreams.
The Queen Mab speech is totally fanciful, describing, as if to a child, this tiny little creature who flies through the air in a small carriage, driven by a “wagoner” who is a gnat. On the surface this seems like it should be charming, but when one boils it down, it isnt charming at all. For example, Queen Mabs “cover” of her carriage is made of grasshopper wings, which implies that someone must have pulled the grasshoppers wings off to make it. Ditto for the spiders legs which serve as the wagons spokes, and the riding-whip which is made of a crickets bone. Mercutio points out that the entire apparatus is not “half so big as a round little worm / Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid”-but do living maids fingers have worms in them?
He leaps off the topic of Mabs carriage, however, to describe its route. Mabs function is apparently to drive over the sleeping forms of human beings, and cause them to dream of things appropriate to their station in life. For example, she causes lawyers to dream of fees, ladies of love, and soldiers of warfare. Here, again, this sounds fanciful enough; yet he somehow veers off into a deluge of images that are at complete odds with the sweet, almost childlike story it seemed he was going to tell. It is not enough that soldiers dream of war: they must dream 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” (I, iv, 83-87). In other words, Mercutio began his speech with a reverie and ended with nightmares. Mab does not seem like such a cute little creature now.
In a sense, this is how the play goes, as well. Romeo begins by having a harmless crush; at the point in the story when Mercutio gives his speech, Romeos infatuation with Rosaline is about to lead him to the home of yet another girl, Juliet, with whom he will fall madly in love. This love affair, however, is doomed in every respect. It is doomed not only because the Montagues and Capulets are sworn enemies; it is doomed also because Romeo and Juliet are too young to handle such a violent passion as their love turns out to be.
It is not accidental that Shakespeare begins this play by describing the feud which has separated Verona in two, and the first scene deals, not with love, but with a street brawl. Romeo and Juliets Verona is a very violent place, and it would be strange indeed if these two children of Verona experienced a sweet and gentle love.
What is just as interesting as Mercutios speech itself is how hysterical he gets while delivering it. At the beginning of the scene, when we first meet the friends on the way to the party, Mercutio comes off as a swift, wise-cracking joker. He and Romeo obviously enjoy a close bond, and they enjoy exchanging