Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehav'd and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable."
He has the form of a man, but talks and acts like a weak girl, while the girl of fourteen whom he loves—a child three days before, we might say—now shows a self-control and fortitude worthy of a man.
Romeo does not attain to true manhood until he receives the tidings of Juliet's supposed death. "Now, for the first time," as Dowden says, "he is completely delivered from the life of dream, completely adult, and able to act with an initiative in his own will, and with manly determination. Accordingly, he now speaks with masculine directness and energy: 'Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!' Yes; he is now master of events; the stars cannot alter his course. 'Nothing,' as Maginn has observed, 'can be more quiet than his final determination, "Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to night." ... It is plain Juliet. His mind is made up; the whole course of the short remainder of his life so unalterably fixed that it is perfectly useless to think more about it.' These words, because they are the simplest, are amongst the most memorable that Romeo utters. Now passion, imagination, and will are fused together, and Romeo who was weak has at length become strong."
Mercutio.—Dryden quotes a traditional saying concerning Mercutio, that if Shakespeare had not killed him, he would have killed Shakespeare. But Shakespeare was never driven to disposing of a personage in that way, because he was unequal to the effort of maintaining the full vigour or brilliancy of the characterization. He did not have to kill off Falstaff, for instance, until he had carried him through three complete plays, and then only because his "occupation," dramatically speaking, "was gone." There was the same reason for killing Mercutio. The dramatist had no further use for him after the quarrel with Tybalt which leads to his death. In both the novel and the poem, Romeo kills Tybalt in a street brawl between the partisans of the rival houses. The dramatic effect of the scene in the play where Romeo avoids being drawn into a conflict with Tybalt until driven to incontrollable grief and wrath by the death of his friend is far more impressive. The self-control and self-restraint of Romeo, in spite of the insults of Tybalt and the disgust of Mercutio at what seems to him "calm, dishonourable, vile submission," show how reluctant the lover of Juliet is to fight with her kinsman. He does his best to restrain his friend from the duel: "Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up—" but to no purpose; nor is his appeal to Benvolio to "beat down their weapons" more successful. He then attempts to do this himself, but the only result is to bring about the death of Mercutio, who exclaims: "Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm." Poor Romeo can only plead, "I thought all for the best."
But at this point in the play, when the tragic complication really begins, the dramatist must dismiss Mercutio from the stage, as he does with Falstaff after Prince Hal has become King. Mercutio must not come in contact with Juliet, nor will Romeo himself care to meet him. He is the most foul-mouthed of Shakespeare's characters, the clowns and profligates not excepted. The only instance in Shakespeare's works in which the original editions omit a word from the text is in a speech of Mercutio's; and Pope, who could on occasion be as coarse as any author of that licentious age, felt obliged to drop two of Mercutio's lines from his edition of the dramatist. Fortunately, the majority of the knight's gross allusions are so obscure that they would not be understood nowadays, even by readers quite familiar with the language of the time.
And yet Mercutio is a fellow of excellent fancy—poetical fancy—as the familiar description of Queen Mab amply proves. Critics have picked it to pieces and found fault with some of the details; but there was never a finer mingling of exquisite poetry with keen and sparkling wit. Its imperfections and inconsistencies, if such they be, are in keeping with the character and the situation. It was meant to be a brilliant improvisation, not a carefully elaborated composition. Shakespeare may, indeed, have written the speech as rapidly and carelessly as he makes Mercutio speak it.