Mercutio and Romeo are best friends and they often joke with each other. Mercutio is sometimes quite caustic and uses sexual innuendo a number of times in the play. At different points he calls Romeo a lover, a madman, an ape and a dried herring.
In Act I, Scene 4 as the Montague men are on their way to Capulet's party, Mercutio tries to raise Romeo's spirits. Romeo is sad and depressed over his failed...
Mercutio and Romeo are best friends and they often joke with each other. Mercutio is sometimes quite caustic and uses sexual innuendo a number of times in the play. At different points he calls Romeo a lover, a madman, an ape and a dried herring.
In Act I, Scene 4 as the Montague men are on their way to Capulet's party, Mercutio tries to raise Romeo's spirits. Romeo is sad and depressed over his failed love for Rosaline so Mercutio insists that Romeo go to the party and have a good time. He says,
You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings
And soar with them above a common bound.
Mercutio's words foreshadow events in the next scene as Romeo meets Juliet and does indeed "Borrow Cupid's wings."
After the party, in Act II, Scene 1, Romeo has slipped away from Mercutio and Benvolio in order to go over the wall into Capulet's orchard to see Juliet again. Mercutio calls to Romeo as if he were "conjuring" a spirit. He asks that Romeo reveal himself in a sigh. He says,
Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh.
Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied.
In the same speech Mercutio refers to Romeo as an ape. He is saying that Romeo is like an ape playing dead and must be "conjured." Here, of course, Mercutio makes a sexual reference as he hopes to lure Romeo out of hiding with the image of Rosaline, including her "quivering thigh." He says,
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.
Finally, in Act II, Scene 4, he and Romeo trade barbs. In the opening of the scene Mercutio knows nothing of Juliet and is still playfully chiding Romeo over Rosaline. As Romeo enters Mercutio jokes that Romeo looks like a "dried herring", meaning he is pale and like a fish. He says,
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O
flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!
Romeo and Mercutio go on joking with each other in this scene (including Mercutio referring to a "wild goose chase", a newly invented phrase by Shakespeare). For more excellent discussion of Romeo and Mercutio see the link below.
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