Romeo and Juliet Act 3 – “A plague on both your houses!”

Romeo and Juliet Act 3 – “A plague on both your houses!”

The pace and Romantic comic style of the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ changes in Act 3 when we move to a Public Place (presumably a piazza or town square) at around midday. It is hot and the setting and time of day act as a metaphor for the edgy atmosphere surrounding the young males of Verona. Benvolio wants to retire indoors and points out to Mercutio that in:

“ … these hot days, is the mad blood stirring…”

Tybalt enters looking for Romeo and a fight. Mercutio and Tybalt stir one another up and are about to come to blows when Romeo enters.  Tybalt’s attention turns to him but Romeo refuses to fight claiming that he loves Tybalt “…better than thou canst devise…” But Mercutio will not have this “…calm, vile submission” and he draws on Tybalt.  When Romeo tries to stop the fight and protect Mercutio, Tybalt stabs Mercutio under Romeo's arm fleeing the scene with other Capulets immediately. And so the dark clouds of tragedy start to dominate the play. Mercutio’s fourteen lines towards his inevitable death are a powerful mixture of accusatory verse and pain packed prose interspersed with odd humorous interludes, imagery, metaphors and allegory mostly centred on the allusions dropped earlier that Tybalt (or at least his fighting style) is cat-like. His final words as he is helped offstage, resonate as both the dying words of a pained man and a curse which will cast a shadow over the rest of the play:

“…A plague on both your houses!

They have made worm’s meat of me… your houses…”

Benvolio returns to deliver the tragic news that Mercutio is dead and then we see for the first time in Romeo the reason why he is friends with these other young male filled with bravado and violence. Romeo demands “… fire-eyed fury be my conduct now…” and on Tybalt’s return, he fights with Tybalt. Romeo’s desire to have Tybalt’s soul join Mercutio’s which “Is but a little way above our heads…” is fulfilled when he kills Tybalt.   Romeo realizes where his passion for revenge has led him and declaims before he flees:

“O, I am fortune’s fool!”

A crowd arrives to view the carnage - citizens, the Montague's, the Capulet's and finally the Prince.  Anger, demands and accusations fly as Benvolio relays the events.  The Prince puts his foot down and resolves that the punishment for Romeo will not be death but exile.

Shakespeare often plays with the characters knowing less than the audience and the tension and dramatic power of this play will later depend on this. But for the moment, we feel sorrow for Juliet as she prepares for her wedding night and the consummation of her marriage oblivious to events that unfolded outside the walls of her own world. Shakespeare goes back to the words and sexual imagery of Brooke’s original poem concentrating on Juliet’s anticipation of:

“The hastiness of Phoebus’ steeds in great despite their blame…” Juliet’s anticipation is ironic for an audience because it is overshadowed by our knowledge of Romeo’s sentence of banishment. Then the Nurse, who will help to drive the action of this scene and the one that follows, enters with the news of a death. Juliet initially thinks that Romeo is dead but realizes that Tybalt, her cousin, has been killed by Romeo. Juliet hears that the Prince has banished Romeo as a punishment. Upset with Tybalt’s death, Juliet must choose her allegiances to her cousin and family or to her husband, Romeo. She chooses her husband. While upset at hearing about Tybalt’s death, the fact that Romeo is banished upsets Juliet more. The Nurse eventually reveals that Romeo is temporarily at Friar Laurence’s cell and Juliet asks the Nurse to find Romeo, give him a ring from her and help them to meet again.

Meanwhile, Romeo is at Friar Laurence’s, inconsolable with despair at his impending banishment. His language mirrors that of Juliet in the previous scene helping to create a sense of connectedness bewteen the two even when they are apart. Soon the Nurse enters revealing to Romeo the grieving state of Juliet.  The Nurse derides Romeo for his lack of manliness. Clearly attacking his masculinity doesn’t work because Romeo attempts to kill his own “hateful mansion” until Friar Laurence offers him a plan and hope that he will return, “To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends…” It is decided that Romeo will see Juliet before he goes the next day to Mantua. The Nurse gives Romeo the ring that Juliet gave her to give to Romeo. We end this scene feeling there is hope for Romeo and Juliet but the wheels of fortune still grind on.

Paris’ timing does seem a bit opportunistic or downright rude when we find him pressing the matter of a marriage to Juliet so soon after the family has suffered Tybalt’s death. Although even Capulet's sees that a celebration of marriage so soon after a death would be distasteful, he decides that the marriage should take place in three day’s time, next Thursday. With the one rash decision, Fate turns once a gain towards the inevitable death of Romeo and Juliet that we were told about in the Prologue. News is sent to Juliet. 

While Brooke’s original poem describes Romeo and Juliet’s actual consummation of their love in rough marital terms, Shakespeare gives us the beautiful and wonderfully tender scene of the morning after their love-making. The scene has light poetic touches such as the insistence that the morning bird call is in fact a night lark suggesting Juliet’s desire to have the night of love continue. Their unity is reinforced by the use of multiple rhyming couplets, many of which they complete for one another like a love duet. Juliet soon realizes her mistake and the Nurse’s dulcet tones confirm the arrival of the new day. Romeo leaves, insisting on “…One kiss , and I’ll descend.”

Lady Capulet arrives just as Romeo descends. She mistakes Juliet’s distraught behaviour as grief for Tybalt and thinks that mentioning the marriage to Paris which her father has arranged will cheer her up. Juliet strongly objects and ironically says that she would rather marry Romeo, the family’s sworn enemy rather than Paris. Juliet’s father enters and upon hearing Juliet’s rejection of Paris, he flies into a rage threatening to cast his only daughter, Juliet, out into the street unless she marries Paris. He storms out. Juliet’s mother dismisses Juliet and also leaves. Juliet appeals to the Nurse who is pragmatic about Juliet’s prospects. The Nurse even praises Paris’ physique (ironically in the same terms that she previously praised Romeo’s). Juliet riles at the betrayal of the Nurse and plans to go to the Friar to see if he has a remedy or:

“If all else fail, myself have the power to die.”