#shakespeare shitposts

My Dad: Well y'know what they say, if you wanna read Hamlet, you gotta break a few eggs!

I agree with you re: tybalt but. no. no, no, no. I pulled out my cinderblock copy of the completed works for this. I’ve got textual evidence. I’ve got receipts. romeo and mercutio dated, and then romeo dumped him for rosaline.

act 1, scene 1, line 199: "In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman--" benvolio has just asked romeo to tell him whose spurned affections are causing him so much grief. why would romeo have to specify that rosaline is a woman if it weren't a question? now, benvolio's next line is basically, "uh, yeah, I assumed so," but that only emphasizes that it's romeo himself who finds the distinction important-- which he wouldn't if there were no history of him having any interest in men. (the two explanations for benvolio's line I can think of are either that benvolio is so oblivious that he didn't notice romeo and mercutio were involved at all, or that he had heard (probably from mercutio) that romeo dumped him for a girl, and the only missing piece was the girl's name.)

act 1, scene 2, line 85: benvolio says, "At this same ancient feast of Capulet's / Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so loves, / With all the admired beauties of Verona. / Go thither, and with unattainted eye / Compare her face with some that I shall show, / And I will make thee think thy swan a crow." romeo's got a reputation for falling in and out of love easily-- it isn't just switching from rosaline to juliet in a matter of hours, but there was somebody else before rosaline, too.

act 1, scene 4: there's too much to directly quote every line bc it's. the entire scene. but! mercutio is consistently making jabs at romeo for being ~in love~ that are ripe with malice. "Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down," (1.4.26)-- "once you have sex with her, that 'love' will go away." he's speaking from experience: "fuck her and move on, because that's what you do, isn't it, romeo?" he's beyond jealous; he's bitter. mercutio pretends he's hyped for the party, and then he launches into queen mab. that speech? #WasteHisTime1595. the longer mercutio can stall (he goes on for 46 lines, and could have gone on ad infinitum if romeo didn't stop him), the less likely it is that romeo will get to see his ~precious rosaline~ tonight.

act 2, scene 1, line 7: "Romeo! Humors! 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 nickname for her purblind son and heir, / Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so true / When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid." benvolio has asked for mercutio's help looking for romeo after romeo disappeared from the party, and where does mercutio go immediately with his joke? "give us some poetry!" sure, this could just be a simple "people who are in love like poems" jab, but we see that when romeo and juliet first speak to each other (1.4.204), their lines literally make a sonnet together. on a metatextual level that's how you know romeo and juliet are ~soulmates~ or w/e, but it also means that romeo's go-to when he has feelings for somebody is poetry, and mercutio has first-hand experience with this. before benvolio asks, mercutio is already certain that romeo isn't around and can't hear them. "Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied.” your ex used to write you poetry, and you ask him for a stanza when it is impossible for him to say yes. it’s well and truly over.

later in that same scene, mercutio speaks with some authority about what exactly "angers" or "moves" (read: turns on) romeo, and ends with "I conjure only but to raise up him," (2.1.29). boner joke. specifically, "I want to give romeo a boner" joke.

act 2, scene 3: there's a whole exchange that basically boils down to mercutio making fun of romeo for walk-of-shaming, and then there's a back-and-forth that's too long to transcribe (trust me I wish I had the patience) about wild goose chases as metaphor for frivolity and it's. really fucking flirtatious. on both sides.- mercutio: [...] Was I with you there for the goose?- romeo: Thou wast never with me for anything when thou was not there for the goose.- mercutio: I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.- romeo: Nay, good goose, bite not! (2.3.67-72)this is how mercutio and romeo default to talking to each other. this is how they're used to talking to each other. when they're not sad and bitter and heartbroken, this is the level of playful, flirty banter we get from them. (they keep going, by the way, until benvolio begs them to stop-- how often do you think he had to ask them to dial back the pda?) a lot of this play is dependent on the severity of young love, on romance being intense and drastic-- and that's just not true here. whatever romeo and mercutio had was playful and light, was easy. maybe romeo "rosaline dies, and beauty dies with her" montague called it off because he didn't think that that's what love was supposed to feel like.