Role in the play
One of Romeo's closest friends, Mercutio, entreats Romeo to forget about his unrequited love for a girl named
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and come with him to a masquerade ball at
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's estate, through use of his
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speech. There, Mercutio and his friends become the life of the party, but Romeo steals away to
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, Capulet's daughter, with whom he has fallen in love, and he falls out of love with Rosaline. When Mercutio sees Romeo the next day, he is glad to see that his friend is his old self again, and he encourages Romeo, all the while making bawdy jokes at the expense of Juliet's
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.
After Romeo receives a death threat from Juliet's cousin
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, Mercutio expects Romeo to engage Tybalt in a duel. However, Romeo refuses to fight Tybalt, because Romeo now considers Tybalt to be kin due to his secret marriage to Juliet. Mercutio is incensed at his friend's "calm, dishonorable, vile submission", and decides to fight Tybalt himself, right before which, Mercutio refers to his sword as his "fiddlestick." Romeo, not wanting his friend or his relative to get hurt, attempts to intervene. He fails, however, as Mercutio gets stabbed under Romeo's arm and dies. Before he dies, Mercutio curses both the Montagues and Capulets, crying several times, "A plague o' both your houses!" (Act III, Sc. 1, often quoted as "A pox on both your houses"). He makes one final
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before he dies: "Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a
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man." A grief-stricken and enraged Romeo kills Tybalt, resulting in his banishment from
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and beginning the tragic turn of events that make up the rest of the play.