But he that hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail. On, lusty gentlemen. Romeo is saying that he has a feeling the upcoming masque is more than just a party; he has a feeling that something written in the stars is going to transpire.
Full Answer
What does Mercutio suggest that Romeo do at the party? How does Romeo answer? Mercutio suggested that Romeo should dance at the party. Romeo suggests that he wants to hold because he does not want to dance and is too heavy-hearted.
Romeo tells his friends that he doesn't plan on dancing tonight—he's too sad. Plus, he had a dream the night before that gave him a bad feeling about the party. Mercutio teasingly thinks his dream is the result of a visit from Queen Mab.
“Thou talk'st of nothing,” Romeo says to Mercutio in order to force Mercutio to end the Queen Mab speech (1.4. 96). Mercutio agrees, saying that dreams “are the children of an idle brain” (1.4. 98).
TybaltTybalt, trying to injure Romeo, accidentally stabs Mercutio. Mercutio dies a slow, painful death. He curses the Montague and Capulet houses, blaming them for his death.
13-year-oldA 13-year-old girl, Juliet is the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet. She falls in love with the male protagonist Romeo, a member of the House of Montague, with which the Capulets have a blood feud. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself.
Benvolio wants to help Romeo let go of his obsession with Rosaline, and he explains that, while at the party, Romeo will be able to compare her to other girls and realize she is not the most beautiful. Romeo, on the other hand, says he will go to the party just so he can see Rosaline, the woman he believes he loves.
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees; O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
According to Mercutio's Queen Mab is the fairies midwife, she delivers fairy babies,dreams to people. Specifically, what she does is give you specific dreams about who you are and what you are feeling or thinking. 2.
After his speech, Mercutio points out to Romeo that dreams are “nothing but vain fantasy.” As they head into the party, Romeo says he has a strange feeling that what happens next will lead to his untimely death, but adds he's ready to accept whatever Fate brings.
RosalineBefore Romeo meets Juliet, he loves Rosaline, Capulet's niece and Juliet's cousin.
Mercutio is Romeo's sword-fight loving BFF, and you probably won't be surprised to find out that his name sounds a lot like the word "mercurial," i.e. "volatile," i.e. "touchy." He never backs down from a duel and, although he's neither a Montague nor a Capulet, he gets involved in the long-standing family feud on the ...
Friar Laurence, The Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet is the Romeo and Juliet story told from the perspective of Friar Laurence.
This is a foreshadowing of what actually happens in the rest of the play. A fateful chain of events ("consequence") does begin its appointed time ("date") that night, and that chain of events does terminate the duration ("expire the term") of Romeo's life with premature ("untimely") death.
Mercutio points out that love and sadness don't have to go together; he says, "You are a lover; borrow Cupid's wings, / And soar with them above a common bound" (1.4.17-18). A "common bound" is an ordinary leap in a dance; Mercutio is telling Romeo that love can give him the power to make an extraordinary leap.
Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech: Mercutio mocks Romeo's belief in his dream by going on and on about "Queen Mab," but Romeo is sure that some terrible fate awaits him. Nevertheless, he goes into the feast with his friends. Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others: In the previous scene, a servingman told ...
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers, Torch-bearers, and others: Mercutio tries to persuade Romeo to dance at Capulet's feast, but Romeo insists that he is too sadly love-lorn to do anything but hold a torch. Then Romeo says it's not wise to go to the feast at all, because of a dream he had.
Mercutio's "Queen Mab" speech: Mercutio's famous "Queen Mab" speech is movtivated by Romeo's stubborn refusal to join in the fun that Benvolio and Mercutio have planned. In Franco Zeferelli's often-shown film version, Mercutio delivers the speech as though he were afflicted with some sort of deep personal hysteria.
Dun, the color, is a kind of nondescript gray-brown, the color of a mouse, and somehow "dun's the mouse" came to mean "be as quiet as a mouse.". This saying, "dun's the mouse," is -- according to Mercutio -- the constable's motto ("own word") because constables were famous for sitting around silently and doing nothing.
The "five wits" are either the five senses (sight, hearing, smelling, taste, touch) or the five kinds of intelligence (common sense, imagination, fantasy, judgment, reason). Either way, Mercutio is asking Romeo to stop being witty and just "take our meaning," but Romeo refuses.
This speech is essentially Romeo's "Something's Coming" moment. In this scene, Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio are all headed to crash the Capulet party. Though going to see Rosaline, Romeo appears to have given up hope of making Rosaline fall in love with him and is only joining his friends so that he can sulk:
Romeo's speech in act 1, scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet serves as a kind of premonition. Romeo has a bad feeling about attending the Capulets' party and is reluctant to go. He senses that the party will be the start of something bad. He's right, because at that party, he'll fall in love with Juliet, with whom he's destined to suffer a tragic fate.
In order to cheer him up, his good friends Benvolio and Mercutio urge him to come along with them to the Capulets' party.
It ties in with and repeats the theme of the prologue, which refers to Romeo and Juliet as "star-crossed lovers.". Fate is against them, the prologue states, and they will come to early deaths.
Mercutio says that dreams often lie. Romeo responds, In bed asleep ... they [people] do dream things true. Mercutio then tells of the false ideas Queen Mab puts into people's heads while they sleep, but he is unable to shake Romeo's sense of foreboding, which Romeo returns to in lines 106–113.
Romeo is rather fatalistic about this possible occurrence. He says that the outcome is “yet hanging in the stars.”. While he refers to fate, the use of “stars” here resonates with the celestial motif that runs through the play. For example, later he compares Juliet to the rising sun.
Remember, destiny is one of the critical themes in Romeo and Juliet, one which is established as early as its prologue, when the chorus refers to Romeo and Juliet as "star-cross'd," and Romeo's concerns here further establishes this theme.
He uses the metaphor of a ship, and says he hopes that "fate" or God ( He) will direct his course. So he ignores his intuition and gives up control over his actions by surrendering to that "fate" or God or whatever is in control of his life.