Act 2, Scene 1: bawdy Mercutio

Mercutio thinks love and sex are the same

In Act 2, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio and Benvolio go looking for Romeo who is hiding from them because he wants to seek out Juliet in peace. Unlike the audience, his two friends do not realize that Romeo now loves Juliet. They therefore mock his infatuation with Rosaline. This is dramatic irony since the audience knows more than some of the characters.

The real star of this short scene is Mercutio. He teases his seemingly absent friend relentlessly and makes jokes referring to Romeo’s attraction to Rosaline. This tells us two things about Mercutio: He is extremely eloquent and good at punning, and he seems to think that love and sex are the same thing. 

One example is when Mercutio playfully says of Romeo: “Now will he sit under a medlar tree, / And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit.” (2.1.34-35). A medl...