Tybalt. Mercutio is not a member of either faction and so is not included in the ban against street fighting. With Tybalt dead, the chief upholder of the feud will be gone. It will be all the easier to reconcile the factions.
All Romeo need do now is stand aside.
But Romeo cannot. Mercutio is his loved friend, Tybalt his new relative. He wants neither hurt so he tries to get between and stop them. At which point, in one Sash, all goes wrong. Tybalt's sword passes under Romeo's arm and Mercutio is blocked from parrying. Badly wounded, Mercutio recognizes the fact that the quarrel was not really his, after all, and says so in a phrase that has entered the language:
I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses.
- Act III, scene i, lines 91-92
... fortune's fool
Mercutio makes his last bitter jests and hobbles off to die.
Yet still things are not utterly lost Romeo has lost a dear Mend but it was by no willing action of his own. He had tried for the best, endeavored to make peace. It was Tybalt who was the murderer and it is he who may be executed for it and again the feud will be made up the easier, perhaps, for Tybalt's end.
Yet Romeo cannot leave it at that, not even for Juliet. Mercutio died in his quarrel and he has no choice. Wildly, he challenges Tybalt and kills him-and by then all the noise has roused the citizens.
Romeo is half amazed at all that has happened in a matter of a few minutes, for now he must get out of the city at once or, by the Prince's decree, he will be executed.
It is still less than twenty-four hours since he met Juliet and already he has not only gained her, but lost her as well. No wonder he cries out in agony:
O, I am fortune's fool!
- Act III, scene i, line 138
Yet a little chink of hope remains. When the Prince arrives, Benvolio tells the tale of what has happened with objective accuracy. Despite the clamors of the Capulet faction, the Prince believes Benvolio (and perhaps remembers that the dead Tybalt had killed his own kinsman) and does not place the death penalty on Romeo after all. He merely banishes him.
While banishment seems bad enough under the circumstances, a sentence of banishment can be unsaid, while an execution is final.
... Phoebus' lodging...
Meanwhile, toward sunset, Juliet is waiting with unbearable impatience for the coming of night, of Romeo, of love. She says:
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Toward Phoebus' lodging! Such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 1-4
The sun is pictured here in the fashion of the Greek myth, as a blazing chariot conducted by golden horses, traveling toward the west where they can move behind the horizon and rest till it is time for the next day's journey across the sky. The horizon is therefore Phoebus' (the god of the sun) place of lodging. Phaeton is the son of the sun god, whose ill-fated attempt to drive the horses of the sun chariot nearly led to disaster (see page II-297).
But then in comes the Nurse with the rope ladder-and with news, as well, of Tybalt's death.
Juliet is heartbroken, for she loved Tybalt. Her greater love for Romeo wins out, however, and she weeps over the rope ladder that was to have carried her husband to her, then goes to her room where she hopes to die.
But that is more than the Nurse can bear. She can still help. She assures Juliet she knows where Romeo is hiding and will get him to come to his wife and comfort her.
... pass to Mantua
Romeo, in Friar Laurence's cell, is completely broken. Overwhelmed with horror at the thought of banishment, he will not listen to the friar's consolation. Even when the Nurse comes, asking him to go to Juliet, he can think only of suicide.
It is only with the greatest difficulty that the friar finally manages to make him understand that banishment is not necessarily the end, saying:
Go get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze [announce] your marriage, reconcile your friends,