| The Death of Mercutio | |
| Year: | 1902 |
| Height Metric: | 70 |
| Width Metric: | 45 |
| Museum: | Yale University Art Gallery |
A plague o' both your houses! is a catchphrase from William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The phrase is used to express irritation and irony regarding a dispute or conflict between two parties. It is considered one of the most famous expressions attributed to Shakespeare.
The phrase is spoken in Act 3, Scene 1 of the tragedy.
Tybalt, a kinsman of the Capulets and cousin to Juliet, is dueling with Mercutio, a friend of Romeo from the Montague family. Romeo and Benvolio attempt to break up the fight. Mercutio, distracted, does not see his opponent and is fatally wounded by Tybalt under Romeo's arm.
Feeling his death approaching, Mercutio declares:
Mercutio, dying, repeats the phrase "A plague o' both your houses!" three times. This triple curse, directed at the Montague and Capulet houses, almost literally comes true. Due to an unfortunate coincidencea plague quarantine imposed by the city guardsFriar John is unable to deliver a letter informing the exiled Romeo that Juliet is not dead but asleep. As a result, both Romeo and Juliet perish.
In the first printed edition of Romeo and Juliet (the so-called "First Quarto" or "Bad Quarto", published in 1597[1]), Mercutio called down syphilis (pox)[2] instead of plague (plague).[3]
There are also well-founded doubts[4] that in early editions, syphilis was indeed mentioned. Shakespeare may have used the word pox to mean not syphilis but smallpox. In Shakespeare's time, neither syphilis nor smallpox were necessarily fatal diseases, so Shakespeare might have replaced the initially milder curse with a more radical one.