SAMPSON: Gregory, o’ my word, we’ll not carry coals.
GREGORY: No, for then we should be colliers.
SAMPSON: I mean, an we be in choler, we’ll draw.
GREGORY: Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1. Two servants of the house of Capulet, Sampson and Gregory, go out looking for trouble. Sampson talks tough, warning that they won’t be humiliated by anyone, or "carry coals." He specifically means that he won’t take disrespect from a Montague and warns that they will draw swords if they are made angry – "in choler." Gregory cautions that this could lead to the hangman’s collar for them. This exchange speaks to the violent feud between the Capulets and Montagues. It foreshadows the brawl that takes place in the scene between the two households and their servants. There is also a deal of punning in this passage, with the use of similar sounding words "colliers," "choler" and "collar."
SAMPSON: I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids, and cut off their heads.
GREGORY: The heads of the maids?
SAMPSON: Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense thou wilt.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1. Capulet servant Sampson boasts of how he will murder the Montague maids and forcefully take their virginity. When he says "cut off their heads" and "their maidenheads," that is a pun for taking their virginity. Sampson is equating fighting the Montague men to raping their women, believing this to be the manly thing to do. Sampson’s disturbing joke about what he will do with the Montague women shows a worrying level of misogyny in his attitude towards the female gender.
Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1. Sampson boasts about the size of his erection when he speaks about sexually taking the Montague women by force. His "able to stand" with its dual meaning is an example of a bawdy pun. He views women as sexual objects whose role is to gratify men.
GREGORY: Draw thy tool…
SAMPSON: My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1. As two from the house of the Montagues approach, Sampson draws his sword and asks Gregory to start a quarrel and provoke a fight. The pair exchange bawdy puns, with Gregory inviting the other to: "Draw thy tool." Sampson continues with the phallus imagery and also personification to describe unsheathing his sword – "my naked weapon is out." Comparing the sword to a penis is an example of the misogynistic mentality in a play where men like to exercise dominance over women. In this scene Sampson tends to talk big but is something of a boastful coward, wanting Gregory to pick the fight.
Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy, I will bear the light.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. Love-struck Romeo is far from being in party mood when he says this to his companions on the way to the Capulet ball. Using a pun he offers to carry one of the torches, referring to the light offered by the torch and the lack of lightness in his mood.
MERCUTIO: Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.
ROMEO: Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes
With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. Mercutio tries to persuade Romeo to dance at the Capulets’ party to forget his lovesick troubles. Romeo responds with a metaphor saying that he is weighed down with a soul made of lead. He uses a pun when he refers to his friend’s "nimble soles" and then speaks to his own heavy "soul."
MERCUTIO: You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
ROMEO: I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. Mercutio tries his best to talk Romeo out of his gloom and not be a party pooper when they are at the Capulets’ ball. He advises him to metaphorically "borrow Cupid’s wings" and soar because he is in love. But Romeo, whose love is unrequited, puns that he is too "sore" to "soar." In another pun, "bound" is used in two different senses, first to mean constraint, and secondly to mean leap. This reflects the conflicting aspects to romantic love.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. The playful and cynical Mercutio makes light of Romeo’s moaning about love being rough and pricking "like thorn." He uses pun and sexual innuendo to advise Romeo to have sex ("prick love" and "beat love down") to get over his sexual frustration ("pricking") because of Rosaline’s chastity vow. Mercutio personifies love as if it were a person who can be beaten down, speaking of it in aggressive and violent terms.
ROMEO: I dream’d a dream to-night.
MERCUTIO: And so did I.
ROMEO: What was yours?
MERCUTIO: Dreamers often lie.
ROMEO: In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. Romeo and Mercutio engage in banter about dreams as they walk through the streets on the way to the Capulets’ household. The skeptical Mercutio mockingly says of Romeo’s dreaming, that people who dream often lie. Romeo quickly retorts with a pun that they lie in bed asleep, as they dreams true things.
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous
I nursed her daughter, that you talk’d withal;
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5. The Nurse tells Romeo that Juliet’s mother is the lady of the house and any man who marries her will be financially well off. “Chinks” are the sounds coins make when the knock against each other. But as “chink” can also mean a a small slit or narrow opening, this is an example of a bawdy pun by Juliet’s naughty Nurse.
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!
Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 1. The cynical Mercutio sees love as more of a sensual and sexual experience. When Romeo breaks into the Capulets’ garden to find Juliet, Mercutio believes that his motivation has to do with sex rather than love. His speech is full of sexual meaning and pun. The medlar is an anus shaped fruit, the poperin pear is a pun on "pop her in" and suggests penis, while an "open et caetera" means an open vagina.
MERCUTIO: That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
ROMEO: Meaning, to court’sy.
MERCUTIO: Thou hast most kindly hit it.
ROMEO: A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO: Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
ROMEO: Pink for flower.
MERCUTIO: Right.
ROMEO: Why, then is my pump well flowered.
MERCUTIO: Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.
ROMEO: O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4. This scene between Mercutio and Romeo is full of sexual puns and wordplay. Mercutio thinks that his friend has spent a passionate night with Rosaline and doesn’t miss the opportunity to tease him about it. On the surface the two friends may seem to be talking about courteous behavior and shoes decorated with flowers. But "bow in the hams" can suggest the movement of a man during sexual intercourse. "Pink…flower" can be taken as a reference to the female genitalia. And "pump," while meaning shoe, can also refer to the male penis, with "well flowered" meaning that Romeo has deflowered a young woman. Mercutio is a quick-witted character who is not shy about bawdy jokes, and on this occasion Romeo seems to be playing along and entering into the spirit too.
MERCUTIO: ‘Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
NURSE: Out upon you! what a man are you!
Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4. Mercutio engages in inappropriate behavior towards an older woman he doesn’t know, Juliet’s Nurse, when he makes this off-color joke. He is responding to the Nurse’s question about whether or not it is a good day. The Nurse is horrified at his double entendre and sexual puns. The round dial is a pun for the female genitalia, while the the hand standing straight at the "prick" of 12 o’clock is a double entendre for the erect male penis.
An old hare hoar,
And an old hare hoar,
Is very good meat in lent
But a hare that is hoar
Is too much for a score,
When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4. Mercutio sings this bawdy song making sexual jokes about the Nurse. It is full of double meanings and puns, with "hare" also meaning prostitute. "Hoar" means grey with age and sounds the same as "whore." The misogynistic Mercutio is taunting the Nurse by calling her an unattractive old whore who is a waste of money.
Hie you to church; I must another way,
To fetch a ladder, by the which your love
Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 5. Making a bawdy joke, the Nurse teases Juliet about her wedding night. She is talking about Romeo climbing a ladder to Juliet’s room, but also onto her and having sex. A "bird’s nest" is a sexual pun and slang for female genitals and pubic hair.
TYBALT: Mercutio, thou consort’st with Romeo, –
MERCUTIO: Consort! what, dost thou make us minstrels? an thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here’s my fiddlestick; here’s that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!
Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1. Mercutio is just looking for an excuse to start a quarrel with Tybalt. When Tybalt mentions Mercutio consorting with Romeo, Mercutio interrupts him and puns on the other meaning of "consort" – an ensemble of musicians. He pretends to be insulted at being called a "minstrel" and points to his sword, calling it his "fiddlestick," whose music Tybalt will be made dance to. Tybalt’s simple inquiry about Romeo is turned by Mercutio into a manufactured insult and invitation to fight.
ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO: No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1. After being stabbed by Tybalt in his fight with him, Mercutio uses similes to downplay the seriousness of his wound to Romeo. Ever the lover of wit and wordplay even when dying, Mercutio uses a joke and pun to say that he will be a "grave man" tomorrow. He is playing on the double meaning of "grave," which can mean serious or a man in his grave. Mercutio’s dark pun is filled with bitter and tragic irony. It is foreshadowing not only his own death but also that of his best friend Romeo, senseless casualties of the bitter fuel between the warring Montagues and Capulets.
Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but "I,"
And that bare vowel "I" shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2. Juliet tells her Nurse that if Romeo has killed himself that will be more poisonous to her than the deadly gaze of a cockatrice. This is a mythical beast with two legs, wings and a rooster’s head, whose looks could kill. Juliet puns on "I" and "eye" – the affirmative particle "ay," meaning yes, was commonly written "I" in Shakespeare’s time.
Affliction is enamour’d of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 3. Friar Laurence personifies affliction, when he tells Romeo that it likes him. On the day that Romeo weds Juliet, the Friar uses a pun to warn that the teenage bridegroom is wedded to disaster. The Friar’s words turn out to be prophetic, foreshadowing the calamitous things that happen from that moment on. Romeo is fated with bad luck, as the Friar predicts.
Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!
Thou shalt be logger-head.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 4. A good-humored Capulet jokes and uses a pun when he praises his servant and playfully calls him a "logger-head." The servant is searching for dry logs. Loggerhead is a common expression for a stupid person.
Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I’ll re you, I’ll fa you; do you note me?
Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 5. Servant Peter uses a series of musical puns when he tells the musicians that he won’t tolerate any of their mischief or bad attitude.
O happy dagger!
This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. These are Juliet’s last words, spoken as she snatches Romeo’s dagger, stabs herself with it and dies upon his body. Her overwhelming grief over Romeo’s death prompts this impulsive and reckless decision. Juliet uses personification in characterizing the dagger as having the human emotion of happiness, as she plunges it inside her to send her to her Romeo. She uses a metaphor when she describes her body as the dagger’s sheath. This passage in the Romeo and Juliet death scene is full of sexual innuendo. "Happy dagger" suggests a penis, the Latin word for "sheath" is vagina, and "die" is a euphemism for orgasm. Shakespeare was not adverse to bawdy puns and the play has its fair share of them.