PRINCE           Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?

BENVOLIO      Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay.

                        Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink

                        How nice the quarrel was, and urged withal

                        Your high displeasure; all this, utterèd

                        With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bowed,

                        Could not take truce with the unruly spleen

                        Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts

                        With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,

                        Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,

                        And with a martial scorn, with one hand beats

                        Cold death aside, and with the other sends

                        It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity

                        Retorts it. (3.1.142-155)

The Prince tries to take control of the situation, putting Benvolio on the spot and asking him to give more detail. And so Benvolio takes a deep breath: after his first line, completing the couplet with the Prince, he’s back in blank verse and – although punctuation is not authorial – the Folio text at least, which this is (the Quarto has significant differences) similarly punctuates this as a single sentence. (In fact the Folio has a colon rather than a full-stop after Retorts it.) Whatever, and the punctuation can be tweaked (a full-stop after displeasure, for instance), Benvolio speaks urgently yet precisely, the words tumbling out in a great rush, as if he knows this is his one chance to get it right and, perhaps, save Romeo’s life. The first line answers the question: Tybalt started it. The rest of it is pleading explanation. Romeo tried to defuse the situation, speaking politely to Tybalt, suggesting that the quarrel between them was trivial, and reminding Tybalt (and Mercutio) of the Prince’s decree. Romeo was so reasonable, calm, polite, solicitous, but Tybalt wasn’t having any of it, he was completely enraged and out of control (the spleen was associated with anger); he wanted a fight and went for Mercutio, so of course Mercutio responded in kind, and then they were at it.

Benvolio is being brilliantly clever here. He’s not exactly lying, far from it: Tybalt did indeed start it, and Romeo tried to stop it. What’s carefully edited out is just how impossibly provocative Mercutio was, as Benvolio makes Tybalt the aggressor and Mercutio the one who responds. He is all as hot, but Benvolio tries to make it seem reactive, proportionate, balanced: Mercutio turns deadly point to point (when we know that he drew first); he is dignified as well as valiant and skilful, with a martial scorn parrying Tybalt’s blow, cold death, aside with one hand (and presumably with his dagger) and aiming his own blow at Tybalt with his other hand (presumably with his rapier); Tybalt – whose swordsmanship Benvolio praises here – similarly parries the blow (perhaps with his sword rather than his dagger, if dexterity invokes the right hand in which the rapier would, presumably, be held). It is, quite literally, a blow by blow account, breathless but still apparently forensic in its detail and its establishing of the sequence of events. The adjectives are moderate, even colourless – fair, nice, gentle, calm; even bold, hot, cold are hardly full of vivid metaphorical potential – so what stands out? Piercing steel, deadly point (partly because the adjectives are not monosyllabic), and the verb tilts, which is full of momentum (full tilt) and sounds chaotically angular (even if it’s really invoking the tiltyard or tournament). Everything that Benvolio does here to spin his story – and he is not lying – casts Tybalt as the aggressor, and Mercutio, while not quite the innocent victim, as simply defending himself with skill and valour. Most importantly, Benvolio begins his account by emphasising that Romeo was the peacemaker; Tybalt started it, and he tried to stop it. And now Benvolio takes a breath.