Enter Citizens [as OFFICERS of the Watch].

OFFICER         Which way ran he that killed Mercutio?

                        Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?

BENVOLIO      There lies that Tybalt.

OFFICER                                             Up, sir, go with me;

                        I charge thee in the Prince’s name obey.

Enter PRINCE, old MONTAGUE, CAPULET, their WIVES, and all.

PRINCE           Where are the vile beginners of this fray?

BENVOLIO      O noble Prince, I can discover all

                        The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl;

                        There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,

                        That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio. (3.1.128-136)

Things have happened so fast that it’s Mercutio’s death that’s the news, not Tybalt’s. The Watch have followed Tybalt back into the scene, all ready to arrest him; Tybalt perhaps returned, therefore, because he was already being pursued, was cornered. Murderer certainly applies to Tybalt, but now to Romeo too, a title that, moments ago, seemed inconceivable: madman! passion! lover! yes, as Mercutio addressed him; good son, as the Friar did; sweet, my lord, as Juliet did. Now he is a murderer, as much as Tybalt was. And once again poor Benvolio has to do the explaining. (I love Benvolio; he is Hamlet’s Horatio in embryo, and much more besides.) There’s a tiny note for him in the Officer’s instruction Up, sir, go with me: Benvolio is kneeling beside Tybalt’s body. Checking he’s really dead? attempting, in vain, to help, because if Tybalt’s not dead then Romeo’s not a murderer? But the anonymous Officer’s task, effectively taking Benvolio into custody as a witness, is superseded by the arrival – just as in the opening scene – of the Prince himself, and the parents. (It’s been a while since we’ve seen any of the grown-ups: and all, everyone is here, except Romeo and Juliet. We can assume that the Friar and the Nurse are in the crowd, and the servants too; I wonder if the actor playing Mercutio has in fact returned as the Prince.) And the Prince is angry, at this stage mostly with Tybalt, and about to get angrier. So Benvolio gives the first, economical version of what’s just happened. He is, as ever, polite: noble Prince. He’s not totally unbiased, although still truthful: where Tybalt is not named or accorded an epithet, Romeo is young and Mercutio is brave, and, of course the Prince’s kinsman. Benvolio sets it up as a balanced, proportionate action, cause and effect, even using the same verb – slew, slain. There’s a sense here of him crossing his fingers and hoping that he can save Romeo, if he tells the truth and gives just a bit of a steer: there’s a justice in this, no matter how terrible. Tybalt started it. And it was unlucky, and fatal, in the sense of being governed by fate, out of the control of the participants, as much as deadly. We wait, with Benvolio, fingers crossed, to see what the Prince will do.