FRIAR              What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,

                        For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead:

                        There thou art happy. Tybalt would kill thee,

                        But thou slewest Tybalt: there art thou happy.

                        The law that threatened death becomes thy friend,

                        And turns it to exile: there art thou happy.

                        A pack of blessings light upon thy back,

                        Happiness courts thee in her best array,

                        But like a mishavèd and sullen wench,

                        Thou pouts upon thy fortune and thy love:

                        Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable. (3.3.135-145)

The Friar is really hitting his stride here; having set out for Romeo all the reasons why it would be a bad idea (and wrong) to kill himself, he now lists all the things that Romeo should be grateful for: rouse thee, man! Get up! (is Romeo therefore still on the ground?) There are reasons to be cheerful, to keep living, and chief among them is Juliet. But there’s also the reminder of what a narrow escape Romeo’s had: he could as well have been killed by Tybalt as kill him (and we recall that Tybalt was the famous swordsman, not Romeo) and he could even now be facing execution, rather than exile. Happy here is lucky, fortunate rather than (primarily) happy, although that sense is here too: the Friar is mostly reminding Romeo of all the things which could have turned out very differently. And then a final, vivid metaphor: Happiness is personified as a woman in her best clothes (perhaps recalling the goddess Fortuna, or perhaps Occasio, chance, who had to be caught by her ‘forelock’) – but rather than welcoming her, his good fortune, Romeo is behaving like a sulky teenage girl (perhaps specifically a maidservant), pouting and not being properly grateful either for his good fortune or for Juliet – who is his Happiness and not at all a sullen wench. Stop being a brat, get a grip, and make the best of things; this isn’t just about this terrible situation you’re in at the moment, it’s about how you live your life. Count your blessings; be happy. (The OED doesn’t record the entirely satisfying ‘mardy’ as an adjective before the C19, but does note that it’s found in the Midlands as well as the North. I like the possibility that Shakespeare the Warwickshireman initially had the Friar tell Romeo to stop being such a mardy bum, and then Burbage intervened and told him that it wouldn’t make sense on the Bankside… Whatever, mardy describes Romeo exactly.)