Romeo and Juliet (Abridged)

Public Domain

Sampson and Gregory are two servants from the Capulet family. They are walking through the main square carrying swords and talking loudly. They are joking with eachother about girls and sex, and they are talking about how angry the Montagues make them. They are spewing insulting comments about the Montegue family.

It isn't long before some servants of the Montague family come by and overhear the Capulet servants. They all go back and forth trying to start a fight before Benvolio, a Montague, arrives on the scene.

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In Shakespeare's play this scene is filled with crude jokes and dirty inuendoes. Shakespeare's audience was not just the high class, but also the lower class who could pay for cheap - standing room only seats. Shakespeare was not above getting a laugh from a dirty joke.

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In this scene neither side wants to be resposible for the fight, but both sides want to fight the other. Can you think of any real world situation like this?

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The illustration on this page is credited to Sir John Gilbert, an English painter, illustrator and engravor who lived from eighteen seventeen to eighteen ninety seven. This is from the first scene of Romeo and Juliet, but the exact date of this illustration is unknown.

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