Introduction

Shakespeare provided us with one of the most memorable literary lines from plague-time England: “A plague on both your houses,” hurled out by a dying Mercutio as he discovers he is soon to be “a grave man.”1 Giving words to Mercutio that would enact the sense of judgment attendant upon such visitations, Shakespeare immortalized Mercutio and the two houses that according to the fi rst line of the prologue are “both alike in dignity.” By the end of the play, the houses are also alike in affl iction; the letter telling Romeo that Juliet is only asleep cannot be delivered. The messenger, Friar John, explains:

Going to fi nd a barefoot brother out, One of our order, to associate me, Here in this city visiting the sick, And fi nding him, the searchers of the town, Suspecting that we both were in a house Where the infectious pestilence did reign, Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth, So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I could not send it-here it is againNor get a messenger to bring it thee, So fearful were they of infection.