MERCUTIO
Nay, I'll conjure too.
Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh.
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied.
Cry but 'Ay me,' pronounce but 'love' and
'dove.'
[…]
I must conjure him.—
I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead, and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us. (2.1.8-13, 19-24)
Here, Mercutio tries to flush Romeo out of his hiding spot in the Capulet's yard by mocking his crush on Rosaline. (Mercutio has no idea that Romeo has just fallen in love with Juliet.) When Mercutio pretends to be Rosaline calling to her "lover" Romeo and begging him to recite some love poetry ("speak but one rhyme"), he sounds like a typical schoolboy giving his buddy a hard time.
But then, Mercutio's teasing turns ugly as he proceeds to list Rosaline's body parts—her "bright eyes," "high forehead," "straight leg," "quivering thigh," and, finally, the genitals that are "adjacent" to her thigh. Basically, Mercutio's description of Rosaline is a dirty version of what's called a "blazon," a poetic technique that catalogues a woman's body parts (and often makes comparisons between said body parts and yummy things in nature—lips like cherries, breasts like melons, etc.). Shakespeare likes to mock this poetic convention. Compare Mercutio's lines (above) to Sonnet 130.
Quote 8
MERCUTIO
I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.
Is he gone and hath nothing?
BENVOLIO
What, art thou hurt?
MERCUTIO
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, 'tis enough.
Where is my page?—Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.
ROMEO
Courage, man, the hurt cannot be much.
MERCUTIO
No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as
a church-door; but 'tis enough. 'Twill serve. Ask for
me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'
both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a
cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a
villain that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the
devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.
ROMEO
I thought all for the best.
MERCUTIO
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!
They have made worms' meat of me.
I have it, and soundly too. Your houses!
(3.1.94-113)
Mercutio blames both the Montagues and the Capulets for his death.
Quote 9
MERCUTIO
No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church door, but 'tis enough. 'Twill serve. Ask for
me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'
both your houses! 'Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a
cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a
villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the
devil came you between us? I was hurt under your
arm.
(3.1.100-109)
Mercutio doesn't bother blaming fate for his death—he places the blame squarely on the family feud. Is he right?