Ais a play
on words, usually for humorous effect. Shakespeare liked to use puns, often with sexual
meaning. However, puns can be based on just about anything.
Although puns
are often made for humors sake, the person making them is not always laughing. For
example,makes a pun on the idea of being in love.
BEN:
In love?
ROM:
Out
BEN:
Of love?(165)
ROM:
Out of her favour, where I am in
love. (Act 1, Scene 1)
In this case, the pun is a play on
the concept of being in love and Romeo is not really in a laughing mood. Its not really an
incredibly sad scene though, because Shakespeare is still using the pun to inject some
silliness.
Sometimes one character makes a pun off of the other. Consider
this exchange.
MER:
That dreamers often lie.
ROM:
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.
The double meaning of lie is a pun, as in the fictional nature of dreams and being
flat in bed. In this casebegins the pun, and Romeo completes it.
The
character of Mercutio uses puns a lot, often of a sexual nature. However, his most famous pun
is with his dying words. Mercutio is such a punster that even with his last breath, he has to
use a pun!
Ask for me to-morrow,
and
you shall find me a grave man. (Act 3, Scene 1)
He will
be a grave man, meaning serious, because he will be in his grave, because
he will be dead!
is one of the bawdiest plays the bard
wrote, and one of the funniest. This comes in large part from the puns. The puns, largely
coming from Mercuito and Nurse, were designed to entertain the cheaper seats in the theater, but
would have brought a chuckle from even the nobility. Even today, modern audiences cant help but
smile even in the most tragic scene when poor Mercutio is killed byin a brawl and dies with a
pun.
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