A Plague On Both Your Houses: The First Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew)

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Schmidt's list seems to omit the instance from The Merchant of Venice (cited in a comment by user159691), so it may not be exhaustive; my summary of Schmidt's collection above omits a number of citations not accompanied by specific quotations. Like I said before this murder mystery is set in and around Cambridge, England, from the year AD 1348 until March, AD 1349, with also the pestilence raging across Europe and England, and in these circumstances our main character, the physician/doctor to Michaelhouse College, Matthew Bartholomew, comes into action as an investigator, especially when the Master of Michaelhouse, Sir John Babington, is suddenly found dead and the University authorities made it known that they don't want this death investigated. Act 4, scene 3 Juliet sends the Nurse away for the night. After facing her terror at the prospect of awaking in her family’s burial vault, Juliet drinks the potion that Friar Lawrence has given her.

Enter Prince, attended; MONTAGUE, CAPULET, their Wives, and others PRINCE Where are the vile beginners of this fray? Then ask students to look in detail at the exchange between Tybalt and Romeo starting from the line, “Romeo, the love I bear thee...”. From the beginning of Romeo and Juliet's relationship, there have been subtle suggestions that they both know that their relationship will end in disaster:Act 1, scene 1 A street fight breaks out between the Montagues and the Capulets, which is broken up by the ruler of Verona, Prince Escalus. He threatens the Montagues and Capulets with death if they fight again. A melancholy Romeo enters and is questioned by his cousin Benvolio, who learns that the cause of Romeo’s sadness is unrequited love.

Act III scene I is a crucial scene within the play, as it has critical impact on the consequential scenes and is a major turning point in the play. The scene itself is made up of three separate sections; it first of all begins with the argument between Mercutio and Tybalt, which, in effect, leads to Mercutio's death. Then the audience see Romeo’s raging emotions lead to the death of Tybalt and finally the characters deal with the aftermath of the situation.The scholar gripped the voluminous folds of his cloak, so that he would not stumble on them, and slipped out of the trees into the road. The moon was almost full, and shed an eerie white light along the main street. He peered carefully both ways, and, satisfied that there was no one to see him, he made his way stealthily down the street towards his home.

We haven’t seen the end of the fallout from this awful, fateful day. This is just the beginning of a sorrow that future days will end. Benvolio Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend. His transgression was killing Tybalt, but the law would have condemned Tybalt to death anyway. Prince My question is pretty straightforward: Is there a reason this phrase is often alluded to with the word "pox" replacing "plague?" For instance, was the phrase with "pox" used by a significant author or spoken by a prominent figure in a way that prompted the phrase to become increasingly used in altered form?There are lots of characters and the plot is quite complex with plenty of twists and turns. This does mean that the characterisation was a bit limited apart from the main character. Gregory does try to make Bartholomew slightly more modern. He is sceptical of practices such as using leeches and opts for what feels like a more modern, common sense approach (a bit like Cadfael). There are some attempts at realism and there is plenty of slime, rot, blood, sewage, decomposition and the like. Gregory does try to convey the effect of the Plague where almost half the population died, the issues with how to manage burials, contagion and the inevitable gaps in society. The author has been a coroner’s officer and does show off her depth of knowledge about death. All of our upcoming public events and our St Pancras building tours are going ahead. Read our latest blog post about planned events for more information. Lady Capulet is a very minor character within this scene, but through the few lines that says, the audience really get a sense of her morals and principles: Act 4, scene 5 The Nurse finds Juliet in the deathlike trance caused by the Friar’s potion and announces Juliet’s death. Juliet’s parents and Paris join the Nurse in lamentation. Friar Lawrence interrupts them and begins to arrange Juliet’s funeral. The scene closes with an exchange of wordplay between Capulet’s servant Peter and Paris’s musicians.

In Elizabethan times this would have been interpreted as a serious statement and would have been taken literally. To wish the plague on someone was a serious matter because it still existed and they still had not found the cause. Whereas, for a modern audience, these words do not have as much dramatic effect, because we now know the cause of the plague and it is not current in our lives. Also, a modern audience knows that from the words alone, nothing is going to happen, but in Elizabethan times they were more superstitious and this would have been a serious matter. Mercutio is essentially saying that both the Montagues and the Capulets are to blame for the long-standing feud that is about to claim him as its next victim. Pointing to his sword] Here’s the bow for my fiddle, it’ll make you dance. By God, “consort” you say! Benvolio We've got to front up, because otherwise you're not going to get respect, you know? He's going to think he's stronger than you and that's something that you can't actually have. Otherwise next time you're in the street and he bites his thumbs at you, you're like, now what? Just going to walk away? You can't have that. Mercutio is the first character to die in Romeo and Juliet , and, because of his death, there is serious repercussions on the sequential scenes. His death acts as a turning point of the play, and if it had not occurred then the play would have a very different ending. His significant death is partially due to his own behaviour:The mystery is not well-paced. Clues are laid out nicely in the beginning and then -nothing about the mystery for awhile and the book becomes very slow, and this cycle continues throughout the book. In the end, I would just say the mystery itself is mediocre. Act III scene I is a dramatic enthralling scene, in which the families ‘ancient grudge’ leads to the deaths of two prominent characters. The dramatic effect of this scene is emphasised by the tension and anger that run through it. I wanted to read something light, maybe a mystery, and this book popped at me from my bookshelf, 'The Plague on Both Your Houses' by Susanna Gregory.