"What dares the slave, come hither, coverd with an antic face, To fleer and scorn at our
solemnity?...Uncle, this is a Montague, our
foe, a villain that is hither come in spite, To
scorn at our solemnity this night" (Act 1,
Scene 5).
Analyze what this scene means.

Just in case we’d forgotten that there’s a feud on, here’s Tybalt, clearly not about to forget all his troubles on the dance-floor, but rather looking for a fight. A nice note that they’ve left their rapiers off for the party (some rapiers had blades many feet long – not at all conducive to safe dancing). Tybalt seems to be angry all the time: he addresses his page as boy (fine; sirrah would be more cheerful, perhaps?) and describes Romeo as a slave and a villain. Tybalt is anxious about status (maybe because he doesn’t have his ‘rapier’ and he’s Over-Compensating?) He regards Romeo’s presence as a personal affront as much as an insult to his family honour (he’s partly insulting Romeo in class terms); he assumes that to do such a thing – gate-crash a party – is an act of spite and scorn, rather than a bit of a laugh, a dare, an adventure with the boys. (The suggestion is that, were Tybalt to do such a thing, scorn would be his only possible motivation.) It helpfully confirms that Romeo’s wearing a mask: Tybalt can recognise his voice, even though he’s wearing an antic face. Even Capulet, who will prove to be well capable of a decent bit of storming, thinks that Tybalt’s being over the top: what’s up, what are you getting so worked up about?

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