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All Site ContentRomeo and JulietAct 2Scene 4
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"Alas poor Romeo!"
Imagery
Act 2,
Scene 4
Lines 12-16

Imagery describing how Romeo has been incapacitated by the effects of love in myShakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4.

Mercutio

Alas poor Romeo! He is already dead, stabbed with
a white wench's black eye, run through the ear with a
love-song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind
bow-boy's butt-shaft — and is he a man to encounter
Tybalt?

Mercutio humorously describes Romeo as so incapacitated by the effects of love that he’s in no condition to take on an angry Tybalt. He’s been pierced in the heart by Cupid’s arrow, shot in the ear by love songs, and stabbed by penetrating looks from his mistress' beautiful dark eyes.