What’s wrong with this picture? Taken in Eataly, Flatiron District, New York, 7/28/22. (Image: John E. Branch Jr.)

In Romeo and Juliet, neither a rapier nor a rapier wit is enough to protect Mercutio when a fight erupts between partisans of the Montagues and the Capulets in the streets of Verona. Fighting in public has been forbidden; nonetheless, in what he just called “these hot days,” Mercutio and Tybalt clash for a moment before being separated, and Mercutio takes a hit.

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