Without his roe, like a dried herring: O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! there’s a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
– William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4. It is the morning after the Capulets’ party. Mercutio makes some bawdy and sexually suggestive comments, as he teases Romeo about what he was up to the previous night. Using a simile, he likens him to a dried up herring that has spawned. Mercutio is suggesting that Romeo looks worn out from having sex with Rosaline. This is dramatic irony, because the audience knows that Romeo’s new object of desire is Juliet and she has replaced Rosaline in his affections. Mercutio mocks Romeo idea of romantic love by saying that he is about to break into love poetry like Petrarch. He suggests that Petrarch’s muse Laura is a "kitchen-wench" compared to Rosaline. He lists off other famous beauties from history and classical literature who were a "gipsy" or "harlot" compared to Rosaline. Mercutio is being verbally ironic when he describes these women thus. There is also foreshadowing of Romeo and Juliet’s fate, as these famous women were involved in tragic love stories which ended in death.