Romeo utters this line immediately after killing Tybalt in the first scene of Act Three. As his kinsman Benvolio urges him to flee, knowing that the Prince will possibly sentence him to death if he is captured, Romeo stands as if in a daze. He realizes the gravity of what he has done. He has cost his friend Mercutio his life by his ill-timed intervention in his fight with Tybalt, and he has doomed his recent marriage to Juliet. With this line, he is, essentially, cursing his bad luck. This is all the more powerful because the audience knows that Romeo and Juliet are doomed, and that the death of Tybalt has probably set in motion the events that will bring about their fate. As it turns out, Romeo has reason to decry his bad luck. The Prince does not sentence him to death, but to be banished to the nearby town of Mantua. The Friar's scheme to reunite the two lovers, and avoid Juliet's pending marriage to Paris, falls apart. The death of Tybalt at Romeo's hands is thus a major turning point in the play, which Romeo acknowledges, in a way, with this statement.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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