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In the play’s opening scene, Sampson and Gregory, two servants of House Capulet, antagonize two Montague servants and start a brawl in the Verona streets. It is easy to overlook Sampson and Gregory’s significance due to their minimal stage time and comedic dialogue. However, the 1.1 opener is essential for a few key reasons. To begin with, their brawl with representatives of the Montague household establishes the strength of the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues because it even impacts their servants. This allows the audience to comprehend the sheer scale of the conflict. Sampson and Gregory also introduce ideas of honor and masculinity that will persist throughout the remainder of the text. While the fight between the servants is comical, all four men are doing so out of a masculine desire to defend both their own honor and the honor of the families that they serve. Sampson even uses masculine language to taunt the Montague servants by saying that they should “Draw, [their swords] if [they] be men” (1.1.62). In this light, Sampson and Gregory’s provocation of the Montague servants is no different from Tybalt's desire to fight Romeo for disrespecting his family in 1.5, or Romeo’s desire to fight Tybalt after he kills Mercutio in 3.1.
