"A plague on both your houses!"

Department of Redundancy Department: This line, which Mercutio says, is obviously important. Mercutio repeats it and actually says it a total of three times, perhaps for emphasis. Perhaps he is merely losing consciousness, and forgets what he has already said. It is also possible that Mr. Shakespeare was being paid by the word, and was investing in some London real estate at the time. Whatever the reason, this line is meant to be a curse of some sort on both of the two families involved. Mercutio complains that they (the houses) have made "worms' meat of me." It would seem that something has been eating at him, and he has just been waiting to get this out.

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