“Most people in the body politic are taking a look at this and saying ‘A pox on both your houses. It should never have reached this point,” Durbin said Tuesday morning on CNN. “And there’s wisdom in that.”

—Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois) quoted in Associated Press coverage of the Congress-impelled U.S. government shutdown.

The correct quote, from an annoyed Mercutio’s death speech in Romeo & Juliet, is:

“plague o’ both your houses!,” and it would’ve been nice to hear Senator Durbin perform the rest of it:

‘Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death!

a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
arithmetic!

Why the devil came you between us?

I was hurt under your arm.