| [Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO] | |
| MERCUTIO | Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home to-night? |
| BENVOLIO | Not to his father's; I spoke with his man. |
| MERCUTIO | Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline. Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. |
| BENVOLIO | Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father's house. |
| MERCUTIO | A challenge, on my life. |
| BENVOLIO | Romeo will answer it. |
| MERCUTIO | Any man that can write may answer a letter. |
| BENVOLIO | Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared. |
| MERCUTIO | Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to encounter Tybalt? |
| BENVOLIO | Why, what is Tybalt? |
| MERCUTIO | More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause: ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hai! |
| BENVOLIO | The what? |
| MERCUTIO | The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form, that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their bones, their bones! |
| [Enter ROMEO] | |
| BENVOLIO | Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. |
| MERCUTIO | Without his roe, like a dried herring: 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. |
| ROMEO | Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you? |
| MERCUTIO | The ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive? |
| ROMEO | Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy. |
| MERCUTIO | That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. |
| ROMEO | Meaning, to court'sy. |
| MERCUTIO | Thou hast most kindly hit it. |
| ROMEO | A most courteous exposition. |
| MERCUTIO | Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. |
| ROMEO | Pink for flower. |
| MERCUTIO | Right. |
| ROMEO | Why, then is my pump well flowered. |
| MERCUTIO | Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular. |
| ROMEO | O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness. |
| MERCUTIO | Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint. |
| ROMEO | Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match. |
| MERCUTIO | Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five: was I with you there for the goose? |
| ROMEO | Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast not there for the goose. |
| MERCUTIO | I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. |
| ROMEO | Nay, good goose, bite not. |
| MERCUTIO | Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce. |
| ROMEO | And is it not well served in to a sweet goose? |
| MERCUTIO | O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad! |
| ROMEO | I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose. |
| MERCUTIO | Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this drivelling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole. |
| BENVOLIO | Stop there, stop there. |
| MERCUTIO | Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair. |
| BENVOLIO | Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large. |
| MERCUTIO | O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short: for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer. |
| ROMEO | Here's goodly gear! |
| [Enter Nurse and PETER] | |
| MERCUTIO | A sail, a sail! |
| BENVOLIO | Two, two; a shirt and a smock. |
| Nurse | Peter! |
| PETER | Anon! |
| Nurse | My fan, Peter. |
| MERCUTIO | Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face. |
| Nurse | God ye good morrow, gentlemen. |
| MERCUTIO | God ye good den, fair gentlewoman. |
| Nurse | Is it good den? |
| MERCUTIO | 'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon. |
| Nurse | Out upon you! what a man are you! |
| ROMEO | One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar. |
| Nurse | By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,' quoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo? |
| ROMEO | I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him: I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse. |
| Nurse | You say well. |
| MERCUTIO | Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith; wisely, wisely. |
| Nurse | if you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you. |
| BENVOLIO | She will indite him to some supper. |
| MERCUTIO | A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho! |
| ROMEO | What hast thou found? |
| MERCUTIO | No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent. |
| [Sings] | |
| An old hare hoar, And an old hare hoar, Is very good meat in lent But a hare that is hoar Is too much for a score, When it hoars ere it be spent. Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll to dinner, thither. |
|
| ROMEO | I will follow you. |
| MERCUTIO | Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, |
| [Singing] | |
| 'lady, lady, lady.' | |
| [Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO] | |
| Nurse | Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery? |
| ROMEO | A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month. |
| Nurse | An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him down, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure? |
| PETER | I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side. |
| Nurse | Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself: but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing. |
| ROMEO | Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto thee-- |
| Nurse | Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much: Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman. |
| ROMEO | What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me. |
| Nurse | I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer. |
| ROMEO | Bid her devise Some means to come to shrift this afternoon; And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains. |
| Nurse | No truly sir; not a penny. |
| ROMEO | Go to; I say you shall. |
| Nurse | This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there. |
| ROMEO | And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall: Within this hour my man shall be with thee And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair; Which to the high top-gallant of my joy Must be my convoy in the secret night. Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains: Farewell; commend me to thy mistress. |
| Nurse | Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir. |
| ROMEO | What say'st thou, my dear nurse? |
| Nurse | Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say, Two may keep counsel, putting one away? |
| ROMEO | I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel. |
| NURSE | Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord, Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter? |
| ROMEO | Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R. |
| Nurse | Ah. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for the--No; I know it begins with some other letter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it. |
| ROMEO | Commend me to thy lady. |
| Nurse | Ay, a thousand times. |
| [Exit Romeo] Peter! |
|
| PETER | Anon! |
| Nurse | Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace. |
| [Exeunt] |