Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.MERCUTIO Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?BENVOLIO Not to his father’s. I spoke with his man.MERCUTIO Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that5 Rosaline, Torments him so that he will sure run mad.BENVOLIO Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, Hath sent a letter to his father’s house.MERCUTIO A challenge, on my life.BENVOLIO 10Romeo 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,15 stabbed with a white wench’s black eye, run 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 20More than prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion.
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He rests his minim rests, one, two, and the third in your bosom—the very butcher of a silk button, a25 duelist, a duelist, a gentleman of the very first house of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay!BENVOLIO The what?MERCUTIO The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting30 ⌜phantasimes,⌝ these new tuners of accent: “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 ⌜“pardon-me” ’s,⌝35 who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit 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. O40 flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura to his lady was a kitchen wench (marry, she had a better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, Thisbe a gray45 eye or so, but not to the purpose.—Signior Romeo, bonjour. 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 50The slip, 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 as55 yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.ROMEO Meaning, to curtsy.
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MERCUTIO Thou hast most kindly hit it.ROMEO A most courteous exposition.MERCUTIO Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.ROMEO 60“Pink” for flower.MERCUTIO Right.ROMEO Why, then is my pump well flowered.MERCUTIO Sure wit, follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole65 of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing, solely singular.ROMEO O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness.MERCUTIO Come between us, good Benvolio. My wits70 faints.ROMEO Switch and spurs, switch and spurs, or I’ll cry a match.MERCUTIO Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done, for thou hast more of the wild goose in75 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 anything when thou wast not there for the goose.MERCUTIO I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.ROMEO 80Nay, good goose, bite not.MERCUTIO Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.ROMEO And is it not, then, well served into a sweet goose?MERCUTIO 85O, 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 90Why, 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
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by nature. For this driveling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his95 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 100O, 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.Enter Nurse and her man ⌜Peter.⌝ROMEO Here’s goodly gear. A sail, a sail!MERCUTIO 105Two, two—a shirt and a smock.NURSE Peter.PETER Anon.NURSE My fan, Peter.MERCUTIO Good Peter, to hide her face, for her fan’s110 the fairer face.NURSE God you good morrow, gentlemen.MERCUTIO God you good e’en, fair gentlewoman.NURSE Is it good e’en?MERCUTIO ’Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of115 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, himself to mar.NURSE By my troth, it is well said: “for himself to120 mar,” quoth he? 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, for125 fault of a worse.NURSE You say well.
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MERCUTIO Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’ faith, wisely, wisely.NURSE If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with130 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 Lenten135 pie that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.⌜Singing.⌝ An old hare hoar,
And an old hare hoar,
Is very good meat in Lent.
But a hare that is hoar
140 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 145Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell, lady, lady, lady.⌜Mercutio and Benvolio⌝ exit.NURSE I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his ropery?ROMEO A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself150 talk and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.NURSE An he speak anything against me, I’ll take him down, an he were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks. An if I cannot, I’ll find those that shall.155 Scurvy knave, I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates. ⌜To Peter.⌝ And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure.PETER I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had,160 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.
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NURSE Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part165 about me quivers. Scurvy knave! ⌜To Romeo.⌝ Pray you, sir, a word. And, as I told you, my young lady bid me inquire you out. What she bid me say, I will keep to myself. But first let me tell you, if you should lead her in a fool’s paradise, as they say, it170 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 175Nurse, 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 not180 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,185 And there she shall at Friar Lawrence’ cell Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.⌜Offering her money.⌝NURSE No, truly, sir, not a penny.ROMEO Go to, I say you shall.NURSE This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.ROMEO 190 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 topgallant of my joy Must be my convoy in the secret night.195 Farewell. Be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains. Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress.
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NURSE Now, God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.ROMEO What sayst thou, my dear nurse?NURSE Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say200 “Two may keep counsel, putting one away”?ROMEO 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 lay205 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 and210 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 you215 and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.ROMEO Commend me to thy lady.NURSE Ay, a thousand times.—Peter.PETER Anon.NURSE Before and apace.⌜They⌝ exit.
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