Act II, Scene 4

A street

[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 insuch a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

Mercutio - That's as much as to say, such a case as yoursconstrains 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 hastworn out thy pump, that when the single sole of itis worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.

Romeo - O single-soled jest, solely singular for thesingleness.

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 havedone, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one ofthy 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 wastnot 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 mostsharp sauce.

Romeo - And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?

Mercutio - O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from aninch narrow to an ell broad!

Romeo - I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which addedto 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 artthou 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; andmeant, 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]