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:
Why that same pale hard-hearted wench, that 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:
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,
MERCUTIO:
Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead,
stabb'd 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:
More than Prince of Cats.
O he 's the courageous captain of compliments:
he fights as you sing pricksong, keeps time,
distance and proportion, he rests,
his minim rests, 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 hay.
MERCUTIO:
The pox of such antic lisping affecting fantasies,
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 pardon-mes,
who stand so much on the new form,
that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench.
O their bons, their bons.
BENVOLIO:
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
MERCUTIO:
Without his roe, like a dried herring,
O 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 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
ROMEO:
Good morrow to you both, what counterfeit did I give you?
MERCUTIO:
The 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 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:
Why then is my pump well flower'd.
MERCUTIO:
Sure wit, follow me in 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,
ROMEO:
O single-sol'd jest, solely singular for the singleness.
MERCUTIO:
Come between us good Benvolio, my wits 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 in one of thy wits,
than I am sure I have in all my 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:
Nay good goose bite not.
MERCUTIO:
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most sharp sauce.
ROMEO:
And it is not then well serv'd in to a sweet goose?
MERCUTIO:
O here 's a wit of cheveril,
that stretches from an inch narrow,
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 deceiv'd, 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 Peter her man.
ROMEO:
Here 's goodly gear. A sail, a sail.
MERCUTIO:
Two, two: a shirt and a smock.
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.
MERCUTIO:
'Tis no less I tell ye, 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, 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
than he was when you sought him:
I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
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.
<He walks by them and 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?
ROMEO:
I will follow you.
MERCUTIO:
Farewell ancient Lady, farewell Lady, Lady, Lady.
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 himself talk,
and will speak more in a minute,
than he will stand to in a month.
NURSE:
And a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him down,
and 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,
<she turns to Peter her man> 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,
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 vex'd,
that every part about me quivers, scurvy knave:
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 ye,
if ye should lead her in a fool's paradise, as they say,
it were a very gross kind of behaviour 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 offer'd to any gentlewoman,
ROMEO:
Nurse, commend me to thy Lady and Mistress,
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.
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell
Be shriv'd 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 topgallant 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:
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 noble-man in town one Paris,
that would fain lay knife aboard:
but she good soul had as lieve 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:
A 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: Peter.