ACT II — SCENE IV. A Street.

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, 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, being dared.

MERCUTIO.
Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead, 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.
More than Prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous captain of
compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance,
and proportion. He rests 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 hay.

BENVOLIO.
The what?

MERCUTIO.
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; 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, 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. O 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
berhyme her: Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings
and harlots; Thisbe a grey 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.
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 curtsy.

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.
Sure wit, 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, solely singular.

ROMEO.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!

MERCUTIO.
Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

ROMEO.
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs; or I’ll cry a match.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, if thy 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 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.
Nay, 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 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.

Enter Nurse and Peter.

ROMEO.
Here’s goodly gear!
A sail, a sail!

MERCUTIO.
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 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 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 endite 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, lady, lady, lady.

[_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]

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 anything 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.—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 vexed that every part about me quivers. Scurvy
knave. Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bid me
enquire you out; what she bade 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 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 Lawrence’ 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.
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. Peter!

[_Exit Romeo._]

PETER.
Anon.

NURSE.
Before and apace.

[_Exeunt._]