Act 2, Scene 4

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 rests, one, two, and the third in
your bosom--the very butcher of a silk button, a
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, affecting 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,
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 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 gray
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 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 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 into 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 driveling 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 her man 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 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 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 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, 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.
Singing. 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.

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 himself
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.
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,
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! [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, 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 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
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 sayst 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 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.

PETER
Anon.

NURSE
Before and apace.

They exit.

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