Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO.
MERCUTIO
1 Where the devil should this Romeo be?
2 Came he not home tonight?
BENVOLIO
3 Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.
MERCUTIO
4 Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,
5 Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
BENVOLIO
6 Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
7 Hath sent a letter to his father's house.
MERCUTIO
8 A challenge, on my life.
BENVOLIO
9 Romeo will answer it.
MERCUTIO
10 Any man that can write may answer a letter.
BENVOLIO
11 Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he
12 dares, being dared.
MERCUTIO
13 Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead;
14 stabbed with a white wench's black eye; run through
15 the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart
16 cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft; and is he a
17 man to encounter Tybalt?
BENVOLIO
18 Why, what is Tybalt?
MERCUTIO
19 More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
20 the courageous captain of compliments. He fights
21 as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and
22 proportion; rests his minim rests, one, two, and the
23 third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button,
24 a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the very first
25 house, of the first and second cause: ah, the
26 immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hay!
BENVOLIO
27 The what?
MERCUTIO
28 The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
29 phantasimes; these new tuners of accents! "By Jesu,
30 a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
31 whore!" Why, is not this a lamentable thing,
32 grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange
33 flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardon-me's, who
34 stand so much on the new form, that they cannot sit at
35 ease on the old bench? O, their bones, their bones!
Enter ROMEO.
BENVOLIO
36 Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
MERCUTIO
37 Without his roe, like a dried herring: O flesh,
38 flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
39 that Petrarch flowed in. Laura to his lady was a
40 kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
41 be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
42 Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
43 eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo,
44 bon jour! there's a French salutation to your French
45 slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
ROMEO
46 Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I
47 give you?
MERCUTIO
48 The slip, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?
ROMEO
49 Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great;
50 and in such a case as mine a man may strain
51 courtesy.
MERCUTIO
52 That's as much as to say, such a case as yours
53 constrains a man to bow in the hams.
ROMEO
54 Meaning, to cur'sy.
MERCUTIO
55 Thou hast most kindly hit it.
ROMEO
56 A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO
57 Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
ROMEO
58 Pink for flower.
MERCUTIO
59 Right.
ROMEO
60 Why, then is my pump well flower'd.
MERCUTIO
61 Sure wit! Follow me this jest now till thou hast
62 worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it
63 is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing, solely
64 singular.
ROMEO
65 O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
66 singleness.
MERCUTIO
67 Come between us, good Benvolio; my
68 wits faint.
ROMEO
69 Swits and spurs, swits and spurs! or I'll cry
70 a match.
MERCUTIO
71 Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have
72 done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
73 thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five.
74 Was I with you there for the goose?
ROMEO
75 Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
76 not there for the goose.
MERCUTIO
77 I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
ROMEO
78 Nay, good goose, bite not.
MERCUTIO
79 Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
80 sharp sauce.
ROMEO
81 And is it not well served in to a sweet
82 goose?
MERCUTIO
83 O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
84 inch narrow to an ell broad!
ROMEO
85 I stretch it out for that word "broad"; which
86 added to the goose, proves thee far and wide
87 a broad goose.
MERCUTIO
88 Why, is not this better now than groaning
89 for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou
90 Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well
91 as by nature, for this drivelling love is like a great
92 natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his
93 bauble in a hole.
BENVOLIO
94 Stop there, stop there.
MERCUTIO
95 Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the
96 hair.
BENVOLIO
97 Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
MERCUTIO
98 O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:
99 for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and
100 meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.
ROMEO
101 Here's goodly gear!
Enter NURSE and her man [PETER].
102 A sail, a sail!
BENVOLIO
103 Two, two; a shirt and a smock.
Nurse
104 Peter!
PETER
105 Anon!
Nurse
106 My fan, Peter.
MERCUTIO
107 Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the
108 fairer face.
Nurse
109 God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
MERCUTIO
110 God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.
Nurse
111 Is it good den?
MERCUTIO
112 'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the
113 dial is now upon the prick of noon.
Nurse
114 Out upon you! what a man are you?
ROMEO
115 One, gentlewoman, that God hath made, for himself
116 to mar.
Nurse
117 By my troth, it is well said; "for himself to mar,"
118 quoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I
119 may find the young Romeo?
ROMEO
120 I can tell you; but young Romeo will be
121 older when you have found him than he was when you
122 sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault
123 of a worse.
Nurse
124 You say well.
MERCUTIO
125 Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;
126 wisely, wisely.
Nurse
127 If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence
128 with you.
BENVOLIO
129 She will indite him to some supper.
MERCUTIO
130 A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!
ROMEO
131 What hast thou found?
MERCUTIO
132 No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,
133 that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[Sings.]
134 An old hare hoar,
135 And an old hare hoar,
136 Is very good meat in Lent;
137 But a hare that is hoar
138 Is too much for a score,
139 When it hoars ere it be spent.
140 Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll
141 to dinner, thither.
ROMEO
142 I will follow you.
MERCUTIO
143 Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,
[Singing.]
144 "lady, lady, lady."
Exeunt [MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO].
Nurse
145 Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
146 merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?
ROMEO
147 A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,
148 and will speak more in a minute than he will stand
149 to in a month.
Nurse
150 An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him
151 down, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty
152 such Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.
153 Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am
154 none of his skains-mates. [To Peter.] And thou must
155 stand by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his
156 pleasure!
PETER
157 I saw no man use you at his pleasure; if I had, my
158 weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you.
159 I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion
160 in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.
Nurse
161 Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
162 me quivers. Scurvy knave! [To Romeo.] Pray you, sir,
163 a word: and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire
164 you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself.
165 But first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
166 a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
167 kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
168 is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double
169 with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
170 to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
ROMEO
171 Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I
172 protest unto thee—
Nurse
173 Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much.
174 Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.
ROMEO
175 What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark
176 me.
Nurse
177 I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as
178 I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
ROMEO
179 Bid her devise
180 Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;
181 And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell
182 Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.
Nurse
183 No truly sir; not a penny.
ROMEO
184 Go to; I say you shall.
Nurse
185 This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be
186 there.
ROMEO
187 And stay, good nurse— behind the abbey wall:
188 Within this hour my man shall be with thee
189 And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
190 Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
191 Must be my convoy in the secret night.
192 Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.
193 Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.
Nurse
194 Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.
ROMEO
195 What say'st thou, my dear nurse?
Nurse
196 Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,
197 Two may keep counsel, putting one away?
ROMEO
198 I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.
NURSE
199 Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady—Lord,
200 Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing:—O, there
201 is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain
202 lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief
203 see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her
204 sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer
205 man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks
206 as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not
207 rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?
ROMEO
208 Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.
Nurse
209 Ah. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for the
210 —No; I know it begins with some other letter:
211 —and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you
212 and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.
ROMEO
213 Commend me to thy lady.
Nurse
214 Ay, a thousand times.
[Exit Romeo.]
215 Peter!
PETER
216 Anon!
Nurse
217 Before and apace.
Exit [after Peter].
|