Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO
MERCUTIO
Where the devil should this Romeo be?
MERCUTIO
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.
MERCUTIO
Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
BENVOLIO
Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
BENVOLIO
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
BENVOLIO
dares, being dared.
MERCUTIO
Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a
MERCUTIO
white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a
MERCUTIO
love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the
MERCUTIO
blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to
MERCUTIO
encounter Tybalt?
BENVOLIO
Why, what is Tybalt?
MERCUTIO
More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
MERCUTIO
the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
MERCUTIO
you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and
MERCUTIO
proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and
MERCUTIO
the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk
MERCUTIO
button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the
MERCUTIO
very first house, of the first and second cause:
MERCUTIO
ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the
MERCUTIO
The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
MERCUTIO
fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,
MERCUTIO
a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
MERCUTIO
whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,
MERCUTIO
grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with
MERCUTIO
these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
MERCUTIO
perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,
MERCUTIO
that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their
MERCUTIO
bones, their bones!
BENVOLIO
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
MERCUTIO
Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
MERCUTIO
how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
MERCUTIO
that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a
MERCUTIO
kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
MERCUTIO
be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
MERCUTIO
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
MERCUTIO
eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
MERCUTIO
Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation
MERCUTIO
to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit
MERCUTIO
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 in
ROMEO
such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
MERCUTIO
That's as much as to say, such a case as yours
MERCUTIO
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 flowered.
MERCUTIO
Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast
MERCUTIO
worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it
MERCUTIO
is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.
ROMEO
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
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 have
MERCUTIO
done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
MERCUTIO
thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:
MERCUTIO
was I with you there for the goose?
ROMEO
Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
ROMEO
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
ROMEO
And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
MERCUTIO
O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
MERCUTIO
inch narrow to an ell broad!
ROMEO
I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added
ROMEO
to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.
MERCUTIO
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
MERCUTIO
now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
MERCUTIO
thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
MERCUTIO
for this drivelling love is like a great natural,
MERCUTIO
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:
MERCUTIO
for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and
MERCUTIO
meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.
ROMEO
Here's goodly gear!
