Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 4
A street.
Mercutio : Where the devil should this Romeo be?
[p]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.
[p]Torments him
so, that he will sure run mad.
Benvolio : Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
[p]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
[p]dares, being
dared.
Mercutio : Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a
[p]white wench's
black eye; shot through the ear with a
[p]love-song; the very pin of
his heart cleft with the
[p]blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a
man to
[p]encounter Tybalt?
Benvolio : Why, what is Tybalt?
Mercutio : More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
[p]the courageous
captain of compliments. He fights as
[p]you sing prick-song, keeps
time, distance, and
[p]proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two,
and
[p]the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk
[p]button,
a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the
[p]very first house, of the
first and second cause:
[p]ah, the immortal passado! the punto
reverso! the
[p]hai!
Benvolio : The what?
Mercutio : The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
[p]fantasticoes; these new
tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,
[p]a very good blade! a very tall man! a
very good
[p]whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable
thing,
[p]grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with
[p]these
strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
[p]perdona-mi's, who stand
so much on the new form,
[p]that they cannot at ease on the old bench?
O, their
[p]bones, their bones!
Benvolio : Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
Mercutio : Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
[p]how art thou
fishified! Now is he for the numbers
[p]that Petrarch flowed in: Laura
to his lady was but a
[p]kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love
to
[p]be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
[p]Helen and Hero
hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
[p]eye or so, but not to the
purpose. Signior
[p]Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation
[p]to
your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit
[p]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
[p]such a case as
mine a man may strain courtesy.
Mercutio : That's as much as to say, such a case as yours
[p]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 : Pink for flower.
Mercutio : Right.
Romeo : Why, then is my pump well flowered.
Mercutio : Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast
[p]worn out thy
pump, that when the single sole of it
[p]is worn, the jest may remain
after the wearing sole singular.
Romeo : O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
[p]singleness.
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
[p]done, for thou
hast more of the wild-goose in one of
[p]thy wits than, I am sure, I
have in my whole five:
[p]was I with you there for the goose?
Romeo : Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
[p]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
[p]sharp sauce.
Romeo : And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
Mercutio : O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
[p]inch narrow to
an ell broad!
Romeo : I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added
[p]to the goose,
proves thee far and wide a broad goose.
Mercutio : Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
[p]now art thou
sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
[p]thou what thou art, by art as
well as by nature:
[p]for this drivelling love is like a great
natural,
[p]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:
[p]for I was come to
the whole depth of my tale; and
[p]meant, indeed, to occupy the
argument no longer.
Romeo : Here's goodly gear!
Mercutio : A sail, a sail!
Benvolio : 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
[p]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 you, for the bawdy hand of the
[p]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
[p]mar.
Nurse : By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'
[p]quoth a'?
Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I
[p]may find the young
Romeo?
Romeo : I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when
[p]you have found
him than he was when you sought him:
[p]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;
[p]wisely, wisely.
Nurse : if you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with
[p]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,
[p]that is
something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[p][Sings]
[p]An old hare
hoar,
[p]And an old hare hoar,
[p]Is very good meat in lent
[p]But a
hare that is hoar
[p]Is too much for a score,
[p]When it hoars ere it
be spent.
[p]Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll
[p]to
dinner, thither.
Romeo : I will follow you.
Mercutio : Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,
[p][Singing]
[p]'lady, lady, lady.'
Nurse : Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
[p]merchant was this,
that was so full of his ropery?
Romeo : A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,
[p]and will speak
more in a minute than he will stand
[p]to in a month.
Nurse : An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him
[p]down, an a' were
lustier than he is, and twenty such
[p]Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll
find those that shall.
[p]Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills;
I am
[p]none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by
[p]too, and
suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?
Peter : I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon
[p]should quickly
have been out, I warrant you: I dare
[p]draw as soon as another man,
if I see occasion in a
[p]good quarrel, and the law on my side.
Nurse : Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
[p]me quivers.
Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
[p]and as I told you, my young
lady bade me inquire you
[p]out; what she bade me say, I will keep to
myself:
[p]but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
[p]a
fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
[p]kind of
behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
[p]is young; and,
therefore, if you should deal double
[p]with her, truly it were an ill
thing to be offered
[p]to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
Romeo : Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I
[p]protest unto thee--
Nurse : Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:
[p]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
[p]I take it, is
a gentlemanlike offer.
Romeo : Bid her devise
[p]Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;
[p]And
there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell
[p]Be shrived 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:
[p]Within this hour my
man shall be with thee
[p]And bring thee cords made like a tackled
stair;
[p]Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
[p]Must be my convoy
in the secret night.
[p]Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy
pains:
[p]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,
[p]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,
[p]Lord! when 'twas
a little prating thing:--O, there
[p]is a nobleman in town, one Paris,
that would fain
[p]lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as
lief
[p]see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her
[p]sometimes
and tell her that Paris is the properer
[p]man; but, I'll warrant you,
when I say so, she looks
[p]as pale as any clout in the versal world.
Doth not
[p]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
[p]the--No; I know it
begins with some other
[p]letter:--and she hath the prettiest
sententious of
[p]it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you
good
[p]to hear it.
Romeo : Commend me to thy lady.
Nurse : Ay, a thousand times.
[p][Exit Romeo]
[p]Peter!
Peter : Anon!
Nurse : Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.
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Next: Act 2 - Scene 5
