Act II, Scene 4

A street.

[Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO]

• Mercutio. Where the devil should this Romeo be?
  Came he not home to-night? 1160

• Benvolio. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.

• Mercutio. Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline.
  Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

• Benvolio. Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
  Hath sent a letter to his father's house. 1165

• 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. 1170

• Mercutio. Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a
  white wench's black eye; shot 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? 1175

• Benvolio. Why, what is Tybalt?

• Mercutio. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
  the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
  you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and
  proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and 1180
  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
  hai! 1185

• Benvolio. The what?

• Mercutio. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
  fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,
  a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
  whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing, 1190
  grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with
  these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
  perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,
  that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their
  bones, their bones! 1195

[Enter ROMEO]

• Benvolio. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.

• Mercutio. Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
  how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
  that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a 1200
  kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
  be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
  Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
  eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
  Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation 1205
  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 ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

• Romeo. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in 1210
  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 court'sy.

• Mercutio. Thou hast most kindly hit it. 1215

• 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. 1220

• Mercutio. Well said: 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 sole singular.

• Romeo. O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
  singleness. 1225

• 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
  done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
  thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five: 1230
  was I with you there for the goose?

• Romeo. Thou wast never with me for any thing 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. 1235

• Mercutio. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
  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
  inch narrow to an ell broad! 1240

• 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: 1245
  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. 1250

• 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.

• Romeo. Here's goodly gear!

[Enter Nurse and PETER]

• Mercutio. A sail, a sail!

• Benvolio. Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

• Nurse. Peter!

• Peter. Anon!

• Nurse. My fan, Peter. 1260

• 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? 1265

• 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 for himself to
  mar. 1270

• 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: 1275
  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 1280
  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, 1285
  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 1290
  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. 1295

• Romeo. I will follow you.

• Mercutio. Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,
  [Singing]
  'lady, lady, lady.'

[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO]

• Nurse. Marry, farewell! 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. 1305

• Nurse. An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him
  down, an 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 1310
  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
  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. 1315

• 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 bade me inquire you
  out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:
  but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into 1320
  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. 1325

• 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. 1330

• 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 Laurence' cell 1335
  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: 1340
  Within this hour my man shall be with thee
  And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
  Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
  Must be my convoy in the secret night.
  Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains: 1345
  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? 1350

• 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 1355
  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? 1360

• 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 1365
  to hear it.

• Romeo. Commend me to thy lady.

• Nurse. Ay, a thousand times.
  [Exit Romeo]
  Peter! 1370

• Peter. Anon!

• Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.

[Exeunt]