Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Roger Apfelbaum
Peer Reviewed

Romeo and Juliet (Quarto 2, 1599)

of Romeo and Iuliet.
Doth grace for grace, and loue for loue allow:
1095The other did not so.
Fri. O she knew well,
Thy loue did reade by rote, that could not spell:
But come young wauerer, come go with me,
In one respect ile thy assistant be:
1100For this alliance may so happie proue,
To turne your housholds rancor to pure loue.
Ro. O let vs hence, I stand on sudden hast.
Fri. Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.
Exeunt.
1105 Enter Benuolio and Mercutio.

Mer. Where the deule should this Romeo be? came hee not
home to night?
Ben. Not to his fathers, I spoke with his man.
Mer. Why that same pale hard hearted wench, that Rosaline,
1110Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
Ben. Tibalt, the kisman to old Capulet, hath sent a leter to his
fathers house.
Mer. A challenge on my life.
Ben. Romeo will answere it.
1115Mer. Any man that can write may answere a letter.
Ben. Nay, he wil answere the letters maister how he dares, be-
ing dared.
Mercu. Alas poore Romeo, he is alreadie dead, stabd with a
white wenches blacke eye, runne through the eare with a loue
1120song, the very pinne of his heart, cleft with the blinde
bowe-boyes but-shaft, and is hee a man to encounter Ty-
balt?
Ro. Why what is Tybalt?
Mer. More then Prince of Cats. Oh hees the couragious
1125captain of Complements: he fights as you sing pricksong, keeps
time, distance & proportion, he rests, his minum rests, one two,
and the third in your bosome : the very butcher of a silke but-
ton, a dualist a dualist, a gentleman of the very first house of the
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