Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Erin Sadlack
Not Peer Reviewed

Romeo and Juliet (Modern, Quarto 2)

[Scene 8/II.iii]
1105Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.
Mercutio
Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?
Benvolio
Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.
Mercutio
Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, 1110Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
Benvolio
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father's house.
Mercutio
A challenge, on my life.
Benvolio
Romeo will answer it.
1115Mercutio
Any man that can write may answer a letter.
Nay, he will answer the letter's master how he dares, being dared.
Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench's black eye, run through the ear with a love 1120song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?
Why, what is Tybalt?
More than Prince of Cats. O, he's the courageous 1125captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance and proportion; he rests his minum rests, one two, and 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 1130reverso, the hay!
The what?
The pox of such antic lisping affecting fantasticos, these new tuners of accent! By Jesu, a very good blade, a very tall man, a very good whore! Why, is not this a lamentable thing, 1135grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these "pardon-me"'s, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench. O, their bones, their bones!
1140Enter Romeo.
Here comes Romeo; here comes Romeo!
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified? Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura to his lady was a kitchen wench--marry, 1145she had a better love to berhyme her--Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, Thisbe a gray eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signor Romeo, bonjour, there's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?
Pardon, good Mercutio,my business was great, and in 1155such a case as mine, a man may strain courtesy.
That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
Meaning, to curtsy.
Thou hast most kindly hit it.
A most courteous exposition.
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
Pink for flower.
Right.
Why, then is my pump well flowered.
Sure wit, 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, solely singular.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!
Come between us, good Benvolio, my wits faints.
Switch and spurs, switch and spurs, or I'll cry a match.
Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done. 1175For thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits, than I am sure I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?
Thou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not there for the goose.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
Nay, good goose, bite not.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.
And is it not then well served into a sweet goose?
O, here's a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad.
I stretch it out for that word "broad," which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now 1190art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo, now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature, for this driveling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
Stop there, stop there.
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair?
Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
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.
Here's goodly gear. Enter Nurse and her man, Peter.
A sail, a sail!
Two, two! A shirt and a smock.
Peter!
Anon.
My fan, Peter.
Good Peter, to hide her face, for her fan's the fairer face.
[To Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio]God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
God ye good e'en, fair gentlewoman.
Is it good e'en?
'Tis no less I tell ye, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.
Out upon you! What a man are you?
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made, himself to mar.
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?
I can tell you, but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
You say well.
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i'faith, wisely, wisely.
If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.
She will indite him to some supper.
A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!
What hast thou found?
No hare, sir, unless a hare, sir, in a Lenten pie, 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.
1235But 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.
I will follow you.
Farewell, ancient lady, farewell lady, [sings] "lady, lady."
Exeunt [Mercutio and Benvolio].
I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his ropery?
A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.
And 'a speak anything against me, I'll take him down an 'a were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks, and if I 1250cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave, I am none of his flirt gills, I am none of his skains-mates.--[To Peter] And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?
I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my weapon 1255should 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.
Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! [To Romeo]Pray you, sir, a word. And as I told you, 1260my young lady bid me inquire you out; what she bid me say, I will keep to myself, but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in 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 1265thing to be offered to any gentlewoman and very weak dealing.
Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress, I protest unto thee.
Good heart, and i'faith I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord, 1270she will be a joyful woman.
What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me.
I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
Bid her devise some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell
Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.
[Offers her money.]
No. Truly, sir, not a penny.
Go to, I say you shall.[Nurse accepts the money.]
This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.
And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall
Within this hour my man shall be with thee
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,
Which to the high topgallant of my joy
1285Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell, be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.
Farewell, commend me to thy mistress.
Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.
What sayst thou, my dear Nurse?
Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say: "Two may keep counsel, putting one away"?
Warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.
Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord, Lord, when 'twas a litle prating thing.--O, there is a nobleman in town, 1295one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard, but she, good soul, had as lief 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 1300letter?
Ay, Nurse, what of that? Both with an R.
A 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 1305to hear it.
Commend me to thy lady.[Exit Romeo]
Ay, a thousand times.--[To Peter] Peter.
Anon.
Before and apace.