Romeo and Juliet Page #8

SCENE IV. A street.

Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO

MERCUTIO:

Where the devil should this Romeo be?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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!

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,

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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:

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.

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!

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:

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.

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.

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?

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.

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:

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

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,

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

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.

ROMEO:

I will follow you.

MERCUTIO:

Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,

Singing

Rate this script:4.0 / 11 votes