Act+2,+Scene+4+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// '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. **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 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. **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 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. **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. **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 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: 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: 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? **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 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? **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 to hear it. **ROMEO** Commend me to thy lady. **Nurse** Ay, a thousand times. //Exit Romeo// Peter! **PETER** Anon! **Nurse** Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace. //Exeunt//
 * SCENE IV. A street.**