A Street.
 Enter 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,
	Torments 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.

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, run 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. O, he's the courageous captain of 
	compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song: keeps time, 
	distance, and proportion; he rests his minim 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 reverso, the hay!

Benvolio	The what?

Mercutio	The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes, 
	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, grandsire, 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!

                               Enter ROMEO.

Benvolio	Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!

Mercutio	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, 
	she had a better love to berhyme her - Dido a dowdy; 
	Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; 
	Thisbe a grey 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.

Romeo	Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

Mercutio	The slip, 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 curtsy.

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	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.

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

Mercutio	Come between us, good Benvolio; my wit faints.

Romeo	Switch and spurs, switch and spurs, or I'll cry a match.

Mercutio	Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am 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 anything 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 then 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.

                      Enter NURSE and her man PETER.

Romeo	Here's goodly gear.

Benvolio	A sail! A sail!

Mercutio	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 e'en, fair gentlewoman.

Nurse	Is it good e'en?

Mercutio	'Tis no less, I tell ye; 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 endite 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,
								[Sings.] Lady, lady, lady.
											[Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO.

Nurse	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 anything against me I'll take him down, and 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 skaines-mates.
	[To PETER.] And thou must stand by too, and suffer every 
	knave to use me at his pleasure!

Peter	I saw no man use you at his 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 bid me enquire 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 behaviour, 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 sayst 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. Peter!
											[Exit ROMEO.
Peter	Anon.

Nurse	Before, and apace.
											[Exeunt.
