TPTT The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet: ACT II
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
PROLOGUE
SCENE I. A lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard.
SCENE II. Capulet's orchard.
SCENE III. Friar Laurence's cell.
SCENE IV. A street.
SCENE V. Capulet's orchard.
SCENE VI. Friar Laurence's cell.
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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.
5     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
10    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
15    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
20    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
25    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
30    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
35    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,
40    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
45    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
50    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
55    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
60    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
65    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
70    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
75    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
80    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?
85    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
90    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
95    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
100   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
105   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
110   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
115   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
120   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
125   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
130   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
135   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
140   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
145   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
150   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:
155   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
160   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
165   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
170   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
175   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;
180   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
185   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,
190   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
195   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
200   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
205   Ay, a thousand times.

Exit Romeo

      Peter!
PETER
      Anon!
Nurse
      Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.
Exeunt
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