SCENE IV. A street. Romeo and Juliet  Shakespeare homepage  |  Romeo and Juliet  | Act 2, Scene 4 

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 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. 



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