B: Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.
M: 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.
R: Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?
M: The ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?
R: Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in
such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.
M: That's as much as to say, such a case as yours
constrains a man to bow in the hams.
R: Meaning, to court'sy.
M: Thou hast most kindly hit it.
R: A most courteous exposition.
M: Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
R: Pink for flower.
M: Right.
R: Why, then is my pump well flowered.
M: 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.
R: O single-soled jest, solely singular for the
singleness.
M: Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.
R: Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.
M: 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?
R: Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
not there for the goose.
M: I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
R: Nay, good goose, bite not.
M: Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
sharp sauce.
R: And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
M: O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
inch narrow to an ell broad!
R: I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added
to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.
M: 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.
B: Stop there, stop there.
M: Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
B: Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
M: 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.
R: Here's goodly gear!
Enter Nurse and PETER
M: A sail, a sail!
B: Two, two; a shirt and a smock.
N: Peter!
P: Anon!
N: My fan, Peter.
M: Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the
fairer face.
N: God ye good morrow, gentlemen.
M: God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.
N: Is it good den?
M: 'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the
dial is now upon the prick of noon.
N: Out upon you! what a man are you!
R: One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.
N: 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?
R: 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.
N: You say well.
M: Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;
wisely, wisely.
N: if you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with
you.
B: She will indite him to some supper.
M: A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!
R: What hast thou found?
M: No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,
that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
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.
R: I will follow you.
M: Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady