1    Where the devil should this Romeo be?
2    Came he not home to-night?

3    Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.

4    Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline.
5    Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

6    Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
7    Hath sent a letter to his father's house.

8    A challenge, on my life.

9    Romeo will answer it.

10   Any man that can write may answer a letter.

11   Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he
12   dares, being dared.

13   Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a
14   white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a
15   love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the
16   blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to
17   encounter Tybalt?

18   Why, what is Tybalt?

19   More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
20   the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
21   you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and
22   proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and
23   the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk
24   button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the
25   very first house, of the first and second cause:
26   ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the
27   hai!

28   The what?

29   The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting
30   fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu,
31   a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good
32   whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,
33   grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with
34   these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these
35   perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form,
36   that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their
37   bones, their bones!

38   Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.

39   Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh,
40   how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers
41   that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a
42   kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to
43   be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy;
44   Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey
45   eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
46   Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation
47   to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit
48   fairly last night.

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

50   The ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

51   Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in
52   such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

53   That's as much as to say, such a case as yours
54   constrains a man to bow in the hams.

55   Meaning, to court'sy.

56   Thou hast most kindly hit it.

57   A most courteous exposition.

58   Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

59   Pink for flower.

60   Right.

61   Why, then is my pump well flowered.

62   Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast
63   worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it
64   is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.

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

67   Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

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

69   Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have
70   done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
71   thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:
72   was I with you there for the goose?

73   Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
74   not there for the goose.

75   I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

76   Nay, good goose, bite not.

77   Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
78   sharp sauce.

79   And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?

80   O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
81   inch narrow to an ell broad!

82   I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added
83   to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.

84   Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
85   now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
86   thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
87   for this drivelling love is like a great natural,
88   that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

89   Stop there, stop there.

90   Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.

91   Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.

92   O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:
93   for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and
94   meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.

95   Here's goodly gear!

96   A sail, a sail!

97   Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

98   Peter!

99   Anon!

100  My fan, Peter.

101  Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the
102  fairer face.

103  God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

104  God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.

105  Is it good den?

106  'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the
107  dial is now upon the prick of noon.

108  Out upon you! what a man are you!

109  One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to
110  mar.

111  By my troth, it is well said; 'for himself to mar,'
112  quoth a'? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I
113  may find the young Romeo?

114  I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when
115  you have found him than he was when you sought him:
116  I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.

117  You say well.

118  Yea, is the worst well? very well took, i' faith;
119  wisely, wisely.

120  if you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with
121  you.

122  She will indite him to some supper.

123  A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! so ho!

124  What hast thou found?

125  No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie,
126  that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent.
Sings
127  An old hare hoar,
128  And an old hare hoar,
129  Is very good meat in lent
130  But a hare that is hoar
131  Is too much for a score,
132  When it hoars ere it be spent.
133  Romeo, will you come to your father's? we'll
134  to dinner, thither.

135  I will follow you.

136  Farewell, ancient lady; farewell,
Singing
137  'lady, lady, lady.'

138  Marry, farewell! I pray you, sir, what saucy
139  merchant was this, that was so full of his ropery?

140  A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk,
141  and will speak more in a minute than he will stand
142  to in a month.

143  An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him
144  down, an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such
145  Jacks; and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall.
146  Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am
147  none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand by
148  too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure?

149  I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon
150  should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare
151  draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a
152  good quarrel, and the law on my side.

153  Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
154  me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
155  and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you
156  out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:
157  but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
158  a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
159  kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
160  is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double
161  with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
162  to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.

163  Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I
164  protest unto thee--

165  Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much:
166  Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.

167  What wilt thou tell her, nurse? thou dost not mark me.

168  I will tell her, sir, that you do protest; which, as
169  I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.

170  Bid her devise
171  Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;
172  And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell
173  Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains.

174  No truly sir; not a penny.

175  Go to; I say you shall.

176  This afternoon, sir? well, she shall be there.

177  And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:
178  Within this hour my man shall be with thee
179  And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair;
180  Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
181  Must be my convoy in the secret night.
182  Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains:
183  Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.

184  Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.

185  What say'st thou, my dear nurse?

186  Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,
187  Two may keep counsel, putting one away?

188  I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.

189  Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady--Lord,
190  Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing:--O, there
191  is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain
192  lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief
193  see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her
194  sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer
195  man; but, I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks
196  as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not
197  rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?

198  Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.

199  Ah. mocker! that's the dog's name; R is for
200  the--No; I know it begins with some other
201  letter:--and she hath the prettiest sententious of
202  it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good
203  to hear it.

204  Commend me to thy lady.

205  Ay, a thousand times.
Exit Romeo
206  Peter!

207  Anon!

208  Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.