For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Enter ROMEO. Rom. Good morrow, father! Benedicite! Fri. What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distemper'd head, So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruis'd youth with unstuff'd brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign: Therefore thy earliness doth me assure, Thou art up-rous'd by some distemp❜rature; Fri. Wast thou with Rosaline? Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no; I have forgot that name, and that name's woe. Fri. That's my good son: But where hast thou been then? Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. I have been feasting with mine enemy; Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. Rom. Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is set On the fair daughter of rich Capulet: As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine; And all combin'd, save what thou must combine Fri. Holy Saint Francis! what a change is here! And art thou chang'd? pronounce this sentence then Women may fall, when there's no strength in men. Fri Not in a gravē, Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she, whom I love 1 now, Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow; The other did not so. Fri. O, she knew well, For this alliance may so happy prove, To turn your households' rancour to pure love. Rom. O, let us hence; I stand on sudden haste. Fri. Wisely, and slow; they stumble, that run fast. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Street. Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO. Mer. Where should this Romeo be? Came he not home to-night? Ben. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man. Mer. Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. Mer. A challenge, on my life. Ben. Romeo will answer it. Mer. Any man, that can write, may answer a letter. Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, he dares, being dared. how Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabbed with a white girl's black eye; shot thorough 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? Ben. Why, what is Tybalt? Mer. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his minim rest one, two, and the third in bosom: the very your 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! Ben. The what? Mer. The plague of such antick, lisping, affecting fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents!- Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardonnez-moy's, who stand so much on the new form, that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O, their bons, their bons! · Enter ROMEO. Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring:-0 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 hér: Dido, a dowdy; Cleopatra, a gipsy; Thisbé, 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. 2 Rom. Good-morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you? * Arrow. 9 See the story of Reynard the fox. I Terms of the fencing school. 2 Trowsers or pantaloons, a French fashion in Shakspeare's time. Mer. The slip, sir, the slip; Can you not conceive? Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and, in such a case as mine, a man may strain courtesy. Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. Rom. Pink for flower. Mer. Right. 4 Rom. Why, then is my pump well flowered. Mer. 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, solely singular. Rom. O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness! Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits fail. Rom. Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match. Mer. 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? Rom. Thou wast never with me for any thing, when thou wast not there for the goose. Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest. Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter-sweeting'; it is a most sharp sauce. Rom. And is it not well served in to a sweet goose? Mer. O, here's a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad! Rom. I stretch it out for that word - broad: which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose. 3 A pun on counterfeit money called slips. 4 Shoe. • Soft stretching leather. s An apple. |