romeo and Juliet

A,2 SCENE 4

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.

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.