Benvolio and Mercutio (SLOW UPDATES)

Romeo's Dilemma

Benvolio smiled at Romeo as he passed, "Good morrow, cousin." Romeo seemed to snap out of his haze.

"Is the day so young?" He asked. Benvolio nodded as the church bell rang.

"But new struck nine." He announced.

"Ay me!" Romeo moaned. "Sad hours seem long. Was that my father that went hence so fast?" Benvolio nodded.

"It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?" Romeo sighed.

"Not having that which, having, makes them short." Ah, so he's in love again... Honestly, they should have guessed; it seemed every other week Romeo was madly in love with some poor maiden.

"In love?"

"Out." Benvolio furrowed his brow.

"Of love..?"

"Out of her favor, where I am in love." Romeo cried dramatically.

Benvolio nodded understandingly, "Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!"

"Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, should, without eyes, see pathways to his will! Where shall we dine?" Romeo cried. He seemed to notice Benvolio for the first time as he grabbed his arm. "O me! What fray was here?" Benvolio hadn't even noticed the slight splash of blood on his sleeve. "Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all." Romeo instructed, just as Benvolio opened his mouth to explain. "Here's much to do with hate but more with love. Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything of nothing first created! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh?"

"No, coz, I rather weep." Benvolio admitted. Romeo's eyes widened.

"Good heart, at what?"

"At thy good heart's oppression." Benvolio explained.

"Why, such is love's transgression. Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast, which thou wilt propagate, to have it pressed with more of thine. This love that thou hast shown doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet. Farewell, my coz." As much as Benvolio wanted to go to Mercutio he simply couldn't go in pure conscience. Not when Romeo was feeling so down.

"Soft! I will go along. And if you leave me so, you do me wrong." Romeo seemed to enter the haze over again.

"Tut, I have lost myself. I am not here. This is not Romeo. He's some other where."

"Tell me in sadness, who is that you love." Benvolio pressed.

"What, shall I groan and tell thee?" Romeo inquired.

"Groan! Why, no. But sadly, tell me who."

"A sick man in sadness makes his will, a word ill urged to one that is so ill. In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman." Benvolio sighed in exasperation.

"I aimed so near when I supposed you loved." He deadpanned. Romeo didn't notice his change in tone.

"A right good markman! And she's fair I love." He said dreamily.

"A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit." Benvolio assured him, though he himself did not believe his words.

"Well, in that hit you miss!" Romeo sighed again, "She'll not be hit with Cupid's arrow. She hath Diane's wit. And, in strong proof of chastity well armed from love's weak childish bow, she lives uncharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes, nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold. Oh, she is rich in beauty, only poor that when she dies, with beauty dies her store." Benvolio took a moment to process this information.

"Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?" Romeo nodded somberly.

"She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste, for beauty, starved with her severity, cuts beauty off from all posterity. She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair, to merit bliss by making me despair. She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow do I live dead that live to tell it now." He whined. Benvolio got an idea.

"Be ruled by me. Forget to think of her."

"O, teach me how I should forget to think!"

"By giving liberty unto thine eyes: Examine other beauties."

"'Tis the way to call hers exquisite, in question more. These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows, being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair. He that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost. Show me a mistress that is passing fair; what doth her beauty serve but as a note where I may read who passed that passing fair." He turned to Benvolio. "Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget." He started to walk away. Benvolio hurried to get into step with him.

"I'll pay that doctrine or else die in debt." He promised.