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: Why that pale hard-hearted
wench, that Rosaline. Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
BENVOLIO: Tybalt 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: But alas poor Romeo,
he is already dead! Stabbed with a white wench's black eye; run
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. He is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; he
rests, his minim rests, 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: the immortal
passado! Punto reverso! The hai!
BENVOLIO: The what?
BENVOLIO: Here comes Romeo. Romeo!
ROMEO: Ho Ho, Capital Punks!
MERCUTIO: Signior Romeo, bonjour!
There's a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the
counterfeit fairly last night.
ROMEO: Good morrow to you both.
What counterfeit did I give you?
MERCUTIO: The slip, son, the slip;
can you not conceive?
ROMEO: Pardon, good Mercutio,
my business was great; and in such a case as mine a man may strain
courtesy.
MERCUTIO: That's as much to say,
such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
ROMEO: Meaning, to court'sy. MERCUTIO:
Thou hast most kindly hit it.
ROMEO: A most courteous exposition.
MERCUTIO: Nay, I am the very pink
of courtesy.
ROMEO: Pink for flower.
MERCUTIO: Right.
ROMEO: Why, then is my pump well
flowered?
MERCUTIO: Sure Witt! Now art thou
sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art
as well as by nature.
