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 as to say, such as case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. ROMEO           Meaning to cur’sy. MERCUTIO     Thou hast most kindly hit it. ROMEO           A most courteous […]

Enter ROMEO. BENVOLIO      Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. MERCUTIO     Without his roe, like a dried herring: O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura to his lady was a kitchen wench (marry, she had a better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a […]

MERCUTIO     The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting phantasimes, these new tuners of accent! ‘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 pardon-me’s, who stand so much on […]

MERCUTIO     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. O, he’s […]

[2.4] Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO MERCUTIO     Where the dev’l should this Romeo be?                         Came he not home tonight? BENVOLIO      Not to his father’s, I spoke with his man. MERCUTIO     Why, that same pale hard-hearted wretch, that Rosaline,                         Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. BENVOLIO      Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,                         Hath […]

ROMEO           Thou chid’st me oft for loving Rosaline. FRIAR              For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. ROMEO           And bad’st me bury love. FRIAR                                                              Not in a grave,                         To lay one in, another out to have. ROMEO           I pray thee chide me not. Her I love now                         Doth grace for grace and love for […]

FRIAR              Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!                         Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,                         So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies                         Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.                         Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine                         Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!                         How […]

ROMEO           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 combined, save what thou must combine                         By holy marriage. When and where and how                         We met, we wooed, and made exchange […]

ROMEO           I have been feasting with mine enemy,                         Where on a sudden one hath wounded me                         That’s by me wounded; both our remedies                         Within thy help and holy physic lies.                         I bear no hatred, blessèd man; for lo,                         My intercession likewise steads my foe. FRIAR              Be plain, good son, and […]

FRIAR              Therefore thy earliness doth me assure                         Thou art uproused with with some distemp’rature;                         Or if not so, then here I hit it right,                         Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight. ROMEO           That last is true, the sweeter rest was mine. FRIAR              God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline? ROMEO           With […]