Faculty of English

NURSE            Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir. ROMEO           What say’st thou, my dear Nurse? NURSE            Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say,                         ‘Two may keep counsel, putting one away’? ROMEO           ’Warrant thee, my man’s as true as steel. NURSE            Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady—Lord, Lord! when […]

ROMEO           Bid her devise                         Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,                         And there she shall at Friar Lawrence’ cell                         Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains. NURSE            No truly sir, not a penny. ROMEO           Go to, I say you shall. NURSE            This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there. […]

NURSE            Now afore God, I am so vexed that every part of me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bid me enquire you out; what she bid me say, I will keep to myself. But first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her […]

NURSE            I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his ropery? ROMEO           A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month. NURSE            And ’a speak any thing against me, I’ll take him down, and […]

BENVOLIO      She will indite him to some supper. MERCUTIO     A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho! ROMEO           What hast thou found? MERCUTIO     No hare, sir, unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar ere it be spent. [He walks by them and sings.] An old hare hoar, And […]

NURSE            Out upon you, what a man are you? ROMEO           One, gentlewoman, that God hath made, himself to mar. NURSE            By my troth, it is well said: ‘for himself to mar’, quoth’a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo? ROMEO           I can tell you, but young Romeo will […]

ROMEO           Here’s goodly gear! EnterNURSE and her man[PETER] A sail, a sail! MERCUTIO     Two, two: a shirt and a smock. NURSE            Peter! PETER                        Anon. NURSE            My fan, Peter. MERCUTIO     Good Peter, to hide her face, for her fan’s the fairer face. NURSE            God ye good morrow, gentlemen. MERCUTIO     God ye good den, fair gentlewoman. NURSE            […]

MERCUTIO     O here’s a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad! ROMEO           I stretch it out for that word ‘broad’, which, added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose. MERCUTIO     Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now […]

MERCUTIO     Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am 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? ROMEO           Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast […]

MERCUTIO     Come between us, good Benvolio, my wits faints. ROMEO           Swits and spurs, swits and spurs, or I’ll cry a match. (2.4.57-8) I’m taking this very short exchange not because it’s particularly complicated, but because it’s reasonably self-contained, and the bit that follows is not. Mercutio is protesting as if he and Romeo are duelling, […]