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 homely in thy drift,

                        Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. (2.3.49-56)

The first line is straightforward – and the specific use of enemy is a timely reminder of the stakes here – but then Romeo swerves back into familiar conceits, perhaps in a self-mocking, ironic way? (Give him the benefit of the doubt.) What’s striking here is Romeo’s sharpness and playfulness as he leads the Friar on, suggesting at first that he’s been wounded by, and wounded, an enemy; the idea of holy physic is of course suggested by what the Friar’s just been saying about plants, and perhaps by the plants themselves (or the Friar’s chemistry lab, à la Postlethwaite, although the scene seems to be taking place outside the cell, as if Romeo has encountered the Friar while he’s out gathering his plants). But it’s holy physic, the full force of the adjective (all physic is holy, according to what the Friar has been arguing earlier) to be revealed in a moment. The idea of love as a wound is utterly conventional (Romeo and Benvolio have bantered about Cupid’s arrows in 1.1) but here it’s mutual (Rosaline would not be hit). And here’s much to do with love, not hate: Romeo is pleading on behalf of his enemy as well as himself. It’s not surprising that the Friar tells him to get on with it (and there might be a sense of, not all this poetic stuff again): if you don’t make yourself clear then how will I know how to help you? But it’s affectionate, playful, quite indulgent. And the next movement of the plot is about to be set in motion.