Mercutio
Where the devil 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 wench, that Rosaline, torments him so that he will sure run mad.
Benvolio
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, 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
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 the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion. He rests his minim rest, 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. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay.
Benvolio
The what?
Mercutio
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; 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 the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O their bones, their bones!
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 but a kitchen wench, – marry, she had a better love to berhyme her: Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. 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 sir, 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 as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.
Romeo
Meaning, to curtsy.
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