Romeo & Juliet - Act 2 Scene 4
A street.
Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO
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
Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,
Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.
BENVOLIO
Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet,
Hath sent a letter to his father's house.
MERCUTIO
A challenge, on my life.
By this point, Mercutio and Benvolio may be honestly worried about Romeo, or they may be more annoyed with him (or one of each).
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, shot 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 reminds the audience of the looming threat represented by Tybalt, whom we last saw swearing revenge on Romeo. We get some more detail here, learning that Tybalt is a deadly antagonist and master swordsman.
MERCUTIO
More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is
the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as
you sing pricksong – keeps time, distance, and
proportion; rests me his minim rests, one, two, and
the third in your bosom; the very butcher of a silk
button, a duelist, a duelist; a gentleman of the
very first house, of the first and second cause.
Ah, the immortal passado! The punto reverso! The hai!
BENVOLIO
The what?
Mercutio objects to Tybalt on stylistic grounds: Tybalt represents the fashionable and new-fangled, as opposed to Mercutio's more classical tastes.
MERCUTIO
The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes;
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 perdona-mi'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 mocks Romeo's poetic vein, imagining him comparing Rosaline to the great beauties of legend, history, and poetry.
MERCUTIO
Without his roe, like a dried herring: 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 gypsy,
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, Thisbe a grey eye
or so, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour!
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?
Mercutio and Romeo once more launch into a contest of wordplay and puns, this time in prose.
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
Right.
ROMEO
Why, then is my pump well flowered.
MERCUTIO
Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast
worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it
is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing solely
singular.
ROMEO
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness.
The details of the intricate wordplay here are hard to reproduce, and hard to follow. The fun is in watching the back-and-forth, and in seeing the now-fully-engaged Romeo prove more than a match for Mercutio.
MERCUTIO
Come between us, good Benvolio, my wits faint.
ROMEO
Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.
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 not there for the goose.
MERCUTIO
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
ROMEO
Nay, good goose, bite not.
MERCUTIO
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.
ROMEO
And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?
MERCUTIO
O here's a wit of cheveril, 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 is thrilled to have his friend back to form, and makes no inquiries as to how this change came about. Perhaps he assumes that Romeo took his advice, and managed to sleep with Rosaline.
MERCUTIO
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature. For this
driveling love is like a great natural, that runs lolling
up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
BENVOLIO
Stop there, stop there.
MERCUTIO
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
BENVOLIO
Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
MERCUTIO
O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short;
for I was come to the whole depth of my tale, and
meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.
ROMEO
Here's goodly gear!
Enter Nurse and PETER
Romeo ought to remember the Nurse from the previous night, but cannot interfere in the teasing without raising questions about his relationship to Juliet.
MERCUTIO
A sail, a sail!
BENVOLIO
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.
Mercutio's quibble tells us that the time is now past noon, while also setting up his lewd joke.
Nurse
Is it good den?
MERCUTIO
'Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand of the dial
is now upon the prick of noon.
Nurse
Out upon you! What a man are you!
ROMEO
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for 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?
Though Romeo protects the Nurse somewhat from Mercutio, he joins in the mockery as well, though in a gentler vein.
ROMEO
I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when
you have found him than he was when you sought
him: I am the youngest of that name, for fault of a worse.
Nurse
You say well.
MERCUTIO
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i' faith;
wisely, wisely.
Nurse
If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.
BENVOLIO
She will invite 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.
Mercutio's song, punning on "hoar" and "whore" and "hare" and "hair," suggests a view of the Nurse as both sexually loose and old. It's hard to tell which would offend her more.
Sings
An old hare hoar,
And an old hare hoar,
Is very good meat in Lent;
But a hare that is hoar
Is too much for a score,
When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo, will you come to your father's? We'll to
dinner thither.
ROMEO
I will follow you.
MERCUTIO
Farewell, ancient lady, farewell,
Singing
'lady, lady, lady.'
Exeunt MERCUTIO and BENVOLIO
Nurse
Marry, farewell! 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.
In public, the Nurse appears to adopt a more formal persona, coming off as surprisingly prudish, and offended at Mercutio's sexually-charged slang.
Nurse
An a' speak any thing against me, I'll take him down,
an a' were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks;
and if I cannot, I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave!
I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates.
And thou must stand by too, and suffer every knave to
use me at his pleasure?
Peter continues the tradition of comic Capulet servants, and repeats the quibble on "weapon" as a stand-in for both sword and penis.
PETER
I saw no man use you a pleasure; if I had, my weapon
should quickly have been out, I warrant you: I dare
draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a
good quarrel, and the law on my side.
Nurse
Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me
quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you
out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself;
but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of
behavior, as they say. For the gentlewoman is young;
and, therefore, if you should deal double with her,
truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any
gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
In counterpoint to Friar Lawrence, the Nurse flits from topic to topic, hardly letting Romeo finish a thought or get a word in.
ROMEO
Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress.
I protest unto thee—
Nurse
Good heart, and, i' faith, I will tell her as much.
Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.
ROMEO
What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me.
Nurse
I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take
it, is a gentlemanlike offer.
ROMEO
Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;
And there she shall at Friar Laurence' 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.
This conversation prepares us for two later scenes: the marriage, and the wedding-night climb to the balcony, neither of which will actually appear on stage.
ROMEO
And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall.
Within this hour my man shall be with thee
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,
Which to the high top-gallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell; be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.
Even as he prepares for the wedding, Romeo is already making plans for his wedding night.
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
I warrant thee, my man's as true as steel.
Again, the dialogue reminds us of looming threats, in this case the Paris subplot, which hasn't been mentioned since 1.3. Though we won't see Paris until a good deal later, Shakespeare calls our attention to the play's mounting complications.
NURSE
Well, sir; my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord,
Lord! When 'twas a little prating thing – O, there
is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain
lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see
a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes
and tell her that Paris is the properer man; but,
I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as
any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary
and Romeo begin both with a letter?
ROMEO
Ay, Nurse; what of that? Both with an R.
Also in counterpoint to Friar Lawrence, the Nurse is gushingly enthusiastic about the upcoming marriage, and demonstrates her comic lack of education.
Nurse
Ah. mocker! That's the dog's name; R is for the –
No; I know it begins with some other letter –
and she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and
rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.
ROMEO
Commend me to thy lady.
Nurse
Ay, a thousand times.
Exit Romeo
Peter!
PETER
Anon!
Nurse
Peter, take my fan, and go before and apace.
Exeunt