✓ SCENE III. Friar Laurence's Cell. Enter FRIAR LAURENCE, with a Basket. THE gray ey'd Morn smiles on the frowning Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light; With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers. None but for some, and yet all different. Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. Full soon the canker Death eats up that plant. Enter ROMEO. Rom. Good morrow, father! Benedicite! Fri. What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?— Young son, it argues a distemper'd head, So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where Care lodges, Sleep will never lie; But where unbruised Youth with unstuff'd brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden Sleep doth reign. Therefore thy earliness doth me assure, Thou art uprous'd by some distemp'rature; Or if not so, then here I hit it right Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night. Rom. That last is true, the sweeter rest was mine. Fri. God pardon sin! wast thou with Rosaline? Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father! no; I have forgot that name, and that name's woe. Fri. That's my good son. But where hast thou been then? Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again. Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift. Rom. 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; Fri. Holy Saint Francis! what a change is here! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. Fri. To lay one in, another out to have. Not in a grave Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she, whom I love now, Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow; The other did not so. Fri. For this alliance may so happy prove, fast. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Street. Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO. HERE the devil should this Romeo be? WH Came he not home to-night? Ben. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man. Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. Mer. A challenge, on my life. Ben. Romeo will answer it. Mer. Any man, that can write, may answer a letter. Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared. Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabbed with a white wench's black eye; shot thorough 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? Ben. Why what is Tybalt? Mer. More than prince of cats, I can tell you. Oh! he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me 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. Ab, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hay! Ben. The what? Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 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 bons, their bons! Enter ROMEO. Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. Mer. 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 be-rime her: Dido, a dowdy; Cleopatra, a gipsy; 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. Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you? Mer. The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive? Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and, in such a case as mine, a man may strain courtesy. Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. Rom. Meaning, to courtesy. Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it. Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. Mer. Right. Rom. Why, then my pump well flowered. Mer. 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. Rom. O single-soled jest! solely singular for the singleness. Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits |