If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.

And art thou chang'd? pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when there's no strength in men.

Rom. Thou chidd'st me oft for loving Rofaline.
Fri. For doating, not for loving, Pupil mine.
Rom. And bad'st me bury love.

Fri. Not in a Grave,

To lay one in, another out to have..

Rom. I pray thee, chide not: she, whom I love

now,

Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow :
The other did not fo.

Fri. Oh, she knew well,

Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell.
But come, young waverer, come and go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be:

For this alliance may so happy prove,

To turn your houshold-rancour to pure love.

Rom. O let us hence, I stand on fudden haste.

Fri. Wisely and flow; they stumble, that run faft.

[Exeunt.

Mer.

SCENE IV.

Changes to the STREET.

Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.

WHERE the devil should this Romeo

not home to-night?

be?

Ben. Not to his father's, I spoke with his man. Mer. Why, that same pale, hard-hearted, wench;

that Rofaline,

Torments him so, that he will, sure, run mad.

Ben.

Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,
Hath fent a letter to his father's house.
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 dar'd.

Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white wench's black eye, run through the ear with a love-fong; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's but-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt!

Ben. Why, what is Tybalt ?

Mer. More than prince of cats ?-Oh, he's the * courageous captain of compliments; he fights as you fing prick'd fongs, keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests his minum, one, two, and the third in your bosom; the very butcher of a silk button, a duellift, a duellist; 5 a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause; ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverfo, the, hay!

Ben. The what?

Mer. The pox of such antick, lifping, affected phantasies, these new tuners of accents :-" A very

66

good blade!-- a very tall man! - a very good "whore!" Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandfire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, & these pardonnezmoy's, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot fit at ease on the old bench? O, their bon's, their bon's!

Enter Romeo.

Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.

Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. Ο 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, the had a better love to berhyme her; Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gipfy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots: Thisbé a grey eye or fo, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bonjour; there's a French salutation to your French Slop. You gave us the contrefait fairly last night.

Rom. Good-morrow to you both: What counterfeit did I give you ?

Mer. The flip, Sir, the flip: 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, fuch a cafe as yours

constrains a man to bow in the hams.

Rom. Meaning, to curt'sy.

Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.

Rom. A most courteous exposition.

Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.
Rom. Pink for flower.

Mer. Right.

Rom. Why, then is my pump well flower'd. Mer. Sure wit-follow me this jest, now, till thou haft worn out thy pump, that when the fingle fole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after the wearing, folely fingular.

Rom. O fingle-fol'd jest,

Solely fingular, for the singleness!

Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio, my wit faints. Rom. Switch and spurs,

Switch and spurs, or-I'll cry a match.

Mer. 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 fure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goofe ?

Rom. Thou wast never with me for any thing, when thou wast not there for the goose.

Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not.

Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting,

It is a most sharp sauce.

Rom. And is it not well serv'd in to a sweet goofe ? Mer. O, here's a wit of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad.

Rom. I stretch it out for that word broad, which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goofe.

Mer. Why, is not this better, than groaning for love? Now thou art sociable; now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art, as well as by nature; for this drivelling love is like a great Natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

Ben. Stop there, stop there.

Mer. Thou defirest me to stop in my tale, againft the hair.

Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large. Mer. O, thou art deceiv'd, I would have made it short; for I was come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant, indeed, to occupy the argument longer.

Enter Nurse, and Peter her Man.

Rom. Here's goodly Geer; a Sail! a Sail!

Mer. Two, two, a Shirt and a Smock.

Nurse. Peter,

Peter. Anon ?

Nurse. My Fan, Peter.

no

Mer. Do, good Peter, to hide her face for her

fan's the fairer of the two.

Nurse. God ye good-morrow, gentlemen.

Mer. God ye good den, fair gentlewoman.

Nurse. Is it good den ?

Mer. '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 mam are you? Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made himfelf to mar.

Nurse. By my troth, it is well faid. For himself to mar, quotha? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo.

Rom. I can tell you. But young Romeo will be older when you have found him, than he was when

you