And where the worser is predominant,

Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

ROMEO

Good morrow, father.

FRIAR LAURENCE Benedicite.

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?

Young son, it argues a distempered 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 unbruisèd youth with unstuffed brain

Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.

Therefore thy earliness doth me assure

Thou art uproused with some distemp’rature;

Or if not so, then here I hit it right:

Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.

ROMEO

That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

FRIAR LAURENCE

God pardon sin!—Wast thou with Rosaline?

ROMEO

With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No,

I have forgot that name and that name’s woe.

FRIAR LAURENCE

That’s my good son; but where hast thou been then?

ROMEO

I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.

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, blessed man, for lo,

My intercession likewise steads my foe.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift.

Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

ROMEO

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,

And all combined save what thou must combine

By holy marriage. When and where and how

We met, we wooed, and made exchange of vow

I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,

That thou consent to marry us today.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!

Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,

So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies

Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine

Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!

How much salt water thrown away in waste

To season love, that of it doth not taste!

The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears.

Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears.

Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit

Of an old tear that is not washed off yet.

If e’er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,

Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.

And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence then:

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.

ROMEO

Thou chidd’st me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAURENCE

For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROMEO

And bad’st me bury love.

FRIAR LAURENCE Not in a grave

To lay one in, another out to have.

ROMEO

I pray thee, chide me not. Her I love now

Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.

The other did not so.

FRIAR LAURENCE O, she knew well

Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.

But come, young waverer, come, go with me.

In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;

For this alliance may so happy prove

To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

ROMEO

O, let us hence! I stand on sudden haste.

FRIAR LAURENCE

Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast. Exeunt

2.3 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

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. is

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 pricksong: keeps time, distance, and proportion. He rests his minim rests: 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 puntoreverso, the hai.

BENVOLIO The what?

MERCUTIO The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting phantasims, 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 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. Signor 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? 45

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.