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A street in Verona. Not many people are out due to the heat of midday. There are vendors lining the plaza. |
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Enter BENVOLIO and MERCUTIO |
| Mercutio |
Where the devil should this Romeo be? |
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Came he not home to-night? |
| Benvolio |
Not to his father's; I spoke with his man. |
| Mercutio |
Ah, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline. |
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Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. |
| Benvolio |
Tybalt, the kinsman of old Capulet, |
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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 |
| Mercutio |
Alas poor Romeo! he is already dead; stabbed with a |
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white wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a |
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love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the |
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blind bow-boy's butt-shaft: and is he a man to |
| Benvolio |
Why, what is Tybalt? |
| Mercutio |
More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is |
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the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as |
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you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance, and |
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proportion; rests me his minim rest, one, two, and |
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the third in your bosom: the very butcher of a silk |
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button, a duellist, a duellist; a gentleman of the |
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very first house, of the first and second cause: |
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ah, the immortal passado! the punto reverso! the hai! |
| Mercutio |
The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting |
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fantasticoes; these new tuners of accents! 'By Jesu, |
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a very good blade! a very tall man! a very good |
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whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing, |
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grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with |
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these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these |
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perdona-mi's, who stand so much on the new form, |
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that they cannot at ease on the old bench? O, their |
| Benvolio |
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. |
| Mercutio |
Without his roe, like a dried herring: flesh, flesh, |
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how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers |
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that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a |
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kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to |
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be-rhyme her; Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gipsy; |
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Helen and Hero hildings and harlots; Thisbe a grey |
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eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior |
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Romeo, bon jour! there's a French salutation |
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to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit |
| Romeo |
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you? |
| Mercutio |
The ship, sir, the slip; can you not conceive? |
| Romeo |
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great; and in |
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such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy. |
| Mercutio |
That's as much as to say, such a case as yours |
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constrains a man to bow in the hams. |
| Romeo |
Meaning, to court'sy. |
| Mercutio |
Thou hast most kindly hit it. |
| Romeo |
A most courteous exposition. |
| Mercutio |
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. |
| Romeo |
Why, then is my pump well flowered. |
| Mercutio |
Well said: follow me this jest now till thou hast |
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worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it |
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is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular. |
| Romeo |
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness. |
| 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 thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have |
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done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of |
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thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five: |
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was I with you there for the goose? |
| Romeo |
Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast |
| 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 |
| Romeo |
And is it not well served in to a sweet goose? |
| Mercutio |
O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an |
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inch narrow to an ell broad! |
| Romeo |
I stretch it out for that word 'broad;' which added |
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to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose. |
| Mercutio |
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? |
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now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art |
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thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: |
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for this drivelling love is like a great natural, |
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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: |
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for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and |
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meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer. |
| Romeo |
Here's goodly gear! |
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