Ask Shakespeare

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.

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 prick-song, keeps time, distance, and proportion. He
rests 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. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the
hay.

BENVOLIO.
The what?

MERCUTIO.
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; 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!

For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.

Enter Romeo. .

ROMEO.
If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,—
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv’d, and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.

Enter Balthasar. .

News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.

BALTHASAR.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

ROMEO.
Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.

BALTHASAR.
I do beseech you sir, have patience.
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

ROMEO.
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?

BALTHASAR.
No, my good lord.

ROMEO.
No matter. Get thee gone,
And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight.

[[ExitBalthasar.] ]