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 hardhearted 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 rests, one, two, and the third in your bosom — the very butcher of a silk button. A duelist, a duelist, a gentleman of the very first house of the first and second cause. Ah, the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hai! [Enter ROMEO.] MERCUTIO. Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo, now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature. For this driveling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole. [Enter NURSE and PETER.] NURSE. My fan, Peter. MERCUTIO. Good Peter, to hide her face, for her fan's the fairer face. NURSE. God ye good morrow, gentlemen. MERCUTIO. 'Tis no less, I tell ye, for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon. NURSE. Out upon you! What a man are you? ROMEO. A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month. NURSE. Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! — Pray you, sir, a word. And, as I told you, my young lady bid me inquire you out. What she bid me say, I will keep to myself. But first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say. ROMEO. Bid her devise Some means to come to shrift this afternoon, And there she shall at Friar Lawrence's cell Be shrived and married. Here is for thy pains. NURSE. This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there. ROMEO. And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall. Within this hour my man shall be with thee And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair, Which to the high topgallant of my joy Must be my convoy in the secret night. Farewell. Be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains. NURSE. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady — Lord, Lord! — O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard, but she, good soul, had as lief see a toad, a very toad, as see him. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter? ROMEO. Ay, Nurse, what of that? Both with an R. NURSE. Ah, mocker, that's the dog's name. R is for the — no, I know it begins with some other letter. And she hath the prettiest sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it. ROMEO. Commend me to thy lady. [Exeunt.]