Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breaft! 'Would I were fleep and peace, so sweet to reft! Hence will I to my ghoftly Friar's close cell, His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell. SCENE changes to a Monaftery. Enter Friar Lawrence, with a basket. [Exit. HE grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning TH Fri. night, Check'ring the eaftern clouds with ftreaks of light: The day to chear, and night's dank dew to dry, With baleful weeds, and precious-juiced flowers. None but for fome, and yet all different. Full-foon the canker death eats up that plant. Enter Enter Romeo. Rom. Good-morrow, father. Fri. Benedicite! What early tongue fo fweet faluteth me? Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night. Rom. That laft is true, the fweeter reft was mine. I have been feafting with mine enemy; Fri. Be plain, good fon, and homely in thy drift; Riddling confeffion finds but riddling fhrift. Rom. Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is fet On the fair daughter of rich Capulet; As mine on hers, fo hers is fet on mine; And all combin'd; fave what thou must combine Fri. Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! So foon forfaken? young men's love then lies Hath washt thy fallow cheeks for Rofaline? And art thou chang'd? pronounce this fentence then, Fri. Not in a grave, To lay one in, another out to have. Rom. I pray thee, chide not: fhe, whom I love now, Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow : The other did not fo. Fri. Oh, the knew well, Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell. For this alliance may fo happy prove, To turn your houthold-rancour to pure love. Mer. [Exeunt SCENE changes to the STREET. Enter Benvolio and Mercutio. Here the devil fhould this Romeo be? came he not home to-night? WH Ben. Not to his father's, 1 fpoke with his man. Rafaline, Rofaline, torments him fo, that he will, fure, run mad. 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 anfwer the letter's mafter, 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-fhaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt? Ben. Why, what is Tybalt? Mer. More than prince of cats?-Oh, he's the couragious captain of compliments; he fights as you fing prick'd-fongs, keeps time, diftance, and proportion; refts his minum, one, two, and the third in your bofom; the very butcher of a filk button, a duellift, a duellift; a gentleman of the very firft houfe, of the first and fecond caufe; ah, the immortal paffada, the punto reverfo, the, hay! 66 Ben. The what? 86 Mer. The pox of fuch antick, lifping, affected phantafies, these new tuners of accents: Jefu! a very good blade a very tall man! -a very good "whore!". Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandfire, that we fhould be thus afflicted with these ftrange flies, thefe fashion-mongers, these pardonnez-moy's, who ftand fo much on the new form that they cannot fit at cafe on the old bench? O, their bon's, their bon's! (7) (7) 0, their bones! their bones!] Mercutio is here ridiculing those frenchified fantastical Coxcombs whom he calls pardonnez-moy's: and therefore, I fufpect, here he meant to write French too. O, their bon's! their bon's. i. e. How ridiculous they make themselves in crying out Good, and being in Ecftafies with every Trifle as he has just described them before. -Jefu! a very good blade! &c. Enter Enter Romeo. Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo. Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fifhified? Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was but a kitchen-wench; marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her: Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gipfy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots: Thibé a grey eye or fo, but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bonjour; there's a French falutation to your French flop. You gave us the counterfeit fairly. laft night. K Rem. 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 bufinefs was great; and, in fuch a cafe as mine, a man may ftrain courtesy. Mer. That's as much as to fay, fuch a cafe as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams. Rom. Meaning, to curt'fy. Mer. Thou haft moft kindly hit it. Rom. A most courteous expofition. Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy. Mer. Right. Rom. Why, then is my pump well flower'd. Mer. Sure wit-follow me this jeft, now, till thou haft worn out thy pump, that when the fingle fole of it is worn, the jeft may remain, after the wearing, folely fingular. Rom. O fingle-fol'd jeft, Solely fingular, for the finglenefs! Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio, my wit faints. Rom. Switch and spurs, Switch and fpurs, or I'll cry a match. Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goofe chafe, I am done for thou haft more of the wild-goofe in one of thy wits, than, I am fure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goofe? Rom. |