AcT 2, ScEnE 4


A duellist, a duellist – a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause.9 passado! The punto reverso! The hai!10


BeNvOlIo The what?


MeRcUtIo The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes!11 These new tuners of accents!12


30


blade! A very tall man! A very good whore!’ Why, is not this a lamentable13


thing, grandsire,14


be thus afflicted with these strange flies,15 mongers, these ‘pardon-me’s’,16


O, their bones, their bones! [Enter ROMEO]


who stand so much


on the new form, that they cannot at ease on the old bench?17


BeNvOlIo Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!


11


– ‘By Jesu, a very good that we should


these fashion


The pox…fantasticoes!: A plague on such foolish poseurs


12


new tuners of accents: fashionable speakers


13 lamentable: regrettable 14 grandsire: grandfather 15 strange flies: pests


16


'pardon-me’s’: people with false politeness


17 old bench: old ways 9 Ah, the immortal 10 cause: reasons for duelling


immortal passado…hai!: fencing terms


MeRcUtIo Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers18 Petrarch19


40


18 that 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 gipsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots. Thisbe20


to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bonjour! There’s a French salutation to your French slop.21 counterfeit22


fairly last night. 20


a grey eye or so, but not You gave us the


21 19


Now is…numbers: Now Romeo will become a love poet


Petrarch: an Italian poet who wrote poems about Laura


Dido…Thisbe: Mercutio mentions women from well-known love stories. He mocks each of them


French slop: 1. to take ‘French leave’, i.e. abandonment 2. sexual intercourse 3. loose trousers


22


gave us the counterfeit: gave us the slip/evaded us


85


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