William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

ACT II. 4. Scene IV. A Street.

[Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.]

Mercutio.
Where the devil should this Romeo be?--
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,
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; shot 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, I can tell you. O, he's the
courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing
prick-song--keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me 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 fantasticoes; these
new tuners of accents!--'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 pardonnez-moi's, who stand so
much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old
bench? O, their bons, their bons!