72
ROMEO AND JULIET
[ACT II.
| Rom. | Pardon, good[C 1] Mercutio, my business was great; and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.[E 1] |
| Mer. | That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow in the hams.[E 2]60 |
| Rom. | Meaning, to court'sy. |
| Mer. | Thou hast most kindly[E 3] hit it. |
| Rom. | A most courteous exposition. |
| Mer. | Nay, I am the very pink[E 4] of courtesy. |
| Rom. | Pink for flower.65 |
| Mer. | Right. |
| Rom. | Why, then is my pump well flowered.[E 5] |
| Mer. | Well said;[C 2] follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain, after70 the wearing, solely singular.[C 3] |
| Rom. | O single-soled[E 6] jest, solely singular for the singleness! |
- ↑ 57, 58. strain courtesy] So Chapman, Alphonsus, v. ii.: "Here's straining courtesy at a bitter feast."
- ↑ 60. hams] So in The Merry Devil of Edmonton (Hazlitt's Dodsley, x. 221): "do I bend in the hams?" (spoken of in a way which illustrates this passage).
- ↑ 62. kindly] naturally, hence pertinently, appropriately.
- ↑ 64. pink] So Beaumont and Fletcher, The Pilgrim, i. ii.: "this is the prettiest pilgrim, The pink of pilgrims."
- ↑ 67. flowered] because Romeo's pumps were pinked, i.e. punched in holes with figures. Compare Taming of the Shrew, iv. i. 136: "And Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' the heel."
- ↑ 72. single-soled] mean, contemptible. Single is used alone (in quibbling) for simple, silly, as in Coriolanus, ii. i. 40; soled is perhaps used with a quibble on soul. Holinshed, Ireland, p. 23: "a meane tower might serve such single-soale kings as were at those days in Ireland" (Malone). Steevens quotes from Dekker's Wonderful Yeare: "a single-sold fidler"; Cotgrave defines "Gentilhomme de bas relief," a thred-bare, or single soled gentleman. Our slang "one-horse" corresponds in meaning. Singleness in line 73 means simplicity or silliness.
