Romeo finds himself unable to leave the Capulets’ because he’s so drawn to Juliet. After he withdraws in search of Juliet, Benvolio and Mercutio appear in search of him. Mercutio tries to draw him out using Rosaline’s name, but the two are unsuccessful and decide to call it quits.
Romeo
How can I go with my friends when my heart is still here at the Capulet’s house? I should turn around and go back to Juliet, that’s where I’m drawn.
Benvolio
Romeo! My cousin Romeo!
Mercutio
He’s smart, and I bet my life that he snuck home and went to bed.
Benvolio
No, he ran this way and jumped over the wall into the Capulet’s orchard. Call him Mercutio.
Mercutio
I’ll do better than that. I’ll conjure up his spirit.
[To Romeo] Romeo! Infatuation! Madman! Passion! Lover! Appear to us in the form of a sigh. Just say one love poem and that’ll be good enough. Speak to us. Just say, “Oh, woe is me.” Better still, make a rhyme with “love” and “dove.” Just say one word to my good friend, the goddess of love, Venus. Call out to her blind son — you know him — that young old-wise-man Cupid, the one who shot his arrow into King Cophetua and made him fall in love with the beggar girl. [To Benvolio] He’s not responding. He’s just pretending to be dead like a trained monkey at the carnival. I have to keep trying to conjure him.
[To Romeo] I conjure you by Rosaline’s bright eyes, by her high forehead and her scarlet lip, by her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thighs, and the regions that are next to them. And it is in the form of this last area of Rosaline that I conjure you, Romeo, to appear.
Benvolio
If Romeo hears you making these vulgar jokes, he’ll be angry.
Mercutio
This shouldn’t anger him. He’d be angry if I called something up inside her conjuring circle, and let the strange thing stand there until she laid it down. Now that would be spiteful of me. My conjuring was perfectly good and proper, and I’m just using Rosaline’s name to bring him here.
Benvolio
Look, he’s hid himself in the trees so he can be alone with the darkness. After all, “love is blind” and darkness is fitting for it.
Mercutio
If love is really blind, then love can’t hit its target. Now Romeo will sit under a medlar tree, and wish his love was that kind of fruit that girls call “open-arse” when they’re giggling to themselves. Oh Romeo, oh if only she were an “open-arse” and you were a “pop-her-in” pear!
Benvolio
In that case, let’s go. There’s no point looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found.
