A Wild Goose Chase

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Greylag Geese (Anser anser) in flight: photo by Michael Maggs, 3 July 2008

MERCUTIO

Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

ROMEO

Switch and spurs, switch and spurs; or I'll cry a match.

MERCUTIO

Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have
done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of
thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five:
was I with you there for the goose?

ROMEO

Thou wast never with me for any thing when thou wast
not there for the goose.

MERCUTIO

I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

ROMEO

Nay, good goose, bite not.

Startled by the approach of the photographer, the Greylag Goose takes off, near Kromenie, The Netherlands: photo by Jens Buurgaard Nielsen, 17 April 2006

MERCUTIO

Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most
sharp sauce.

ROMEO

And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?

MERCUTIO

O here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
inch narrow to an ell broad!

ROMEO

I stretch it out for that word 'broad'; which added
to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.

A skein of Greylag Geese in flight, near Krommenie, The Netherlands: photo by Michael Hanselmann, 2007

William Shakespeare: from Romeo and Juliet, II.IV