Which lines in this excerpt from act II of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet reveal that Mercutio thinks Romeo would be better off if he stopped thinking about love?
MERCUTIO: I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.
ROMEO: Nay, good goose, bite not.
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.
MERCUTIO: Why, is not this better now than groaning for love?
now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art
thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature:
for this drivelling love is like a great natural,
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.
BENVOLIO: Stop there, stop there.
MERCUTIO: Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.
BENVOLIO: Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.
MERCUTIO: O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short:
for I was come to the whole depth of my tale; and
meant, indeed, to occupy the argument no longer.