Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Pink for flower.

-Romeo 

Romeo and Juliet  Act II, scene iv   Line 53

So finally, we’ve hit upon perhaps the most famous, well known character in all of Shakespeare. Romeo! A character whose name is invoked in popular culture probably more than any other; ‘How’d you make out with that girl last night, Romeo?’ And yet, what the heck is he saying? Well, you have to read a bunch of the scene to give it context. But pink means pink and flower means flower. And I believe ‘for’ means ‘as in.’ So Romeo is saying ‘Pink, as in flower.’ Again, context please. We would need context if this were a quote from ‘The Bachelor’, because without knowing what we’re talking about it just doesn’t have much meaning.

So the context? Well I’ve read through the several lines around this one and it’s all just a bunch of puns that Romeo and Mercutio exchange. In other words, it doesn’t really have much meaning. It’s just not worth explaining the whole exchange other than to say it’s a fairly meaningless exchange. Hmmm, how about that? We’ve concluded that this line from Shakespeare doesn’t have much meaning. ‘Pink for flower.’ Meaningless. Now, having said that, I’m sure that we can find analysis of it (because after 400 years there is analysis of pretty much every syllable of Shakespeare), and there is someone who will explain how these three words are representative of the genius of Shakespeare (and he’s probably right), but I’m not going to go looking for that analysis this morning. I’m going to pass on it. I’m going to leave it up to you, dear reader (and I purposely made that singular as I’m pretty sure there’s only one of you). You can go into the text and read it. You’ll have a hard time with this. I can tell you that I have a copy of Romeo and Juliet that has a modern language, line for line, translation and I needed it to understand this battle of puns between Rome and Mercutio. When one of you writes in and asks for it I’ll print it. Until then… well we’ll just move on, won’t we.

Oh heck, no we won’t. Okay, here it is. At this point in the pun battle they’ve mixed up curtsy and courtesy and Mercutio says ‘Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy,’ meaning that he’s the paragon, or flower of courtesy. Romeo responds with ‘Pink for flower,’ that is to say ‘Pink as in flower,’ clarifying what Mercutio means with the word ‘pink.’ Then they go on further playing with the word ‘pink.’ So if you want to use today’s line in conversation (which I’m sure you’re tempted to since it’s nice and short), you’re going to have to wait for someone to utter a sentence in which they are using the word ‘pink’ for the word ‘flower.’ That seems fairly unlikely. Albeit not totally impossible. Wait a minute! Hold the presses!

‘In the pink!’ I’m not sure how I missed this. ‘In the pink’ is an expression used to describe something in very good condition, particularly as it relates to health (in the pink of health- in other words in the flower of health, or in very good health), and if you google the origin of this expression you will actually find a reference to Mercurio’s line, ‘the pink of courtesy.’ So today’s random line is not quite so random as we thought. It is the proper reply to anyone that you run into today who uses the idiom ‘in the pink’ when describing good health, or anything else in good condition. It will still confuse them, but it’s the proper reply. Of course, you’re going to have to find some old timer who actually uses that expression first. So I suggest you visit a grandparent if you have one. Got it? I didn't think so.