What do the lines 157-163 in act 2 scene 4 in Romeo and Juliet mean?

Answer 1

According to the edition of Romeo and Juliet I am looking at right now, lines 157 to 163 of Act 2 Scene 4 are as follows:

Peter: I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my weapon would quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.

Nurse: Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you sir, a word; and as I told you my young lady bid me in-

Line 163 ends halfway through the word "inquire"

Now, if this is not the passage you were looking for, you will have learned something, which is that line numbers as references in Shakespeare plays are extremely unreliable because they are different from edition to edition. They are even more unreliable when a passage is in prose, as this one is.

If this really is the passage you are talking about, Peter is responding to the Nurse's complaint that he hasn't done anything about Mercutio's rude treatment of her. Peter says that he didn't think what Mercutio was doing was worth fighting about. He claims that he is ready to fight if he has just cause, but Mercutio's rudeness and lewdness is more than just cause, and one suspects that there is no reason which would get the coward Peter into a fight. There is a bit of a dirty joke when Peter says "my weapon would quickly have been out", since he could be whipping out another kind of "weapon" (see "my naked weapon is out" earlier in the play).

The Nurse is infuriated by this and says so. There may be a naughty second meaning in "every part of me quivers" (see "the quivering thigh and the desmenes that there adjacent lie" earlier in the play") She calls him a "scurvy knave". Scurvy is the name of a deficiency disease resulting from a lack of Vitamin C, and also refers to anyone suffering from this disease. She then turns to Romeo and is about to say something when line 163 rather abruptly comes to an end.