Juliet, who is preparing to drink the medicine that may be poisonous, is the shy and timid young girl of Leopardi's _Amore e Morte,_ who "feels her hair stand on end at the very name of death," but when she has fallen in love "dares meditate at length on steel and on poison." The very sepulchral cave shines, and Romeo after having stabbed Paris at the feet of Juliet, whom he believes to be dead, feels that he is a companion in misfortune and wishes to bury him there "In a triumphant grave." "A grave, O no, a lantern, slaughtered youth, For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light." Such words of admiration for love and for the youthful lovers are found in other poets, for instance in Dante's words for Beatrice: "Death, I hold thee very sweet: Thou must ever after be a noble thing, since thou hast been in my lady." If we find love in rather piteous guise in _Romeo and Juliet,_ comedy reappears in the wise Portia, bound to the promise of allowing, her fate to be decided by means of a guess, because although she submits to selection by chance, she has already chosen in her heart, not among the dukes and princes of the various nationalities, indeed of various continents, who are competing for her hand, but a youthful Venetian, something between a student and a soldier, half an adventurer, but courteous and pleasing in address, who has contrived to please, not only mistress, but maid, which shows, in this agreement of feminine choice, where feminine taste really lies. "By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world" (she sighs, with gentle coquettishness toward herself), perhaps with that languor, which is the desire of loving and of being loved, the budding of love; weary, as those amorous souls feel, weary, who vibrate with an exquisite sensibility. And indeed she is most sensible to music and to the spectacles of nature; and the music that she hears in the night causes her to stay and listen to it, and it seems to her far sweeter than when heard in the daytime. Nocturnal moonlight gives her the impression of a day that is ailing, of a rather pallid day when the sun is hidden.