Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
out of respect to his guests and because Romeo had borne himself
like a gentleman and all tongues in Verona bragged of him to be a
virtuous and well-governed youth. Tybalt, forced to be patient
against his will, restrained himself, but swore that this vile
Montague should at another time dearly pay for his intrusion.
The dancing being done, Romeo watched the place where the lady
stood; and under favor of his masking habit, which might seem to
excuse in part the liberty, he presumed in the gentlest manner to
take her by the hand, calling it a shrine, which if he profaned
by touching it, he was a blushing pilgrim and would kiss it for
atonement.
“Good pilgrim,” answered the lady, “your devotion shows by far
too mannerly and too courtly. Saints have hands which pilgrims
may touch but kiss not.”
“Have not saints lips, and pilgrims, too?” said Romeo.
“Aye,” said the lady, “lips which they must use in prayer.”
“Oh, then, my dear saint,” said Romeo, “hear my prayer, and grant
it, lest I despair.”
In such like allusions and loving conceits they were engaged when
the lady was called away to her mother. And Romeo, inquiring who
her mother was, discovered that the lady whose peerless beauty he
was so much struck with was young Juliet, daughter and heir to
the Lord Capulet, the great enemy of the Montagues; and that he
had unknowingly engaged his heart to his foe. This troubled him,
but it could not dissuade him from loving. As little rest had
Juliet when she found that the gentle man that she had been
talking with was Romeo and a Montague, for she had been suddenly
smit with the same hasty and inconsiderate passion for Romeo
which he had conceived for her; and a prodigious birth of love it
seemed to her, that she must love her enemy and that her
affections should settle there, where family considerations
should induce her chiefly to hate.
It being midnight, Romeo with his companions departed; but they
soon missed him, for, unable to stay away from the house where he
had left his heart, he leaped the wall of an orchard which was at
the back of Juliet’s house. Here he had not been long, ruminating
on his new love, when Juliet appeared above at a window, through
which her exceeding beauty seemed to break like the light of the
sun in the east; and the moon, which shone in the orchard with a
faint light, appeared to Romeo as if sick and pale with grief at
the superior luster of this new sun. And she leaning her cheek
upon her hand, he passionately wished himself a glove upon that
hand, that he might touch her cheek. She all this while thinking
herself alone, fetched a deep sigh, and exclaimed:
“Ah me!”
Romeo, enraptured to bear her speak, said, softly and unheard by
her, “Oh, speak again, bright angel, for such you appear, being
over my head, like a winged messenger from heaven whom mortals
fall back to gaze upon.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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