Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
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 favour 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. "Ay," said
the lady, "lips which they must use in prayer."--"O 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 gentleman 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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