Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
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 lustre 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 hear her speak, said softly, and unheard by
her, "O 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." She, unconscious of being overheard, and full of the new passion
which that night's adventure had given birth to, called upon her lover
by name (whom she supposed absent): "O Romeo, Romeo!" said she,
"wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name, for my
sake; or if thou wilt not, be but my sworn love, and I no longer will be
a Capulet." Romeo, having this encouragement, would fain have spoken,
but he was desirous of hearing more; and the lady continued her
passionate discourse with herself (as she thought), still chiding Romeo
for being Romeo and a Montague, and wishing him some other name, or that
he would put away that hated name, and for that name which was no part
of himself, he should take all herself. At this loving word Romeo could
no longer refrain, but taking up the dialogue as if her words had been
addressed to him personally, and not merely in fancy, he bade her call
him Love, or by whatever other name she pleased, for he was no longer
Romeo, if that name was displeasing to her. Juliet, alarmed to hear a
man's voice in the garden, did not at first know who it was, that by
favour of the night and darkness had thus stumbled upon the discovery of
her secret; but when he spoke again, though her ears had not yet drunk a
hundred words of that tongue's uttering, yet so nice is a lover's
hearing, that she immediately knew him to be young Romeo, and she
expostulated with him on the danger to which he had exposed himself by
climbing the orchard walls, for if any of her kinsmen should find him
there, it would be death to him being a Montague. "Alack," said Romeo,
"there is more peril in your eye, than in twenty of their swords. Do you
but look kind upon me, lady, and I am proof against their enmity. Better
my life should be ended by their hate, than that hated life should be
prolonged, to live without your love."--"How came you into this place,"
said Juliet, "and by whose direction?"--"Love directed me," answered
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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