Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
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 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
afflictions 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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