Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
The day was breaking when they parted, and Romeo, who was too full of
thoughts of his mistress and that blessed meeting to allow him to
sleep, instead of going home, bent his course to a monastery hard by,
to find friar Lawrence. The good friar was already up at his devotions,
but seeing young Romeo abroad so early, he conjectured rightly that he
had not been abed that night, but that some distemper of youthful
affection had kept him waking. He was right in imputing the cause of
Romeo's wakefulness to love, but he made a wrong guess at the object,
for he thought that his love for Rosaline had kept him waking. But when
Romeo revealed his new passion for Juliet, and requested the assistance
of the friar to marry them that day, the holy man lifted up his eyes
and hands in a sort of wonder at the sudden change in Romeo's
affections, for he had been privy to all Romeo's love for Rosaline, and
his many complaints of her disdain: and he said, that young men's love
lay not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. But Romeo replying,
that he himself had often chidden him for doting on Rosaline, who could
not love him again, whereas Juliet both loved and was beloved by him,
the friar assented in some measure to his reasons; and thinking that a
matrimonial alliance between young Juliet and Romeo might happily be
the means of making up the long breach between the Capulets and the
Montagues; which no one more lamented than this good friar, who was a
friend to both the families and had often interposed his mediation to
make up the quarrel without effect; partly moved by policy, and partly
by his fondness for young Romeo, to whom he could deny nothing, the old
man consented to join their hands in marriage.
Now was Romeo blessed indeed, and Juliet, who knew his intent from a
messenger which she had despatched according to promise, did not fail
to be early at the cell of friar Lawrence, where their hands were
joined in holy marriage; the good friar praying the heavens to smile
upon that act, and in the union of this young Montague and young
Capulet to bury the old strife and long dissensions of their families.
The ceremony being over, Juliet hastened home, where she stayed
impatient for the coming of night, at which time Romeo promised to come
and meet her in the orchard, where they had met the night before; and
the time between seemed as tedious to her, as the night before some
great festival seems to an impatient child, that has got new finery
which it may not put on till the morning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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