Transcript ESH101 Shakespeare - Queen Mary University of London

ESH101 Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet 1
Is there no pity in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
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Petrarch [Francesco
Petrarca], 1304-1374
Wrote Rime sparse
[Scattered rhymes]
(including many sonnets).
Translated by Sir Thomas
Wyatt (1503-42) among
others
ROMEO: Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create;
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health…
…She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow; she hath Dian’s wit,
And, in strong proof of chastity well armed,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty, only poor
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.
[1.1.169-73; 201-209. Norton pp. 910-11]
ROMEO: When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
And these who, often drowned, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love! – the all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begin.
[1.2.88-93. Norton p. 913]
E
F
E
F
G
G
ROMEO: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentler sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?
JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO: O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO: Then move not while my prayers’ effect I take.
[He kisses her]
1.2.90-102 (Norton p. 921)
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
A
This holy shrine, the gentler sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
B
A
B
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
C
D
C
D
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
F
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
E
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
Then move not while my prayers’ effect I take.
G
G
E
F
ROMEO: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentler sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?
JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO: O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO: Then move not while my prayers’ effect I take.