Here we go a blogging…

We’re reading Romeo and Juliet in English 214 now. I was just reminded of the romantic fool in me’s favorite part of the whole play in Act 1, Scene 5:

Romeo (to Juliet):

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle 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:

Oh, 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 prayer’s effect I take. (They kiss.)

Little known fact: This is, in fact, a sonnet. Count the lines: 14. Look at the rhyming scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It is indeed a Shakespearean (or English) sonnet. The first quatrain is spoken by Romeo, the second by Juliet (in response), and the third quatrain and couplet together.

This is why I love the English language.

Awesome possum