The sonnet refers to the fact that Romeo’s name translates to ‘pilgrim’ in Italian, but it is more significant for its sacrilegious use of the imagery. Shakespeare's choice to use a sonnet – a highly structured form – suggests that their love represents order. The lovers speak in a sonnet that invokes the images of saints and pilgrims.

This exchange, Romeo and Juliet's first, is suitably passionate while also introducing the idea that their relationship transcends traditional religious expectation. Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Then have my lips the sin that they have took. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?Īy, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,įor saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: By introducing a foreboding tone but refusing to lay the blame at the universe’s feet, the Chorus also introduces Shakespeare's unique approach to tragedy. However, Shakespeare never clearly addresses the question of whether or not Romeo and Juliet is a classical tragedy - which is defined as a tragedy of Fate. It is typical for a tragedy to begin with a Chorus, and certainly, the dire circumstances of this opening address reinforce that trope. This systematic dissolution is central to the play. However, the content of the sonnet – two families are unable to control themselves, and hence bringing disaster to themselves – suggests incredible disorder. The Chorus speaks in a sonnet, a very structured form of poetry that implies order. However, the Chorus also introduces a number of contradictions that resonate throughout the rest of the play. This device was hardly new to Shakespeare, and in fact echoes the structure of Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, the poem that served as Shakespeare's inspiration. Romeo and Juliet begins with a Chorus, which establishes the plot and tone of the play. What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. The which if you with patient ears attend,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,Īnd the continuance of their parents' rage, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.įrom forth the fatal loins of these two foesĪ pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life ĭo with their death bury their parents' strife.

Romeo and juliet by william