Close Study: Romeo Meets Juliet

Close Study: Romeo Meets Juliet

Close Study: Romeo Meets Juliet

Act 1 Scene 5

Vocabulary to know:

  • shrine (n.) – a place in which devotion is paid to a saint or god; a tomb for the dead
  • pilgrim (n.) – one who travels to a shrine or holy place in order to worship
  • saint (n.) – one who is officially recognized after death as being holy
  • palmer (n.) – another word for pilgrim
  • purged (v.) – gotten rid of; cleared of guilt
  • trespass (v.) – to sin; to enter someone’s land illegally
  • prodigious (adj.) – being an omen (good luck)
  • profane (v.) – to treat something sacred with contempt or irreverence

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
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 prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
ROMEO
Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.
JULIET
You kiss by the book. /
  1. Identify and highlight all unknown vocabulary (including the defined words above).
  1. What common motif do all of these terms share?
  1. Underline any other words associated with religion.
  1. What is the holy shrine that Romeo’s hand is unworthy to touch?
  1. What is Romeo comparing his lips to? Draw an arrow to the words in the text.
  1. How would this passage change if the word gentle in “gentle sin” was replaced with rough?
  1. How does the word gentle help you understand Romeo’s tone and intention?
  1. What extended metaphor/motif is Romeo constructing here?
  1. When Juliet shifts the conversation from lips to hands, what is she trying to do? Does she succeed?
  1. What does it tell us about the characters of Romeo and Juliet that they are comfortable speaking in such religious language? How does this influence your view of them?

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