The Vandella

Romeo and Juliet

from Act I. Scene V.

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 prayers’ effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg’d. [Kissing her.

Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo: Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d!

Give me my sin again.