Part I
Please read through this sonnet (Act II, scene ii) and mark the rhyme scheme, the quatrains, the rhyming couplet and the stressed and unstressed beats of iambic pentameter.
Rom
. If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Jul
. 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.
Rom
. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Jul
. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Rom
. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Jul
. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
Rom
. Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
[
PROLOGUE
]
[Enter
Chorus
.]
Chor
. Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gaps to be his heir;
That fair for which love groaned for and would die,
With tender Juliet matched, is now fair.
Now Romeo is beloved, and loves again,
Alike bewitches by the charm of looks;
But to his foe supposed he must complain,
And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks.
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new beloved anywhere;
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Temp’ring extremities with extreme sweet.
[
Exit
.]