Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/89

Rom.	[To Juliet.] If I profane with my unworthiest[C 1] hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin[C 2][E 1] is this, My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready[C 3] stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Jul.	Good pilgrim[E 2], you do wrong your hand too much, 100 Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that[C 4] 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. 105

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.[C 5][E 3]

1. 96. unworthiest] Q, F; unworthie, Q1.
2. 97. sin] Q, Q3, Ff; sinne Q1, Qq 4, 5.
3. 98. ready] Q1, Q5, Ff 2–4; did readie Q, F.
4. 102. hands that] Q5; hands, that Q, F.
5. 109. prayer's effect I take] Capell; prayers effect I take Q1, Q, F; prayers effect doe take Ff 2–4.

1. 97. sin] I retain this word, which has the authority of all the early texts. Many editors follow Theobald in adopting Warburton's proposal fine, and it would have been easy to mistake fine for sinne (with a long s). Fine, if right, would mean mulct, and would refer to the kiss. The clash in sound of shrine and fine is not pleasing. I take the whole speech to be a request for permission to kiss; to touch Juliet at all is sin; but the profanation with Romeo's hand is a rough sin; to touch with his lips is "the gentle sin." A very slight emendation, which, I think, has not been proposed, "the gentler sin is this," would make it clearer. Another possible reading which occurs to me is, "the gentle sin in this," the gentle and courteous take your hand, but if it is profanation, I will atone for it. The sin is referred to, lines 111–113. "Tho' gentle" has been suggested to me by Professor Littledale.
2. 100. pilgrim] Halliwell gives a sketch by Inigo Jones which shows a pilgrim's costume, such as was worn, it is believed on the evidence of this line and probably of stage tradition, by Romeo; the loose large-sleeved gown with cape, broad-leafed hat, a pilgrim's staff in the left hand.
3. 109. I take] This line completes what is virtually a Shakesperian sonnet in dialogue.