Page 28 of What Dreams May Come
“So soon!” Surely he must have dusted off an old one rather than written one afresh.
His shining eyes, his eagerness to wave the roll of parchment he clutched in his fist disabused me of that notion. “The idea of this play has possessed me. The glorious tale of Romeo and Juliet as a love story and a tragedy has kept me up long hours of feverish scribbling.” He showed his ink-stained fingers. “Forgive me my early intrusion, Lady Rosaline, but I couldn’t wait to read this sonnet to you. It’s a part of the scene when Romeo and Juliet first meet at the Capulet party. If I may?”
I gestured to him to continue.
“I play both parts.” He took his place in the atrium where the sun shone behind him and placed him in silhouette, and he proved he was an actor as he performed first as Mamma, then as Papà. He became each of them, male and female, lover and beloved, engaged in witty courtship banter.
Mamma:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong yourhand too much,
Which mannerly devotionshows in this:
For saints have hands that pilgrims’hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holypalmers’ kiss.
Papà:
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Mamma:
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they mustuse in pray’r.
Papà:
O then, dear saint, let lips dowhat hands do,
They pray—grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Mamma:
Saints do not move, though grant forprayers’ sake.
Papà:
Then move not while my prayer’seffect I take.
(Guglielmo pressed a kiss onthe parchment)
Thus from my lips, by thine, mysin is purg’d.
Mamma:
Then have my lips the sin thatthey have took.
Papà:
Sin from my lips? O trespasssweetly urg’d!
Give me my sin again!
Gentle reader, as you know, I’m neither sentimental nor poetic, but this sounded so much like my parents when they were adoring each other—as always they did—that I pressed my hand over my heart to contain the delight.
From the gallery above and behind, slow applause began from the very hands Guglielmo immortalizedin his sonnet.
He swung around to see Papà and Mamma smiling down at him, clad in robes, both gloriously beautiful as befitting this legendary couple.
