The Saints

In Act One of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Romeo delivers one of the most unusual ‘chat-up’ lines in history. Deeply affected by his first glimpse of Juliet, he moves quickly to establish intimacy:

ROMEO: 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.

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.