Even if that is not so, you, ruler of all the worlds, should not have to intercede with your creation of man every time he leaves his clumsy, feeble arms open to the embrace of Fate, and Death. It is for us, as people, to shelter ourselves against the chill of ill-being and the frosts of inanity. And it is my post, as priest, to spread this knowledge to the innocence and naivety of the Veronian people. So it is I who has failed. Failed myself, failed you, my Lord, and failed those who are now at your side.
And for it I should pay. Never once would I complain if when I am to pass away, instead of allowing me to meet and ask forgiveness from fair Romeo explain my rash, careless, unplanned decisions, you damn me to the fiery, harsh unforgiving home of all that is corrupt, and make me confess my stupidities to Beelzebub himself.
“I fear too early; for my mind misgives some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, shall bitterly begin his fearful date with night’s revel and expire the term of despised life, closed in my breath”. Those were the words Romeo told me he spoke. Outside the Capulet’s party I think he said. He told me he was suddenly overcome by anguish and sorrow, that he may be victim to the cruel, icy emptiness of an premature departure. I wonder if he realised how early it was to dawn?
Poor Romeo trusted me and I betrayed him. When he was forsaken by his true love Rosaline, was it not me who he sought? And then when that frail juvenile adore was shattered by the newfound mature love for Juliet, once again did he seek me for help.
And yes, I did agree to join them in matrimony. Yes, I broke my oath, and destroyed everything the priesthood stands for by carrying out those nuptials, but was I really wrong?
Is it really flawed to do what you can to help a young boy, so sick with love he cannot think clear over the thunder of his heart? Maybe I should have turned him away, told him to get a hold of himself. “These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss, consume.” Were the words I spoke, but should I have said them with more meaning? With more belief? After all, he had only just met this ‘fair queen’ of whom he wished to marry.
But his eyes told a different tale. In a single gaze I could see that young boy’s heart, and that young boy’s soul. This was not just another reckless engagement. He loved this lady more than the earth, and he would as long as the stars shone in the sky, and the rivers flowed in the valleys.
So maybe what I did wasn’t advised by my Order and my Book, but it was advised by my heart.
And all I ever hoped to attain was peace for the two houses – “For this alliance may so prove to turn your households’ rancor to pure love” were the world I spoke to the houses; too long tormented by the rage they felt for one another to ever seek a rational concession. And now that is what I have. But they are not aligned behind the joyous, merriment of a wedlock, but the bleak emptiness of an early funeral.
And was that not the only fallacious choice I made during those last frightful days? I can now only wish. For not only did I bring those children their most happy hour, for I also gave them their most dreadful; their last.
Never should a husband have to look upon the empty, still body of his new found wife, for that is what the drugs made true; Juliet laying on cold stone, even in the awful presumption of death, awe-full as had been in life. And never should a wife have to awake from her deathly rest to see her only love slipping back to whence she had just arisen.
O how brainless of me. Never can sending a young lady into her eternal bed - a place so full of sorrow, grief and evil, even when clouded with images of peace and harmony - have a pure ending, even when all intent is true.
One thing I, and those peaceful youths, have learnt this week is that death is raw. It is not an image, or a presence. It is not the sight of a still-born child laying in his mothers arms, eyes so empty with bitter regret it is as if they had never seen the joy of a lark singin on a spring morn, or a honeybee going about it’s merry business.
And it is not the heavy, choking atmosphere the surrounds those looking on at a passing funeral march, an air so thick and full of emotions you are almost to scared to breath, for fear of inhaling the sentiment that hangs all around you, and being intoxicated by the bereavement and horror of it all. It is just Death. It is not what it looks, or seems, it is the harsh, bitter truth that s person is gone, never to return. And at that, it is not the sadness felt when you realise it, or the regret that you didn’t say goodbye, it is the fact itself. And so death cannot be made apparent with the help of some foreign herb, just as it cannot be tricked; death is only ever real, as it only ever brings hurt.
So, in reminiscence, what I did was undeniably a very irresponsible deed. By sending Juliet to an early, provisional grave, I could only ever have hindered her. Never could my intricately weaved plot have worked, for we were dealing with Death, who was waiting to pick at the tightly stitched seams of the plan, then snatch away his princess as it frayed and faltered like it only could once it’s darns had been torn.
If Lord Montague, or Capulet, both so different in background, but now so alike with soul-rotting grief, were to force through the door this very moment, so blind with rage and hurt that they couldn’t speak their own names, brandishing the first sharp or heavy object they could acquire, I would not resist. I would stand proud, and cry the names of Romeo and Juliet as I was struck down, and hope they had the heart to forgive my foolish feats.
And so it ends that my talks with the Prince were insignificant nevertheless. “If you ever disturb our streets again your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace” were the Prince’s words to the Houses of Montague and Capulet, on the day this whole tragic affair seems to have begun, O, how distant that day now seems. But it would seem that fate is a better keeper of one’s promises than one himself, for it took little more that some tipple and persuasion for the Prince to spare the life of young Romeo. But it seems that fate is not one who is fond of those who don’t hold true to their word, and decided to enforce the promise more strictly than he who uttered it.
So now instead of residing in lonely, far away Mantua, separated from his truest love, he and Juliet, the woman he lived for and died for, can now be together perpetually, without shame, without fear, without interruption.
How sweet that sounds. Two young lovers from rival households allowed to adore each other without fear of their unchosen, unrecognised hatred spoiling their fresh, wanted love. If only that story was of a couple in this place. Maybe, if that was the way, love in Verona wouldn’t be symbolised by gold statues of late teenagers, but by young children holding hands as they play in the streets, and married couples from any different family openly showing their love for each other as they sit in the park, but no, that is not how it is in Fair Verona. Fair Verona… two children, hardly breathing for a decade, fall in love, but are forced to hide their passion because an ancient feud says they should hate each other… Fair Verona indeed.
But maybe things will change now. Logic, reason, was not enough to join these families. Maybe having their children taken from them will be? Let us hope. Let us hope that Lord Capulet will realise how forceful, and dictating he is, and relax a little, realise he doesn’t have to be the head of everything, that others can make decisions for themselves. Let us hope that Lady Capulet returns, and her and her husband live happily into their retirement.
Let us hope that Montague can hold himself together without his dreamy, handsome son, and he can find it in him to truly make alliance with the Capulets.
Let us also hope the Benvolio, quiet, friendly Benvolio, Benvolio the Peacemaker, can cope with the tragic loss of his closest friend, the boy he has spent every day of his life with. Let us hope he can adjust, get used to his altered path of life, without altering himself, let us hope he remains the man he is.
And let us hope, let us all hope, let us pray, that Romeo and Juliet, the teen lovers, Tybalt, Prince of Cats, and The County Paris rest in peace.
