TEXT:
Exit HORATIO
GERTRUDE (continued)
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA
OPHELIA
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
GERTRUDE
How now, Ophelia!
OPHELIA (sings)
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
GERTRUDE
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA
Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
Sings
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
GERTRUDE
Nay, but, Ophelia…
OPHELIA
Pray you, mark.
Sings
White his shroud as the mountain snow…
Enter CLAUDIUS
NOTES:
Walsingham
The song is often played as an instrumental, but click here for a recording by the singer Joel Frederiksen. It is about the old pilgrimage site of Walsingham, which was dismantled in the 1530s when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.
Santiago de Compostela
Located in Galicia in northern Spain, Compostela has been a site of pilgrimage since at least the 9th century. The Camino, or Way of St. James, was a major pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. (it has grown in popularity since the 1980s as a retreat from modern life.) The shell of the scallop, or cockle, has long been the symbol of its pilgrims, thanks to various legends associated with the region and St. James.
Pilgrims
In Romeo and Juliet, the lovers meet at Juliet’s family party. Their elegant and witty exchange takes place over fourteen lines - in perfect sonnet form - at the end of which, they kiss. Romeo calls Juliet a saint, and her body a holy shrine, as if he has come to worship there. Juliet plays along, and calls him “pilgrim”. The wordplay acknowledges the literary tradition of likening pilgrims and lovers, echoed also in Ophelia’s choice of song.
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.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.