Using your sense of rhythm to discover what happens after the first kiss!

Romeo and Juliet’s entire conversation is written in verse.  Verse is a type of writing in which there is a regular pattern (or repetition of) stressed and un-stressed syllables.

Shakespeare uses the pattern iambic pentameter here and in many of his plays.  Iambic pentameter is five (penta)  meters of the iamb pattern (unstressed, stressed).

This is a way to note iambic pentameter:  -/ -/ -/ -/ -/

Here is the rhythm notation for Romeo's first lines:

Romeo

-  /    -       /          -     /      -       /         -      /     

If I  pro-phane  with my  un-worth-‘st hand

-          /    -       /        -     /      -      /    -     /

This  ho-ly shrine  the gen- tle sin  is this

  -      /    -       /        -     /       -       /     -      /

My lips two blush-ing Pil-grims rea-dy stand

-       /          -       /        -        /      -    /    -      /

To smooth that rough touch with  a ten-der kiss.

The rest of the lines in their conversation fit that pattern except the last line which is split between Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo

- / - / - / - / - /

Thus from my lips by thine my sin is purged.

Juliet

- / - / - / - / - /

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo

- / - / - / - / - /

Sin from my lips? O tres-pass sweet- ly urged:

- / - / - /

Give me my sin a-gain. (3 meters of - / )

Juliet

- / - /

You kiss b’th’- book. (2 meters of - / )

To keep the verse line in iambic pentameter, or five meters, Juliet speaks immediately after Romeo.

Romeo

- / - / - / - / - /

Sin from my lips? O tres-pass sweet- ly urged:

- / - / - /

Give me my sin a-gain. - / - /

Juliet

You kiss b’th’- book

In many publications of the play, however, editors indicate there is a pause in the verse line and in that pause Romeo gives Juliet a second kiss. This is how the Folger edition prints the end of the sonnet and the last four lines of conversation.

Romeo

Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.    He kisses her.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged.

Juliet

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo  

Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! 

Give me my sin again.  He kisses her.

Juliet

You kiss by th’ book.

This is not what the actors in Chicspeare’s Romeo and Juliet did when we produced the play. In rehearsal, we found it didn't make sense for Romeo to kiss Juliet, given what we had found about how they were interacting by that point in the scene.

First of all, Romeo physically isn't preparing to kiss. Both Romeo and Juliet have been puckering up in the lines before, but Romeo would be smiling when he says the words “Give me my sin again.”

Romeo

Thus from my lips by thine my sin is purged.

Juliet

Then have my lips the sin that they have took..

Romeo  

Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged:

Give me my sin a- gain.

The vowels in Romeo's line are a short i, long e, long i, short i, all of which form a smile, not a pucker.

However, in every syllable Juliet utters (except for the word “kiss”!) she puckers up.

Juliet

You kiss b’th’ book.

It makes more physical sense for the character who is puckering up to give the second kiss.

It also makes sense since Romeo invites her to kiss him:

Romeo  

Give me my sin again.

Juliet giving the second kiss also makes more sense because of all that we have learned so far about how much Romeo and Juliet share.

• They have shared whispers.

• They have shared smiles and “puckers”.

• They have shared (repeated) words.

• They shared the same rhyme (”this kiss”) in lines 1-8.

• They shared rhymes in lines 9-14: “too/do, prayer/despair, sake/take”.

• They shared hand gestures.

• They shared the dance. 

And now, they even share the verse line itself.

If they are equally attracted and have such mutuality throughout the conversation, it makes the most sense, for the actors and for the characters, to share who gives and who takes the kisses.

It also makes sense in the way the kisses build on one another. Romeo, being someone well-read on courtly love, would have given a gentle, chaste kiss the first time.

Juliet, with all those puckers in her line and a “k” at the end of "book" to really smack him, doesn’t want another kiss "by the book", but wants one that is big and true and full.

Romeo

Give me my sin again.

Juliet

You kiss b'th' book. She kisses him.

Lastly, this all makes sense for how the play will progress: immediately, the Nurse interrupts them.

Romeo

Give me my sin again.

Juliet

You kiss b'th' book. She kisses him.

Nurse

Juliet, your mother craves a word with you.

The Nurse has probably been watching Romeo and Juliet the whole time (and actually by this point everyone else on the dance floor may be watching as well, since these two dancers have stopped dancing).  She sees Juliet going to give the second kiss and interrupts it.

Which becomes the plot of the play: again and again, for the rest of the play, someone or something will separate Romeo and Juliet just as they connect. The Nurse will do it again in the balcony scene, the Friar will do it just before he leads them to be married, the lark will do it when they say good-bye after Romeo’s banishment, and death itself will do it at the end of the play.

We don't know why so many editors have thought Romeo gives both kisses, but it may have to do with prejudices about what young gentleman and young ladies should and shouldn’t do. You should decide for yourself what makes the most sense to you about what Romeo and Juliet should do at the end of their first conversation.