We’ve discovered a lot playing with individual sounds.  Now we are going to listen for full words and discover ideas for how Romeo and Juliet are moving when they speak.

Say the text again, listening for what words are repeated:

Romeo

If I prophane with my unworth’st hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin 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 palmer's kiss.

There are two words that are repeated: “hand” and “pilgrim”.

Romeo

If I prophane with my unworth’st hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin 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 palmer's kiss.

“Hand” is repeated more, so let’s play with that.

If you have a partner, work together, one reading Romeo’s lines and the other Juliet’s. If not, just do one character’s line and then the other’s. That way you’ll see how both characters play with the repetition of “hand”.

Each time you say “hand” or a part of a “hand” (like “palm”) or something a hand can do (like “touch”), touch your partner’s hand.

Romeo

If I prophane with my unworth’st hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin 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 palmer's kiss.

When you got to the last line, how did your hands touch?  Did you use your palms?

Romeo and Juliet are talking about hands because their hands are touching: they are dancing. Which makes sense because it’s a party and Lord Capulet has invited everyone to dance.

That they are dancing reinforces things we found in the previous guides.

• They are close to one another.

• They can be secretive , even as they are in the midst of the other dancers

• They are attracted to one another.

  In the next guide, we find where all this is going . . .