# Star Crossed Lovers cause Family Feud; W. Shakespeare to adapt the screenplay **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 11, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818 "2005-04-11T18:04:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/1 "2005-04-11T18:04:09Z")
[Fact follows fiction](http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/11/family.feud.ap/index.html) > [@Bill The Poet](#): > > Juliet: How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? > The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, > And the place death, considering who thou art, > If any of my kinsmen fine thee here. > > Romeo: With love’s light wings did I o’perch these walls, > For stony limits cannot hold love out: > And what love can do, that dares love attempt: > Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me. > > Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee. > > Romeo: Alack, there lies more peril in thine eyes > Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet > And I am proof against their enmity. > > Juliet: I would not for the world they saw thee here. > > Romeo: I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes. > And but thou love me, let them fine me here; > My life were better ended by their hate > Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love. Okay, it was just an excuse to post some Shakespeare; hence, mindless and pointless. Still, what are these people thinking? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/2 "2005-04-11T18:09:17Z")
Semi-off topic, but I’m going to see Romeo and Juliet this weekend at the FSU Theater. Just thought I’d share. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/3 "2005-04-11T18:15:27Z")
> [@the linked article](#): > > “All this started because they were dating,” said Melva Ortiz, Miguel’s mother. “I tried to tell him to leave the girl, but you know how kids are.” This started because your families are dipshits. Two kids dating doesn’t cause a shootout. Being ignorant, violent imbeciles does. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/4 "2005-04-11T18:28:25Z")
Sometimes you feel like a nut… ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/5 "2005-04-11T19:42:17Z")
For never was there a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/6 "2005-04-11T21:16:10Z")
Oh, **Kythereia** no way can you just post the last couplet and leave it at that! 🙂 > [@Escalus](#): > > A glooming peace this morning with it brings; > The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: > Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; > Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: > For never was a story of more woe > Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Despite its not being one of my favorite plays in the Shakespeare canon, I think _Romeo and Juliet_ has some of the most beautiful speeches of any of them. To wit: > [@Juliet](#): > > Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, > Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner > As Phaethon would whip you to the west, > And bring in cloudy night immediately. > Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, > That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo > Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen. > Lovers can see to do their amorous rites > By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, > It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, > Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, > And learn me how to lose a winning match, > Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: > Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks, > With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, > Think true love acted simple modesty. > Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; > For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night > Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. > Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, > Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, > Take him and cut him out in little stars, > And he will make the face of heaven so fine > That all the world will be in love with night > And pay no worship to the garish sun. > O, I have bought the mansion of a love, > But not possess’d it, and, though I am sold, > Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day > As is the night before some festival > To an impatient child that hath new robes > And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse, > And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks > But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence. (just an excuse to post some Shakespeare, you say? Tut, tut.) > [@Mercutio](#): > > O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. > She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes > In shape no bigger than an agate-stone > On the fore-finger of an alderman, > Drawn with a team of little atomies > Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep; > Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders’ legs, > The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, > The traces of the smallest spider’s web, > The collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, > Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, > Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, > Not so big as a round little worm > Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid; > Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut > Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, > Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. > And in this state she gallops night by night > Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; > O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight, > O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees, > O’er ladies ’ lips, who straight on kisses dream, > Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, > Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: > Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, > And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; > And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail > Tickling a parson’s nose as a’ lies asleep, > Then dreams, he of another benefice: > Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, > And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, > Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, > Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon > Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, > And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two > And sleeps again. This is that very Mab > That plats the manes of horses in the night, > And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, > Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes: > This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, > That presses them and learns them first to bear, > Making them women of good carriage: > This is she– ---
**Author:** ![Cosmopolitan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/94ad74/32.png) [@Cosmopolitan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cosmopolitan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/7 "2005-04-11T21:49:10Z")
Great timing - I’m teaching Romeo and Juliet to my ninth graders! We’re going to do the balcony scene on Wednesday, I hope. ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-crossed-lovers-cause-family-feud-w-shakespeare-to-adapt-the-screenplay/298818/8 "2005-04-12T01:24:54Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > For never was there a story of more woe > Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Ever since I saw the Reduced Shakespeare Company in action, I’ve never been able to see this line without thinking of their version, as applied to another play: _For never was there a story of more woe Than this of Othello and his Desdemono._