What Romeo Teaches Us About Love.

^ Cupid Chastised by Bartolomeo Manfredi

1. It is silly:




"190 Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
191 Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
192 Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
193 What is it else? a madness most discreet,
194 A choking gall and a preserving sweet. "

But Petrarch knew that:

I FIND no peace, and all my war is done;
I fear and hope; I burn and freeze like ice;
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I seize on;
That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not, yet can I 'scape nowise;

via Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose translation of Petrarch, in my opinion, is superior to Surrey's because they have heart. Maybe because Thomas Wyatt was actually in love (or whatever) with Anne Boleyn. That did not end well, let me tell you. I believe it ended with him watching her get beheaded. Watching from the tower. That's how I imagine it in the Hollywood version of the story I've made up in my mind.