Friar Lawrence Monologue

Oh Romeo, Romeo. How I both envy and despise your ability to

make yourself acquainted with womenfolk. For yesterday you were
falling for the maiden Rosaline and today for Juliet of the Capulets.
Who, boy, will you decide your love to be? Will tomorrow it be the
Lady Capulet herself? Surely if this love is found by either party
before they are wed, then it would mean certain war. Romeo could
have his pick of any of the prince Escaluss daughters who are
known for their beauty or indeed any young lady in Verona yet he
must fall for the only daughter of the sworn enemy of his father. Can
he not follow his parents wish? Was he not born with the gift to
choose right from the wrong?
How foolish a child is he? Bah! The dupe would never be as
honourable as I in my youthful days. I too fell for a maiden but she is
long gone. I was poor and had nothing to offer. Ariel was her name
and she was the third daughter of Montagues youngest sister.
To be married to her was the dream of all the youth of the town.
Even the name, Husband of Ariel, bares such a joyful weight about it
that it makes me cringe with delight to this day. Romeos beloveds
beauty doth not compare to the splendour that was Ariel. Her eyes
were large oceans of magnificence which I would sale in on many a
day. Being a relative of the Montagues she had money but I, being
coming from four generations of lowly farm hands, had no way to
increase our income. How foolish was I to have even fallen for her?
Had I not been urged by my friends to travel to a party held by the
Montagues then I have no doubt that I would not even have to bare
the sin that hangs over my shoulder today. Being a poor farmer and
with nothing to offer the lovely maiden, it forced me to become one
of the cloth.
But nay, Romeo must act blindly and think to marry the poor
women. I do not doubt that she would have mutual feelings for him,
yet she should think better of what she is doing. If either partys
parents are to find out it should mean certain war and would bring a
sad shadow over the church as the morgue is filled with the bodies
of the fallen youth of Verona. The unwise child should think on his
actions. The fool will not get away with this, but for I do not have the
strength to tell either parent of this dim-wittedness.
And the boy must think he himself as Prince Escalus to come
through this place of holy prayer with the extreme self-righteousness

as he had about him. What a love struck mug the boy has. Even
though my love did consume me for a short time, never would I be
so smug as to burst into the late friar Terrys halls and cry aloud that
I was to be married to Ariel of the Montague. I had to confront the
woman of my dreams and say that it couldnt be rather than bare
the guilt of having to leave her on the wedding night. Hence
becoming a man of cloth, I believed, would cure the guilt and sin.
How foolish this couple is to be married tomorrow, as if I had power I
would not allow it. But alas, I must do as ordered by the higher
powers in the Vatican, which state I must do as any young child
says, as long as the Holy Father, the Great Pope Clement VIII
approves. I, too, may be the fool for putting the idea in Romeos
head of ending this bitter conflict with the marriage of two of loves
fools. The stage is now set, just in time for this raging storm of love
and hate to take over.