How is Love Caught?
In starting to read Romeo and Juliet, by W. Shakespeare, I have been struck by the dialogue between Romeo and Benvolio. Romeo is in love so bad it has him sick. We are not sure as of yet exactly why he is sad, but we know he has it bad. Ben, to try and revive the spirits of his cousin and friend, is seeking to distract Romeo off into the wider fields of fine possibilities, womanly speaking. And Romeo won’t be dissuaded, claiming that the considerations his love has to offer make all other women plain and dull to him. We don’t know how Romeo caught the love bug, we certainly know he has been bitten.
This has led to my own contemplations of the nature of outward and inward attraction in romantic love. Often there is some outward beauty or feature that first gains the attention of the soon to suitor. But almost immediately, at least in what we call “true love” there is a going inward, a relating to the new found lover for what is found within rather than halting at the outward and turning aside into some sort of objectification. And there is often no logic, no accounting for such. In many ways, it is a mystery from God. But boy did WS seem to understand this in how he wrote the part for Romeo.
