Like a small rock in my shoe, I find that minor quibbles that I have wreak more havoc on my psyche than the large issues. For example, the Civil War was not a civil war. When the United States of America declares war on another country, i.e. the Confederate States of America, it is not “civil” war. Also, the third Monday in February was established by Congress to be a Federal holiday. The legal name of the holiday was defined as “Washington’s Birthday”. His actual birthday is February 22nd, and the third Monday is set aside as a holiday to commemorate the Father of our Country. There are many Presidents that we have had that do not deserve to have a holiday in their memory. Calling the day “President’s Day” dilutes the significance and removes the recognition owed to the first President of our Country.
These are minor.
When I noticed that “Banished!!” is my most popular post, it reminded me of another rock in my shoe:
There is a song playing on popular radio titled “Love Story” by Taylor Swift. Throughout the song, references are made to the man in the song being Romeo and the lady in the song being Juliet. It bothers me that youth will refer to Romeo and Juliet as a love story.
Shakespeare had two types of plays [For the sake of my argument, I am purposefully leaving out the third category of History]: comedy and tragedy. In comedies, everyone falls in love, lives, and laughs – basically nothing happens. In tragedies, everyone gets angry and jealous and people die. The story of two teenagers meeting, falling in love, getting married, having sex, and killing themselves – all in the span of three days – is not a love story. When Shakespeare says from the very get go:
“ From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,”
He is telling us that this is a tragic tale of the cost of bitter family feuding and unbridled teenage passion. It is neither romantic nor is it an idealistic love story.
Love does not incite suicide. Romeo’s condition of banishment could have been a time for him to strengthen his love for Juliet. But their feelings were based on lust, not on love. They say that absence is to love what wind is to a fire — it puts out the small ones and enlarges the big ones.
The tale of Romeo and Juliet remind me of that of Amnon and Tamar in 2 Samuel 13. The burning passion that Amnon felt for Tamar is described in verse 2:
“Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin…“
Amnon and his buddy Jonadab concoct a plan whereby Amnon will pretend to be sick, ask that his sister be brought to his house to take care of him, and then entice her to have sex with him there on the bed.
When faced with his proposal to “lie with me“, Tamar doesn’t exactly tell him “no”, but just tells him not to go about it in this way. If Amnon is serious about his affection for Tamar, then he should just ask the king’s permission and “put a ring on it“.
His lust overpowered her reason and he “would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.”
Verse 15 is the one that hits the story home for me:
“ Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.”
Love would have endured in patience. Amnon took her virginity not because he loved her, but merely to “consume it in his lusts“. Lust takes the feelings of affection and turns them over into feelings of hatred.
Is Amnon’s plan to pretend to be sick to lie with Tamar any more absurd than the Friar’s plan for Juliet to pretend to be dead and then to have Romeo pick her up and live with her happily ever after in Mantua?
The story of Romeo and Juliet ends tragically because lust is tragic emotion. Tamar’s other brother Absalom had Amnon killed. These are tragedies — not love stories.
