“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?”
--William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Romeo and Juliet", Act 2 scene 2

The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, commonly referred to as Romeo and Juliet, is the famous play by William Shakespeare concerning the fate of two very young lovers who would do anything to be together. It is perhaps the most famous of his plays and is thought to be the most famous love story in Western history.

And now it incarnates as a toon with seals! To Shakespearean purist this must seem like a horror of horror!

However, ever literary work has an evolution. A common misconception is that the plot of Romeo and Juliet was invented by Shakespeare. In fact, his play is a dramatization of Arthur Brooke's narrative poem The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet (1562). Shakespeare followed Brooke's poem fairly closely but enriched its texture by adding extra detail to both major and minor characters, in particular the Nurse and Mercutio. Alas, it is true, he did not introduce any seals!

The power of the story revolves around romantic love: a major item in human existence. Ian Shoales, the alter ego of writer and performer Merle Kessler, once humorously remarked, “I know what love is: Tracy and Hepburn, Bogart and Bacall, Romeo and Juliet, Jackie and John and Marilyn....

Perhaps the most quoted and appreciated definition of “true love” comes from the Apostle Paul in his writings to the Corinthians:

    If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
    If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
    If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
 
        Love never gives up.
        Love cares more for others than for self.
        Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
        Love doesn't strut,
        Doesn't have a swelled head,
        Doesn't force itself on others,
        Isn't always "me first,"
        Doesn't fly off the handle,
        Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
        Doesn't revel when others grovel,
        Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
        Puts up with anything,
        Trusts God always,
        Always looks for the best,
        Never looks back,
        But keeps going to the end.
 
Love never dies.