What Was the Religion of Shakespeare?

by M. M. Mangasarian

The dashing rocks, thy seasick weary bark!

Here's to my love! * * * Thus with a kiss I die.

Surely this is not the language of the believer. Nor has Romeo any illusions about death:

Oh here

Will I set up my everlasting rest;

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh.

And to think that Romeo had a Catholic priest for a friend! But it shows how clean Shakespeare's mind was from "such fantasies * * * more than cool reason ever comprehends." *

And when Romeo takes his farewell of Juliet, his thought is equally free from fancies:

Eyes, look your last!