In the alternative, which she afterwards places before her lover with such a charming mixture of conscious delicacy and girlish simplicity, there is that jealousy of female honor which precept and education have infused into her mind, without one real doubt of his truth, or the slightest hesitation in her self-abandonment: for she does not even wait to hear his asseverations;—
But if thou mean'st not well, I do beseech thee
To cease thy suit, and leave me to my grief.
ROMEO.
So thrive my soul—
JULIET.
But all these flutterings between native impulses and maiden fears become gradually absorbed, swept away, lost, and swallowed up in the depth and enthusiasm of confiding love.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to you
The more I have—for both are infinite!
What a picture of the young heart, that sees no bound to its hopes, no end to its affections! For "what was to hinder the thrilling tide of pleasure which had just gushed from her heart, from flowing on without stint or measure, but experience, which she was yet without? What was to abate the transport of the first sweet sense of pleasure which her heart had just tasted, but indifference, to which she was yet a stranger? What was there to check the ardor of hope, of faith, of constancy, just rising in her breast, but disappointment, which she had never yet felt?"[19]
Lord Byron's Haidée is a copy of Juliet in the Oriental costume, but the development is epic, not dramatic.[20]