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ADELA: Mother, when there’s a shooting star or a flash of lightning, why do we say:

Blessed Santa Barbara, why
Are you writing, up so high,
With holy water in the sky?

BERNARDA: In the old days they knew many things that we have forgotten.

AMELIA: I close my eyes so I won’t see them!

ADELA: Not me. I like to see things blazing through the sky, after being motionless year after year.

Explanation and Analysis:

The sisters look up at the stars, which come to symbolize their own desire to free themselves from their mother, village, and society’s constraints. Curious, freethinking Adela asks Bernarda why they traditionally associate shooting stars with ...

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Original

Romeo

(aside) She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturnèd, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse they name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Modern

Romeo

(to himself) She speaks. Speak again, bright angel! For tonight you are as glorious, there up above me, as a winged messenger of heaven who makes mortals fall onto their backs to gaze up with awestruck eyes as he strides across the lazy clouds and sails through the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Why must you be Romeo? Deny your father and give up your name. Or, if you won’t change your name, just swear your love to me and I’ll give up being a Capulet.

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