The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1891-07-10
JULIET's TOMB.
BY j. F. NJ.

The greater number of English speak
ing people who visit Verona associate the
town with the tragic fate of the fair
daughter of the Capuletti. Surrounded
by the vast and rugged battlements of
the Alps, intersected by the broad blue
waters of the Adige rushing under old
Roman arched bridges, its narrow, sun
baked streets overlooked by medieval
buildings and houses with facades, its
cathedral with cloisters six centuries old,
its churches surmounted by quaint shaped
towers, its gardens planted with stately
and venerable expresses, Verona seems a
fitting scene for what is. in sooth, the
saddest love story of which mankind has
heard.
That the tale was founded on fact we
learn from Girolamo de la Corte's history
of Verona. The romance writers of Italy
speedily laid hands on the tragedy as a
fitting theme for their pens; and poetic
version of the story by one Arthur Brooke
was first published in England in 1869,
entitled "The Tragicall Historic of Ro-
meus and Juliet. Contayning in it rare
Example of true Constancie; with the
subtill Counsels and practices of an old
Fryer and their i'll Event" Some five
and thirty years later was printed Will
lam Shakespeare's play, which has fixed
the fate of the Veronese lovers forever in
the worlds memory.
Guides are anxious to show strangers
the house, now known as the Palazzo
Sambonifazi, in which Juliet lived, and
the balcony which Romeo scaled close
upon 500 years ago. The building has
nothing remarkable in its appearance;
its walls are discolored by time, its
stucco work crumbling from age, no air
of romance distinguishing it from it's
neighbors. To reach it one must pass
through the Piazzo dele Erbe, once the
Forum of the republic, now the fruit and
vegetable market. The square, sur
rounded by palaces and houses decorated
with frescoes by Cavalli, is much as it
was when it ran red with blood during
the fierce fights which took place be-
tween the Guelphs and the Ghibellines-
families who for long rendered Italy
savage and unmanageable. To-day it
is peaceful enough, and is full of light
and color. Under the shade of huge
umbrellas-red, blue, green, and orange
are stalls piled high with melons and
pomegranates, fresh gathered figs and
apples; beneath the striped awnings of
portable shops wearing apparel of gaudy
hues flame in the bright sunlight; here
and there sacred pictures, crucifxes,
and statues are exposed for sale; the
shrill voice of a basket vender stationed
near the Tribuna, the ancient seat of
Judgment, rises above the general hum;
and close by a fountain, trickling over
its marble front and adorned by a statue
of Verona, is noisy crowd, largely
composed of soldiers in blue uniforms,
thronging round a young, comely woman
of the gypsy type, standing on a chair,
who with many words and much as
surance invites all interested in their
future to take card from the pack she
holds, by which and for the trihing sum
of a penny she will reveal the gifts
Fortune holds in store for them.
Passing the Roman amphitheater, still
in excellent repair, now given over to ex-
hibitions of rope dancing and displays of
fireworks, the visitor takes his way by
yellow-walled streets, through which
Dante may have walked what time he
sought refuge in Verona on his banish-
ment from Florence, until, passing out
side one of the ancient gates, a suppressed
Franciscan monastery, surrounded by
high walls and fair garden, is reached.
Above the entrance is sign board bear
ing in crude letters the words "Juliet's
Tomb" expected to find underneath
Admission half franc, but, instead,
saw the proprietors name. Ringing at
the gate, it was speedily opened by
rough looking laborer, who smiled gra-
ciously at the prospect of receiving fee.
With an air of pride he pointed to the
cabbages growing in his garden, saying
his vegetables were the finest in all
Verona, for the ground from which they
sprang had been for full 500 years the
burial place of monks.
The church is closed, like so many
others all over Italy, waiting to be let or
to be sold as corn store, wine vault,
stable, or factory. But one of its small
chapels, bricked up and cut off from the
larger building, isapproached by garden
path, and here is red marble sarcoph-
agus, called the tomb of Juliet The
chapel, little larger than recess, is chill
and bare, the whitewashed walls are dis
colored and damp, decorated by faded
laurel wreaths, and half covered by visit
ing cards nailed on its surface. The
tomb is likewise half full of cards; for
visitors, being unable, because of the red
stone, to crafty the desire, which so
stirs them on seeing famous
shrines and historic places, of writing
their names, have had to satisfy their
vulgar vanity and foolish egotism by
leaving cards - records of their visits.
Here you may yread the names of Mr.. and
Mrs. Smith, Bayswater; Mrs. ]. William
johnson, Chicago; Mr.. B. Hercules
Thompson, New York city; Miss Jemima
Browne, Putney, etc.
1t struck me the tomb, highly polished
and smooth, looked suspiciously new;
and then remembered. that more than
60 years ago Byron described it in letter
to Moore as "a plain, open, and partly
decayed sarcophagus with withered
leaves in it, in a wild and desolate con-