The Bees Smell of Blood

It's true that our concept of romance owes its due to narratives of Medieval French and English literature. It’s a genre of parable—something we’re supposed to learn from—which illustrates how romance or affections should be presented in a perfect vacuum. It’s also been argued that Shakespeare took these ideas and hype’d them to the utmost intensity. He’s been championed as the poster child for love in high schools and movie theaters across the globe (or in the globe…), touted as the real ole’g. A gangster of love so old school, it’s hard to fathom his hustle.

But his hustle was both unfathomable and also misunderstood. Maybe not misunderstood by Shakespeare scholars, but by us- those who think romance sleeps coyly betwixt daydreams and whips of smoke from candlelight. I know I hated him for creating an idea that I could never realize nor live up to. After returning to some of his more popular works, all of them tragedies, I feel that he may have defined where true love truly exists. Love is tragic in the fact that it is not easily – or realistically—sustainable.

First let us take stock in the idea that I’m not saying love doesn’t exist nor that romance is not tangible. Especially after Joey’s defense. I’m only wagering that love is one of two things; a feeling we get looking back—a nostalgic yearning and something that we experience in small doses that add to this reflective contemplation. Now I suppose examples are in order. The strongest example, the one we’re all most familiar with, is Romeo & Juliet. Two crazy, hormonally accelerated kids, with their stars and crosses worn on their sleaves. They want to be with each other, based on the looks they’ve exchanged, and the few fleeting moments of intimacy they’ve shared. Juliet makes Romeo cum. Romeo makes Juliet complete. And when separated they are completely miserable. We choose to overlook the signs of youth and their shortsightedness because their longing is so strong and the odds against them only further justify that they should be together. Whether through death or dishonor to their respective houses. Sanity be damned, this is love we’re talking bout here folks, logic need not apply.

Then there’s the fact that they die. Remember? Poison begets happy dagger begets “For never was a story of more woe.” The fairy tale love, never really existed- there was suffering throughout, close friends were killed or alienated, family’s torn, burial expenses accrued by both parties, and for what? A hot fuck and some romantic words., or more aptly, the dating process as we know it today. If anything, this play acts as Shakespeare’s response to those medieval stories that fortified the false hopes of those who wanted to be in love, but were frustrated at their inability to attain what their childhood bedtime stories (or courtly presentations) depicted. It’s as if this is Will’s way of saying “Those stories build up expectations real people couldn’t possibly deliver on. And any attempt to live out grand embodiments of expression will get people killed or worse, heartbroken.“

Tragedy is the purest method with which to tell a love story because it outlines how blind love can make us, but does so in a fashion that mentions the few passionate times that can found what may feel like a lifetime of misery. What isn’t provided is how we can make it from one moment of love and bliss to the next- and this is most likely where relationships are birthed. Those periods where we ask ourselves what did we see in them—how can this relationship be sustained- and what am I getting out of this—that’s how you test the fortitude of your initial and continual attraction. How do we make it from one moment of purity to the next without letting the crap cloud our appreciation of the cream? Maybe it’s the stories of romance that keep us going? Now wouldn’t that be a vicious cycle.