Romeo is smitten with both Rosaline and Juliet, but his love for Rosaline is unrequited. Thus, we find him at the beginning of the play pining for Rosaline, who has decided to remain chaste. His friends urge him to get over Rosaline, but he only does so when he encounters Juliet. The Friar, to whom he has spoken at length about his love for Rosaline, is skeptical about his newly-professed love for Juliet. He understandably thinks that Romeo has impulsively given his love to another, which suggests that neither love was really sincere. It is hard to know whether his love for Rosaline was legitimate—it certainly seems so at the beginning of the play—but his love for Juliet certainly is. He is willing to die for her. I would argue Romeo loves both women passionately, but his love for Juliet seems more substantial.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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