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Speaker 1: Well, not everybody celebrates Valentine's Day, but if you do

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Speaker 1: or you don't, there's still kind of a fascination with

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Speaker 1: a story that became wildly popular well over four hundred

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Speaker 1: years ago and is still the most famous love story

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Speaker 1: ever written. It's William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet starcross lovers

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Speaker 1: whose families tried to keep him apart, only to have

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Speaker 1: them finally get together in death. But the question is

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Speaker 1: was Romeo and Juliet based on a true story or

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Speaker 1: did it just pop out of Shakespeare's brilliant mind. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it was both or neither. I'm Patty Steele. The answer

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Speaker 1: is coming up next on the backstory. The backstory is back.

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Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet was written in the fifteen nineties and

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Speaker 1: first performed on stage in fifteen ninety seven. With it,

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Speaker 1: William Shakespeare gave us a tragic romance but a little

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Speaker 1: bit of comedy thrown in. He liked to do that.

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Speaker 1: It was early in his career, and it was one

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Speaker 1: of his most popular plays while he was still alive,

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Speaker 1: and for the next four centuries continued to be a

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Speaker 1: fan favorite. Some say it's the most famous love story ever.

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Speaker 1: I mean who doesn't love to get misty eyed over

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Speaker 1: the misfortunes of some seemingly perfect couple. I think j

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Speaker 1: Lo and ben Affleck, or maybe not. But the thing

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Speaker 1: is Shakespeare was probably inspired to write the story after

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Speaker 1: reading earlier stories and poems about the same star cross lovers,

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Speaker 1: and the story of Romeo and Juliet was probably inspired

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Speaker 1: in part by some real life events and people. Going

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Speaker 1: way way back to the year eight a d. The

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Speaker 1: Roman poet Ovid wrote a tragic story that's a lot

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Speaker 1: like Romeo and Juliet. It was about two young lovers

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Speaker 1: whose fathers had an ongoing feud and said no way

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Speaker 1: to a wedding between the kids. The pair eventually agreed

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Speaker 1: to meet up in the woods. When the young girl

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Speaker 1: shows up, she spots a lot with a bloody mouth.

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Speaker 1: She's afraid and she runs away, but she leaves her

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Speaker 1: cloak behind. Then her sweetheart shows up. He sees the

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Speaker 1: blood and her cape, and, believing her dead, falls on

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Speaker 1: his sword, apparently a noble thing to do in those days. Finally,

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Speaker 1: the young girl returns to the scene. She's horrified to

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Speaker 1: find the bloody body of her dead lover, and she

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Speaker 1: decides to stab herself with the same sword, and she

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Speaker 1: dies next to him. Sounds a lot like the Romeo

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Speaker 1: and Juliet we know, And who knew that? There's a

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Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet reference by Dante of Dante's Inferno Fame

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Speaker 1: from two hundred and fifty years before Shakespeare's birth. He

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Speaker 1: wrote in his epic poem about two rivaling families in Italy,

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Speaker 1: the Montagus and Capulets. He says, come and see you

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Speaker 1: who are negligent Montague's and Capulets, one lot already grieving,

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Speaker 1: the other in fear. Come you who are cruel. Come

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Speaker 1: and see the distress of your noble families, and cleanse

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Speaker 1: their rottenness. Wow. Dante died in thirteen twenty one, but

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Speaker 1: historians say as well known as Dante still was by

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Speaker 1: the time Shakespeare around, it's pretty clear Shakespeare, again, two

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years later, would have known his work.

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Speaker 1: And then there was a guy named Matteo Bandello who

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Speaker 1: was the biggest short story writer of his day. He

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Speaker 1: died in fifteen sixty two, just a couple of years

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Speaker 1: before Shakespeare was born. In fifteen sixty four, he had

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Speaker 1: written a story that was translated as the tragical history

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Speaker 1: of Romius and Juliet again before Shakespeare was even born.

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Speaker 1: And finally, there was Luigi de Porto, an Italian writer

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Speaker 1: in the early fifteen hundreds whose story was partially based

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Speaker 1: on his own sad, real life love story with a

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Speaker 1: woman named Lucina. In the true story, he and Lucina's

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Speaker 1: families hate each other, then he goes off to war.

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Speaker 1: He is wounded in battle, and he comes home a paraplegic. Sadly,

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Speaker 1: Lucina was unknow by his injuries, and she marries somebody

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Speaker 1: else and his kids. De Porto, trying to ease his

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Speaker 1: pain through writing, takes the basic facts of his own

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Speaker 1: story but changes it up. He calls it a novel

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Speaker 1: of two lovers and their death in Verona. He uses

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Speaker 1: the family names Capulet and Montague, which came from the

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Speaker 1: real life Italian families, the Monteci and the Capuletti. He

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Speaker 1: inserts most of the characters that Shakespeare used decades later,

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Speaker 1: many with the same names, the same love scenes, and

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Speaker 1: the families finally reconciling after their kids are dead. Sounds

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Speaker 1: a little like plagiarism, but actually there weren't any copyright

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Speaker 1: laws in those days. So Shakespeare had the right to

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Speaker 1: take the story and go to town on it, adding his

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Speaker 1: own genius style. Today you can visit Verona, Italy and

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Speaker 1: see Juliet's balcony on a thirteenth century home once owned

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Speaker 1: by the Capulet or Capelletti family. It's one of the

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Speaker 1: most visited monuments in Italy. Of people go there to

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Speaker 1: tuck notes about their own love lives into the wall,

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Speaker 1: and they also, as per tradition, rubbed the right breast

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Speaker 1: on a bronze statue of Juliet in the garden, leaving

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Speaker 1: that part of the statue golden from all the caressing hands.

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Speaker 1: It's supposed to bring you luck. We do know that

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Speaker 1: the balcony on the house that represents the spot where

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Speaker 1: Juliet stood to call down to Romeo was actually added

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Speaker 1: to the house in nineteen oh five, after the house

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Speaker 1: became a tourist attraction. So at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: was it a true story. It's thought that Shakespeare adapted

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Speaker 1: the story from lots of other stories and maybe true

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Speaker 1: stories as well. And rewrote it as kind of a

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Speaker 1: satire about people's anger and judgment and the pain it

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Speaker 1: causes them. It's a story with a lesson and some truth.

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Speaker 1: William Shakespeare made his point with the opening line of

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Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet, which reads, two households both alike in

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Speaker 1: dignity in fair Verona, where we lay our scene from

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Speaker 1: ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes

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Speaker 1: civil hands unclean. Hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: free to DM me if you have a story you'd

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Speaker 1: like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group,

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Speaker 1: and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our

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Speaker 1: writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

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Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out to me with comments and

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Speaker 1: even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the

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Speaker 1: Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't

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Speaker 1: know you needed to know