Channeling The Bard

Is there really anything new under the stars when it comes to creating love scene dialogue?

You had me at “hello.”

Remember the run away line from the movie Jerry Maguire?  Showing up unannounced, Jerry (Tom Cruise) professes in a garrulous soliloquy his undying love for Dorothy (Renee Zellweger). She patiently listens then delivers her love punch, “You had me at ‘hello’.”

Something about the understated line rings true for today’s lovers struck with the “love at first sight” fever. The phrase inspired country crooner Kenny Chesney to write a song titled “You Had Me At Hello.” And when the opportunity arose in which he met the object of his song’s affection, the lovely Ms. Zellweger, he, like Jerry Maguire, howled at the moon then declared his eternal love for her with a marriage proposal.

Imagine my delight when I discovered that this wonderfully simple claim of one’s instant devotion had been written before. That’s right, William Shakespeare’s Juliet used the same sentiment on the obviously clueless Romeo when he showed up at her residence unannounced.

Upon Juliet’s insistence that it is time for the love-struck and babbling lover to leave, Romeo asks, “O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?”

To which she replies, “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?”

And he begs, “The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.”

Then she asserts, “I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: And yet I would it were to give again.”

In other words, Romeo, you had her at “hello.”