ACT 1
Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Prologue: Retold in Modern English Verse
Fourteen lines that tell you how it ends
The Prologue is a fourteen-line sonnet that sets out the whole story before it begins. Two noble households in Verona, locked in an ancient feud, will see their children fall in love, and only the lovers’ deaths will end their parents’ hatred. The audience is asked to watch patiently as the two hours’ tale unfolds.
Key themes: Fate and Destiny | Love and Violence | Family and Honour
Two households, both alike in dignity,
Two families, both equal in prestige,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
In beautiful Verona, set our stage,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where ancient hatred reignites a siege,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
And civil conduct turns to civil rage.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
Two offspring of ill-fated enemies,
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
That, jinxed by love, both die by suicide,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Whose tragedy each family finally sees
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
That, by their deaths, their feuding’s set aside.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
The risky path, on which both lovers died
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
And parents’ anger never was retracted
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Until their deaths, could not be pacified,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
Will, for the next two hours, be re-enacted.
The which if you with patient ears attend,
If you sit patiently and pay attention,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
We’ll strive to show what we’ve yet failed to mention.
