THE PROLOGUE
| [Enter Chorus.] |
| Chor. |
| Two households, both alike in dignity, |
 In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, |
| From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, |
| Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. |
| From forth the fatal loins of these two foes |
| A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; |
| Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows |
| Doth with their death bury their parents' strife. |
| The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, |
| And the continuance of their parents' rage, |
| Which but their children's end naught could remove, |
| Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; |
| The which, if you with patient ears attend, |
| What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. |
