In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Two households, both alike in dignity,
Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
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.
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
Their unfortunate, pitiful deaths
living in lovely Verona, where our play is set,
and their parents continuing anger,
bury their parents’ quarrel.
the townspeople soil their hands with each other’s blood.
If you will listen patiently,
Two equally respected families,
The son of one enemy and the daughter of the other,
victims of unfavorable fate, commit suicide.
Which nothing except their children’s deaths could end,
Break out in renewed violence due to an old grudge.
you will see acted in the next two hours on our stage.
The sad story if their ill-fated love,
our play will fill in what is missing from the prologue.