Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Erin Sadlack
Not Peer Reviewed

Romeo and Juliet (Modern, Quarto 2)

The Prologue.
[Enter Chorus].Chorus
Two households, both alike in dignity,
0.5(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-crossed lovers take their life,
0.10Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which but their children's end nought could remove,
0.15Is 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.[Exit]