The Prologue from Romeo and Juliet
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Author: William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is the classic tragedy of feuding families and star-crossed lovers. This passage is the prologue from the play. Students will read the passage and respond to questions about setting the scene and how the prologue forecasts the play.
[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.
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