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