Two, long-feuding families in Verona will have their feud exacerbated by the love between a son of one family and daughter of the other. Their love is doomed and ends in their deaths, which finally brings an end to their parents' strife. The prologue establishes this tragic story of star-crossed lovers that will be depicted in the play to follow.

1. Romeo & Juliet
Prologue
in English, as it is rea"y spoken

2. 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.
The play takes place in Verona, and involves two
families which have a long-standing feud which is going
to break out into new violence among townspeople
whom everyone thinks are very civilized.

3. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair
of star-crossed lovers take their life; whose
misadventured piteous overthrows doth with
their death bury their parents’ strife.
A son is born to one family, and a daughter to the other.
They become lovers, but have terrible luck, and
eventua"y commit suicide, which is the only thing that
makes the parents stop their feud.

4. The fearful passage of their death-marked love
and the continuance of their parents’ rage, which,
but their children’s end, naught could remove, is
now the two hour’s traffic of our stage; the which,
if you with patient ears attend, what here shall
miss our toil shall strive to mend.
The death of the two is the only thing that ends their doomed
love story and their parents’ feud. This is what the play is
about, and if you didn’t understand the prologue, pay attention
to our play and we wi" try hard to make clear to you
how it a" happened.