No Fear Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet
Get this No Fear to go!
Prologue
Original Text | Modern Text | |
Enter CHORUS
| The CHORUS
enters. | |
5 10 |
CHORUS
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-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose 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, 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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CHORUS
In the beautiful city of Verona, where our story takes place, a
long-standing hatred between two families erupts into new violence,
and citizens stain their hands with the blood of their fellow
citizens. Two unlucky children of these enemy families become lovers
and commit suicide. Their unfortunate deaths put an end to their
parents' feud. For the next two hours, we will watch the
story of their doomed love and their parents' anger, which
nothing but the children’s deaths could stop. If you listen
to us patiently, we’ll make up for everything
we’ve left out in this prologue onstage.
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Exit | The CHORUS
exits. |
