Romeo & Juliet, Act 1 · c. 1597 · WY ELA · RL.9-10.4 + RL.9-10.5 + RL.9-10.6
the prologue · spoken by the Chorus at the start of the play
Romeo and Juliet, Prologue
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 misadventured 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.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Prologue (Act 1), c. 1597 Public domain · First Quarto 1597, First Folio 1623
Romeo and Juliet is a PLAY, not a novel — which means it was written to be PERFORMED, not just read. Shakespeare's language sounds hard at first, but it's mostly normal feelings in old English dress. Two teenagers fall in love. Their families hate each other. That's the whole engine. The prologue you just read literally tells you the ending in the first 14 lines — they die. Shakespeare wasn't worried about spoilers. He cared how you'd get there.
Pick how you want to study it
All three teach a real skill. Try one. Switch whenever.
Here's Act 1 with no Shakespearean costume on. Just what happens.
Where: Verona, Italy. A made-up version of it, anyway.
The two families:
🌹 The Capulets
Juliet — 13 years old (yes, really)
Lord & Lady Capulet — her parents
Tybalt — Juliet's hot-tempered cousin
Nurse — Juliet's caretaker since birth
Paris — the rich man Juliet's parents want her to marry
⚔️ The Montagues
Romeo — about 16-17
Lord & Lady Montague — his parents
Benvolio — Romeo's calm cousin (the peacekeeper)
Mercutio — Romeo's best friend (not technically a Montague but loyal to them; brilliant, sarcastic, kind of unhinged)
These two families have been feuding for so long no one alive remembers WHY. The grudge just IS.
Scene 1: The play opens with servants from both families brawling in the public square. The Prince of Verona shows up and yells at them: one more public fight and someone dies.
Scene 2: Romeo is moping. He's lovesick — but not for Juliet. He's obsessed with a girl named Rosaline who doesn't like him back. Yes, Romeo starts the play in love with someone else. Important detail.
Scene 3: Meanwhile at the Capulet house — Juliet's mom and the Nurse ask Juliet if she'd consider marrying Paris. Juliet, age 13, basically says "I'll meet him at the party tonight, I guess."
Scene 4-5: Romeo and his friends crash the Capulet party in masks. Romeo sees Juliet. They lock eyes. He forgets Rosaline existed. They sneak away and share their first kiss inside a sonnet they speak together. (Yes — their first conversation is a poem with rhyming couplets. Shakespeare flexed.) Then the Nurse comes to get Juliet, and Romeo learns Juliet is a Capulet. Juliet learns Romeo is a Montague. They are doomed.
The famous balcony scene happens early in Act 2 — Juliet is on her balcony talking to herself about Romeo, not knowing he's hiding below. THAT's when "wherefore art thou Romeo?" gets said. We'll get there next unit.
Bottom line of Act 1: two teenagers from feuding families fall hard for each other within hours of meeting. Everything else is consequence.
Shakespeare scares people. He shouldn't. Here are the tricks that make 95% of his weird stuff make sense.
trick 1Read the punctuation, not the line breaks. Shakespeare's lines stop at commas and periods, not at the end of the printed line. If you read line-by-line you'll get lost. Read by sentence. The thought continues until you hit a period.
trick 2Translate the "thee/thou/thy" stuff. It's just old "you" and "your."
thou = you (subject)
thee = you (object)
thy / thine = your / yours
art = are
dost / doth = do / does
hast = have
trick 3"Wherefore" doesn't mean "where." This is the #1 most misunderstood word in Shakespeare. Wherefore means WHY.
"Wherefore art thou Romeo?"
↓ translates to ↓
"WHY are you named Romeo?" (i.e., why do you have to be a Montague — the enemy?)
Juliet is NOT asking where he is. She doesn't even know he's there. She's complaining about his NAME — why does the boy I love have to be from the family I'm supposed to hate?
trick 4Most lines are in iambic pentameter. That's a fancy name for a simple rhythm: 10 syllables per line, with the stress alternating da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM.
"But SOFT, what LIGHT through YON-der WIN-dow BREAKS?"
Count the syllables: 10. Tap the rhythm: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. That's iambic pentameter. It matches a heartbeat. That's not an accident — Shakespeare wanted you to FEEL the lines, not just read them.
trick 5Read it aloud. Even badly. Even alone in your room. Shakespeare wrote for the ear, not the eye. The second you hear it, half the difficulty disappears.
That's it. Punctuation, thee/thou, "wherefore = why," 10-syllable rhythm, read aloud. You now read 90% of Shakespeare better than most adults.
The prologue is 14 lines. It's actually a sonnet. Let's walk through it like a translator.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
↓
Two families. Both equally important.
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
↓
This story takes place in beautiful Verona, Italy.
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
↓
An old hatred between them is flaring up again.
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
↓
Citizens are killing each other in the streets — staining their own hands with their own city's blood.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
↓
From these two enemy families, two lovers are born — and fate is against them. They will die.
"Star-crossed lovers" = a phrase Shakespeare invented here. It means people whose destiny in the stars (their fate) is set AGAINST them. It became one of the most famous phrases in the English language because of this play.
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
↓
Their tragic ending will be the ONLY thing that finally ends their parents' fight.
Notice what just happened. Shakespeare told you the ending. The lovers die. Their deaths stop the feud. This wasn't a mistake — he's saying the WHAT doesn't matter. The HOW is what's beautiful.
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
↓
This is the 2-hour show you're about to watch.
(Real performance is usually 2.5-3 hours. Shakespeare was being generous to his audience.)
The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
↓
If you listen patiently, we'll fix whatever this prologue didn't quite explain. Watch the play and we'll fill in the rest.
That's it. 14 lines. The whole story is in there. And — bonus fact — the prologue is delivered by a character called "The Chorus". Not a group of singers. In Shakespearean drama, a Chorus is a single speaker who introduces the action and talks directly to the audience. It's basically an old-school narrator who breaks the fourth wall.
Try a few
5 questions — Shakespeare's language, his characters, and your own thinking.
🌟 Show what you've got
3 questions. The Chorus, the families, and a line that hit you.
tutor ask about Shakespeare, the plot, or any weird line
Hey 💛 Shakespeare looks scary but he's mostly just dramatic teenagers in fancy clothes. Ask me what any line means, who any character is, why the language is weird, or anything that confuses you. Honestly even adults get lost in this play — that's normal.