For I've heard these words too often to count today...
1 Two households, both alike in dignity,
2 In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
3 From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
4 Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
5 From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
6 A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
7 Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
8 Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
9 The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
10 And the continuance of their parents' rage,
11 Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
12 Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
13 The which if you with patient ears attend,
14 What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
(Shakespeare, William: "Romeo and Juliet", Prologue)
2 In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
3 From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
4 Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
5 From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
6 A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
7 Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
8 Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
9 The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
10 And the continuance of their parents' rage,
11 Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
12 Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
13 The which if you with patient ears attend,
14 What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
(Shakespeare, William: "Romeo and Juliet", Prologue)