Romeo and Juliet

[Before the real action of the play begins, a single actor (referred to as a chorus) comes to the front of the stage to deliver this introductory prologue to the play]

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, nought 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.

Capulet

Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well-apparelled April on the heel
Of limping Winter treads — even such delight
Among fresh fennel buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see                           
And like her most whose merit most shall be,
Which on more view, of many, mine being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me.
[To Servant, giving him a piece of paper]
                                 Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out
Whose names are written there, and to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

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