Romeo, Benvolio, and their friend Mercutio arrive at the Capulet party in style. Romeo tells his friends that he doesn’t plan on dancing tonight—he’s too sad. Plus, he had a dream the night before that gave him a bad feeling about the party. Mercutio teasingly thinks his dream is the result of a visit from Queen Mab. She’s the miniature “fairies' midwife,” who visits people in their sleep and fulfills their desires (however good or bad) in dreams.
Lady Capulet and the Nurse call Juliet to enter the scene. Lady Capulet wants to talk to her daughter, Juliet, about the possibility of marriage. They discuss the fact that Juliet still has two weeks left before her fourteenth birthday, but, as Lady Capulet points out, plenty of girls her age are mothers already. Juliet is open to marriage, although she admits she hasn’t thought much about it. Lady Capulet tells her that handsome Paris is interested in taking her as his wife. Juliet says she’ll keep an open mind. In the meantime, the Capulet party has just begun.
A brief prologue in the form of a sonnet tells us that we’re about to spend two hours watching a “star-crossed” love story that ends in death, but also reconciliation between the two conflicting houses to which the lovers belonged. Two men from the house of Capulet—Gregory and Samson—pick a fight with a few Montague men. Benvolio, a Montague man, tries to break it up, but his efforts aren’t exactly successful when Tybalt, a feisty Capulet, arrives to fuel the fire. The fight finally breaks up upon the arrival of the prince of Verona, Prince Escalus.
