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Word Order
Language
Act 1,
Scene 1
Lines 136-137

An explanation of a rhyming couplet with the words "prove" and "remove" in myShakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1.

Montague

Black and portentous must this humor prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

Shakespeare has used a rhyming couplet to lend emphasis to the end of a long speech. But to do that he has moved the verbs “prove” and “remove” to the end of the lines, producing an odd word order. We would have said something like, “This humor will prove to be black and portentous unless good counsel removes the cause.”