Two households, both alike in dignity
In the colonies, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge, break to new mutiny
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean
From forth the ranks of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers takes their life
Whose misadventured, piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parent’s strife
The fearful passage
of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the five acts traffic of our stage;
The which if you with
patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.