Module 1: Excerpts from "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Prologue–Act 2

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.

The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which but their children’s end naught 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.

O me, what fray was here?

Why, such is love’s transgression.

Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it pressed
With more of thine.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.

What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.

Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste,
For beauty starved with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.

She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your dispositions to be married?

Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen;
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscured in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margent of his eyes.

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it.

Her eye discourses, I will answer it.

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.

Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.

My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell, compliment.

At lovers’ perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.

O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully,
Or if thou think’st I am too quickly won,
I’ll frown and be perverse and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo, but else not for the world.

Therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.

Therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.

Do not swear at all,
Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I’ll believe thee.

Good night, good night; as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.