Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,1
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' 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 two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
EXCERPT FROM ACT II, SCENE II
JULIET:
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore3 art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father, and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO:
[Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?4
JULIET:
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff5 thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
ROMEO:
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
JULIET:
What man art thou, that, thus be-screen’d in night,6
So stumblest on my counsel?
ROMEO:
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee:
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
JULIET:
My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound:
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?
ROMEO:
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.
JULIET:
How cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen7 find thee here.
ROMEO:
With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me
