Name _____________________________________________
Period _________
Romeo and Juliet Prologue Translation
Directions: The following are the opening lines to the play Romeo and Juliet. In your group, decide what you think each line might
read like if it were written in 2008. Translate the prologue to the best of your ability at the right of the page, then consider the
challenges you found as you attempted this exercise.
Original Elizabethan English
Your Modern Translation
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Two households, both alike in dignity
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(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
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From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
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Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
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From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
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A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
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Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
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Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
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The fearful passage of their death-marked love
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10 And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
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11 Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,
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12 Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
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13 The which, if you with patient ears attend,
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14 What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
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