Question 7 of 10
What does the audience learn about Romeo and Juliet from the prologue?
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.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
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.
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, prologue, lines 1-14.
A. They are the heads of their two rival families and hold an "ancient
grudge."
OB. They are brother and sister, meaning their love is forbidden in
Verona.
C. They have known each other for many years but only now have
fallen in love.
OD. They come from rival families, but their deaths will bring peace to
this rivalry.