1. Re-read the prologue silently to yourself once. 2. Re –read the prologue with your partner out loud, trading off every other line (ex. person A read line 1, person B read line 2, person A read line 3, etc.).

Prologue Close Reading Activity

Romeo and Juliet

Act 1 Prologue
Period:
Enter Chorus
Chorus:
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.
5 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 the parents’ rage,
10 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.