Two Households, Both Alike In Dignity...

John William Waterhouse: Juliet - 1898

Today's blog prompt:
What did you memorize when you were younger that you still remember?


I had to memorize the prologue to Romeo and Juliet in Mrs. Vitto's high school freshman English class...which I loved, and still recite to myself on occasion :)

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-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.