In fair Verona where Will set the scene
Belle Fortune moves the markers up and down.
Two households both alike in dignity
Fiercely compete for fear of losing ground.
When Juliet saw Romeo at the dance
Events were set in motion that, perchance,
Would see fair Juliet as our Romeo’s bride
but ultimately result in her suicide.
With Tybalt and Mercutio both dead,
And Capulet and Montague estranged.
Young Paris sought fair Juliet to wed
not knowing of her loss of maiden-head.
Romeo was banished for his crime,
a sin for which a peasant would have died
Their two households, joined because they wed,
remained divided by their foolish pride.
Summer’s fierce heat shimmered in the air,
oppressive in the absence of a breeze.
With Friar Lawrence’s help, Romeo’s girl played dead,
as if struck down by some unknown disease
Romeo , in Mantua, heard that his Juliet
Lay dead amongst the sleeping Capulets.
A draught of deadly poison he obtained
So they might sleep together once again.
When Romeo met Paris at her tomb,
Words led to swordplay, leaving Paris dead.
Would not the world have been a better place
if Romeo had kept it sheathed instead?
Unshriven, Romeo drank the poison down-
the only son of Montague now dead.
Perchance just then fair Juliet revives
Bereaved, she took his Dirk to bed instead.
Authorities, arriving at the scene,
could only mourn a brace of kinsmen lost.
Capulet and Montague were reconciled
Their amity bought at a fearful cost.
A cliff notes version of Romeo and Juliet