The prologue, a fourteen-line sonnet, introduces the theme of violence between two families through the imagery of bloody hands: ‘where civil blood makes civil hands unclean’. The fact that blood will be staining otherwise ‘civil’ hands suggests unprecedented amounts of violence and forebodes murder and death. The two parties are described as ‘foes’ who have ‘continuance of […] rage’, implying a long-running feud which is impossible to end (‘nought could remove’). This suggests an ongoing violence which is anticipated to only get worse: It is said that an ‘ancient grudge’ is going to ‘break to new mutiny’, suggesting that violence will erupt and the ‘grudge’ will come to a violent climax. Furthermore, the passage introduces the theme of violence which occurs between the play’s lovers. They are described as ‘star-crossed lovers’ who ‘take their life’, implying that their untimely deaths are written into fate, foreboding that the play will revolve around some sort of violence against them and their ‘death-mark’d love’. The sonnet’s rhythm of iambic pentameter also helps to emphasize the inevitability of their deaths as the determined, fixed beat spurs the passage onwards.
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