The Prologue’s line — “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life” — tells the audience the ending before the play even begins. This is a deliberate choice: Shakespeare isn’t building suspense about what happens, but about how and why it happens.

“Star-cross’d” refers to astrology — the idea that the lovers’ fates were doomed by the position of the stars, beyond their control. This raises one of the play’s central questions, which the Themes module explores in depth: are Romeo and Juliet victims of fate, or of their own impulsive choices (and those of the adults around them)? Notice as you read whether specific decisions (a letter that doesn’t arrive, a fight that could have been avoided) feel like “fate” or like consequences of character.