In this way Shakespeare makes sure the reader understands both aspects of fate and choice which together forge the development, crisis, and resolution of the story.
If Romeo and Juliet are indeed "star-crossed lovers" where destiny (or fate) has played against them (as in Friar Larence's letter not being intercepted in time by Romeo), the feuding families of the Montagues and Capulets are still held responsible for the deaths of their children for having pursued longstanding hostilities rather than resolving them.
The prologue in this way sets the stage for the play's major themes (For example, "Learn to resolve conflict before it is too late") and establishes the play as a type of cautionary tale in retrospect:
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 lons of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose mis-adventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
And the continuance of theri parents' rage,
Which but their children's end, naught 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.
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