Unpacking `Romeo and Juliet Sonnets (1)

Leonard Whiting as Romeo and Olivia Hussey as Juliet, in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 production

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.

Act I, Prologue

1. Whatever might be their socioeconomic differences, the Capulet and Montague families are "both alike in dignity," equally proud in demeanor and equally keen to defend it.  Shakespeare deliberately uses the word "households" to mean their extended family circles, including nurses and servants.
2. "Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean" is full of irony, pathos and tragedy: These civilians (i.e., citizens) act rather uncivil; blood speaks to both relative (or bloodline) and violence (blood spilled); unclean hands recall Lady Macbeth's murderous blood stains that she cannot seem to wash off her hands.
3. "Fatal loins" invokes a gruesome image of the birthing delivery of these two families, symbolically meaning the regeneration of hatred and violence.  Fatal can also mean fateful, suggesting inevitability of tragedy.    
4. "Star-cross'd lovers" reminds us of the balcony scene, where Romeo is so enthralled with Juliet that the lights of all of heaven - stars, moon - pale in comparison to her beauty.  It also speaks to the romantic collision and inevitability of the two of them finding each other.
5. A sonnet is a compact drama of sorts, and we see Shakespeare build up the plot and tension from line to line.  By the time we get to the second quatrain, "civil blood" leads to death and requires it to end generations of hatred and violence between the two households.  
6. Shakespeare truly hammers home the point in the third quatrain, as he repeats and rephrases the second quatrain.  But in a deft stroke of sonnet-making, though, he prepares us for the volta (the thematic turn) via the last line of that third quatrain.   
7. We can imagine Shakespeare speaking for himself in the Prologue, not just affording us an overview of the play, but also appealing to our patience, sensibility and understanding.  We can imagine the staging of his play as an imperfect effort, but he and his troupe are keen to fix whatever goes wrong.
8. In the Shakespearean sonnet, the final 2 lines are tasked with resolving all the built-up drama and tension of the preceding 12 lines.  It's a tall task, which makes that deft stroke I mentioned all the more brilliant, because Shakespeare actually deploys 3 lines for the resolution.