Romeo & Juliet Chorus

   I believe Shakespeare uses chorus in his plays as an introduction and well if at the time the people that saw his plays were rather poor and uneducated they might have gotten confused so the chorus explained a bit of the story to the people and gave then insight on what the story is going to be about and what to expect. I think translating the chorus helped me understand the setting and the pain events kind of like an over view of the play. It is one of those '' when you have to teach i, it helps you understand it better '' type of things so here we go!  ( the indented is the original line from Shakespeare and the bold is my translation. )  

Two households, both alike in dignity

Two families, both equal in power, wealth and strength. 

(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),

In beautiful Verona, where the scene takes place. 

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

From an ancient rivalry comes more hate 

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

And citizens end up with the blood of other on theirs 

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.

A child from each of the families will fall in love with each other, and even though it is not allowed and looked down upon by everyone they still do it anyways but it ends badly, resulting in death, and to the grave they will take their families hatred for one an other.

The fearful passage of their death-marked love

And the continuance of their parents' rage, 

Which, but their children’s end, naught could remove,

Their death was full of fear, but even though they were scared they did not let go of their rage towards each other. and they could only let go of it when their children died. 

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage—

you will watch all this happen in 2 hours ( on stage or wherever you are watching it) 

The which, if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

if you pay attention and listen carefully you will understand everything we did not explain here.