Author: Rolando Tinio    
National Artist for Literature Rolando S. Tinio’s Filipino translation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. With study notes.
Wala yatang kasaysayang higit na malungkot sa kasaysayan ni Romeo at ni Julietang napanood. –Hango sa Ikalimang Yugto, Ikatlong Tagpo
Romeo and Juliet, written around 1595, is possibly Shakespeare’s best known tragedy and is certainly one of the most famous love stories in all of literature. The names of the two leading characters are synonymous with tragic love, and for many people, the image of a maid and man whispering compliments to each other on a balcony against the moonlight epitomizes romance. . . .
Romeo and Juliet has been called a “tragedy of fate.” Yet the lovers too are impulsive, and perhaps Friar Laurence is right to remark that “they stumble that run fast.” Our pity for Romeo and Juliet is roused by our sense that the cards are stacked unfairly against them but also by how recklessly they play their hand. We can only agree with the Prince, “Never was a story of more woe / That this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
–From the Introduction by Jonathan O. Chua
C.2015 / Anvil