Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 1 — Summary & Analysis
- Setting: An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden Who's in it: Romeo, Benvolio, Mercutio Reading time: ~2 min
What happens
Outside the Capulet orchard, Romeo cannot make himself leave. He climbs the wall to be closer to Juliet while his friends search the lane for him. Mercutio, who still thinks Romeo is pining for Rosaline, tries to "conjure" him up with a run of mocking, bawdy jokes about Rosaline's body. Benvolio warns that the teasing will only annoy him. Getting no answer, the two give up and head to bed, certain their friend is hiding to nurse the same old heartbreak. They have no idea that he has already forgotten Rosaline and fallen for someone new.
Why it matters
Mercutio's joking is funny and completely wrong. He performs the Romeo of Act 1 — the boy mooning over Rosaline — at the exact moment Romeo has vanished into a new life. The gap between what his friends think and what is actually happening is the scene's whole point, and the first sign that Romeo's love is now a secret.
The bawdy comedy sits right against the lyric beauty of the scene that follows. Shakespeare puts Mercutio's crude wit and Romeo's worshipful longing back to back, on the same wall, in the same minute. The play keeps insisting that both are true things about desire.
It is a small scene, but it quietly isolates Romeo. He steps away from his friends and toward Juliet, and from here the two social worlds barely touch again. The men's banter is the last easy, ordinary fun before the play begins to tighten.
Original Shakespeare alongside modern English. Synced read-along narration in the app.
Hear Act 2, Scene 1, narrated.
