Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet takes the lovers from their first night to their wedding in less than a day, and nearly everyone who warns them to slow down, Juliet and the Friar included, ends up hurrying them along.
This summary takes Act 2 scene by scene, from the Chorus to the moment Romeo and Juliet leave to be married. Each scene covers what happens, the key lines, and why it matters for the rest of the play.
For the whole story, see our full guide to Romeo and Juliet. For what came before, see our Act 1 summary, and for everyone who appears here, see our guide to the Romeo and Juliet characters.
At a Glance
Here is Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet in brief.
Prologue: Old Desire and Young Affection
As in Act 1, the Chorus opens with a sonnet summarizing what has happened.
“Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,” it begins: Romeo’s love for Rosaline is finished, and a new love has taken its place. Romeo and Juliet are “Alike bewitched by the charm of looks,” each loving someone they should fear. Their families make it hard to meet, but passion will find a way. The sonnet adds little to the story, and it is the last time the Chorus speaks in the play.
Act 2, Scene 1: Romeo over the Wall
After the feast, Romeo can’t bring himself to go home.
He climbs the wall into the Capulet orchard and hides. Benvolio and Mercutio come looking for him. Mercutio, who still thinks Romeo is pining for Rosaline, pretends to summon him like a spirit, calling on “Rosaline’s bright eyes” and making increasingly crude jokes about her body. Benvolio warns that Romeo will be angry. They give up and leave: “Blind is his love and best befits the dark,” says Benvolio.
The short scene sets up a joke the audience is in on. Romeo’s friends are mocking a love he has already abandoned, while he waits within earshot for a glimpse of someone else entirely.
Act 2, Scene 2: The Balcony Scene
The most famous love scene in English begins with Romeo dismissing his friend’s jokes: “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”
Juliet appears at a window above, and Romeo is overcome: “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” Unaware that he is listening, Juliet speaks her thoughts aloud: “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?” She is not asking where he is. “Wherefore” means why: why must the man she loves be a Montague? A name is only a label, she reasons: “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.” If he would give up his name, she would give him all of herself. Our guides to what “Wherefore Art Thou Romeo” means and “A Rose by Any Other Name” read both lines closely.
Romeo answers from the darkness, and Juliet is startled and embarrassed that he heard her. He climbed the orchard walls, he says, “With love’s light wings.” She warns him that her kinsmen will kill him if they find him; he says her love matters more than his life. When he starts to swear his love by the moon, she stops him, since the moon changes every month. Then she draws back: “It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; / Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be / Ere one can say ‘It lightens.’”
Her caution lasts only a few lines. She tells him her love is as boundless as the sea, and, called in by the Nurse, returns with a proposal of her own: “If that thy bent of love be honourable, / Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow.” She will send a messenger in the morning to learn where and when. They can hardly bear to part, and Juliet sums up the feeling: “Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, / That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” Romeo leaves at dawn to find Friar Laurence.
Act 2, Scene 3: Friar Laurence’s Cell
Early in the morning, Friar Laurence gathers herbs and reflects on their double nature.
The same plant, he says, can hold both poison and medicine, just as good can turn to evil when misused. The speech introduces the Friar as a man who knows the power of potions, which will matter in Act 4. Then Romeo arrives, and the Friar guesses from the early hour that he hasn’t slept, and assumes he was with Rosaline. Romeo corrects him: he has forgotten Rosaline, loves Capulet’s daughter, and wants to marry her today.
The Friar is astonished: “Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!” He teases Romeo about all the tears he shed for Rosaline, and concludes that “Young men’s love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” But he agrees to help, for a reason of his own: “For this alliance may so happy prove, / To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.” A marriage might end the feud. As Romeo rushes him, he gives a warning: “Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.” Then he goes along with the rush.
Act 2, Scene 4: Tybalt’s Challenge and the Nurse’s Errand
Scene 4 mixes the play’s funniest dialogue with its first real threat.
Benvolio tells Mercutio that Tybalt has sent a letter to Romeo’s father’s house, almost certainly a challenge to a duel. Mercutio mocks Tybalt as a fussy, fashionable swordsman, the “Prince of Cats,” and pities Romeo, who he thinks is too lovesick to fight. When Romeo arrives, cheerful and quick-witted again, the friends trade puns until Mercutio is delighted to have the old Romeo back.
The Nurse arrives with her servant Peter, sent by Juliet. Mercutio mocks her mercilessly before leaving. Alone with Romeo, she warns him not to lead Juliet into a “fool’s paradise.” Romeo gives her the plan: Juliet should find an excuse to go to confession at Friar Laurence’s cell that afternoon, where they will be married. His servant will bring a rope ladder so he can climb to Juliet’s room that night.
Act 2, Scene 5: Juliet Waits
In the Capulet house, Juliet is desperate for news.
“The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; / In half an hour she promised to return.” It is now noon. When the Nurse finally arrives, she won’t give a straight answer. She complains that she is tired, that her head aches, and that her back hurts, and she praises Romeo’s looks while dodging the question, as Juliet grows frantic. The comedy is real, but so is the cruelty of making a thirteen-year-old wait.
At last the Nurse relents. Juliet is to go to confession: “Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’ cell; / There stays a husband to make you a wife.” The Nurse will fetch the rope ladder for Romeo.
Act 2, Scene 6: The Wedding
The shortest scene in the act ends with the lovers going to be married.
Romeo waits with the Friar and declares that no sorrow can outweigh one minute with Juliet, and that once they are married, “love-devouring death” can do what it likes. The Friar answers with the play’s clearest warning: “These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which as they kiss consume.” Love should be moderate if it is to last: “Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
Juliet arrives, and the lovers greet each other in words of wonder. The Friar cuts them off and leads them away to be married. The wedding itself happens offstage, less than a day after they first met.
A Closer Reading: Everyone Warns Against Haste
Act 2 is full of warnings against speed, and nearly every warning is spoken by someone who then speeds things up.
Juliet is the first. In the balcony scene she calls their love “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,” and within a few lines proposes marriage and asks for an answer by morning. Friar Laurence is the second. He tells Romeo, “Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast,” and in the same scene agrees to perform a secret wedding that very day. In Scene 6 he warns that “violent delights have violent ends” and that love should be moderate, then hurries the couple off to the altar.
The only character who actually slows things down is the Nurse, and the play treats her delay in Scene 5 as comedy and torment. Slowness in this world is not wisdom; it is an obstacle to be got around.
The images match the warnings. Juliet compares their love to lightning, gone before anyone can say “It lightens.” The Friar compares it to fire meeting gunpowder, which destroys both in the moment they touch. Both are images of brilliance that consumes itself in an instant. The characters see clearly where speed will lead, and describe it in precise pictures, and hurry anyway. That is the act’s quiet tragedy: the lovers are not ignorant of the danger. Everyone around them names it, and nobody stops.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet, answered briefly.
What Happens in Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet?
After the feast, Romeo hides in the Capulet orchard and overhears Juliet declaring her love. In the balcony scene they agree to marry. Friar Laurence agrees to perform the wedding in hope of ending the feud, the Nurse carries messages between them, and the act ends as the lovers go to be married.
What Does “Wherefore Art Thou Romeo” Mean?
“Wherefore” means why, not where. Juliet is asking why the man she loves has to be Romeo, a Montague, the son of her family’s enemy.
Why Does Friar Laurence Agree to Marry Romeo and Juliet?
He hopes the marriage will reconcile the two families: “this alliance may so happy prove, / To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.” He doubts Romeo’s constancy, but sees a chance to end the feud.
How Long After They Meet Do Romeo and Juliet Marry?
Less than a day. They meet at the Capulet feast at night, exchange vows on the balcony before dawn, and marry at Friar Laurence’s cell the next afternoon.
What Does “These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends” Mean?
Friar Laurence warns in Scene 6 that intense passions burn out as fast as they flare, like fire touching gunpowder. He urges Romeo to love moderately, because love that rushes arrives no sooner than love that is too slow.
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