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46 pages 1 hour read

William Shakespeare

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1594

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Act IIChapter Summaries & Analyses

Act II, Scene 1 Summary

Valentine enters with Speed chasing after him, offering him a glove. Valentine initially rejects it, then accepts with great enthusiasm when he realizes the glove belongs to Silvia, the Duke’s daughter and Valentine’s new love. Speed teases Valentine for the remarkable change he’s experienced since arriving in Milan: once proud and energetic, Valentine is now as love-sick and mopey as his friend Proteus. Speed claims that Valentine has been metamorphosed by love. He asks Valentine if Silvia is beautiful; Valentine responds that she is both beautiful and well-loved.

Valentine reveals that Silvia has asked him to write a love letter for her, though he doesn’t know the recipient. When Silvia enters to retrieve the letter, Valentine becomes awkward and shy, acting like her servant. He gives her the letter, explaining that it would be better if he knew who it was for. Silvia tells him to keep it, saying she wants one written with more feeling. He agrees to rewrite the letter and give it to her tomorrow, but she tells him to keep it once he’s done. In a private aside to the audience, Speed realizes that the love letter’s recipient Valentine himself: Silvia is too shy and modest to respond to his letters directly, and so is having Valentine write his own reply. Silvia leaves, and Speed explains the situation slowly to Valentine, who struggles to believe it. 

Act II, Scene 2 Summary

In Verona, Proteus comforts Julia, who is devastated to hear that he is leaving Verona. The two exchange rings and vows of love, replicating the formal betrothal ceremony without any witnesses. After they kiss, Julia leaves weeping. Proteus is disturbed by the fact that she leaves without saying goodbye, then reassures himself by saying that true love is silent. Panthino enters to hurry Proteus to join the rest of the group traveling to Verona.

Act II, Scene 3 Summary

Proteus’s servant, Lance, enters carrying a staff and holding his dog, Crab, on a leash. Lance addresses the audience directly, lamenting the fact that Crab did not cry when Lance announced he was leaving Verona. Lance describes how his mother, father, sister, and even his cat wept at the news, while Crab seemed not to care that his owner was leaving. He takes off his shoes to dramatize the scene for the audience, pretending that the shoes are his parents. After debating with himself which shoe best represents his mother and father, Lance comically acts out the scene of his goodbye, kissing the shoes and weeping loudly. The dog stays silent, making Lance weep even more.

Panthino enters and tells Lance that he is late: Proteus and the rest of the men traveling to Milan are already on board their ship, and they risk missing the tide they need to depart. Lance puns on the word tide to reiterate how cruel Crab—who is tied to him via a leash—can be. Panthino warns Lance that losing the tide would mean missing the trip, losing Proteus, and losing his job. Lance replies that he could create a new tide with his tears and leaves.

Act II, Scene 4 Summary

Valentine and Silvia enter, followed by Speed and another one of Silvia’s suitors, a foolish older man named Thurio. Thurio is visibly jealous of their closeness, and accuses Valentine of pretending to be something he isn’t. Valentine retorts that Thurio pretends to be wise, but isn’t. The exchange of insults escalates, but Silvia stops the men from fighting.

The Duke enters with news that Proteus has arrived in the city. Valentine tells the Duke that Proteus is his oldest friend, and much wiser and more experienced than Valentine could ever hope to be. The Duke responds that he sounds like the perfect husband for a noble woman. When Proteus enters, Silvia embraces and compliments him. Proteus insists that he isn’t worthy of her attention. Silvia and Thurio are called away, leaving Valentine and Proteus alone. Valentine apologizes for teasing Proteus for being in love, and says that his life has been transformed by Silvia’s love. Proteus insists that his Julia is more beautiful. Valentine reveals that he and Silvia are engaged, and have made plans to elope. After Valentine exits, Proteus reveals that he has also fallen in love with Silvia, and that his love for Julia has almost entirely faded. He says that his love for Valentine has also faded now that they are rivals for Silvia’s love.

Act II, Scene 5 Summary

Speed jokingly welcomes Lance to Padua, though they are in Milan. Lance replies that he’s not welcome in any city until a local bartender welcomes him in. Speed asks if Proteus and Julia will marry, but Lance refuses to tell him. After some pressing, Lance tells Proteus to ask Crab: If he barks or wags his tail, it means the marriage is planned. Speed asks if Lance has heard that Valentine has become a lover; Lance responds that he hears Valentine is a “loser.” After some playful insults, the men leave for a pub.

Act II, Scene 6 Summary

Proteus enters alone and begins a soliloquy about the difficulty of his love for Silvia. To leave Julia would be to break his oath to her; to love Silvia is to break his allegiance to Valentine. Proteus compares Julia to a star and Silvia to a sun, and wonders how he can convince himself to leave Julia for someone better. He then chastises himself for his disloyalty to Julia, and wonders how he can stop loving her. Ultimately, he acknowledges that loving Silvia means losing everything else, and decides she is worth it. He determines to tell Silvia’s father about her plan to elope with Valentine, hoping that he can convince her to marry him instead.

Act II, Scene 7 Summary

Julia asks Lucetta for advice on how to get to Proteus in Milan without causing scandal. Lucetta tells her she should wait for Proteus to return, but Julia explains that she can’t wait any longer: Her love for Proteus is her food, and she is starving. Lucetta encourages her to be patient; Julia replies that damming a river only makes it stronger. Julia decides to dress as a boy in order to travel without being harassed by men and Lucetta agrees to disguise her. As they discuss the plan, Julia worries again what people will think of her. Lucetta encourages her to stay at home, warning that Proteus might not like being surprised. Julia reiterates her faith in his love and devotion, and leaves in a hurry to pack.

Act II Analysis

While the first act of Two Gentlemen of Verona establishes the main characters and themes, the second act of the play contains the inciting incident, which starts the action of the play. Proteus’s arrival in Milan and immediate infatuation with Silvia sets in motion a chain of events which effects each of the other characters in the play. Proteus’s love for Silvia leads him to stop writing Julia, who decides to travel to Milan to find him. His love for Silvia also leads Proteus to tell Silvia’s father about her plans to elope with Valentine, putting the lovers at risk. Perhaps most importantly, Proteus’s love for Silvia also ruptures his relationship with Valentine, his oldest friend, laying the groundwork for the play’s thematic exploration of The Importance of Loyalty Between Men. The consequences of Proteus’s arrival in Milan reverberate throughout the rest of the play.

The behavior of Valentine and Proteus in this act contributes to the play’s ongoing debate about the nature of love. Valentine’s devotion to Silvia demonstrates the transformative power of love. As with Proteus, love has caused Valentine “to weep like a young wench that has buried her grandam; to fast like one that takes diet; to watch like one that fears robbing” (2.1.20-22). The emphasis on loss in this passage suggests that (in Speed’s view, at least) love has had a negative effect on Valentine. Valentine himself admits that love has “punished [him] with bitter fasts, with penitential groans, with nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs” (2.4.122-24). This passage emphasizes the ways in which love has weakened and diminished the once-proud Valentine, whose radical transformation from love cynic in Act I to devoted lover in Act II reinforces the play’s implication that love can have a dramatic, perhaps negative effect on young men.

Proteus’s behavior in this act emphasizes The Fickle Nature of Young Love. In Act II, scene 2, he exchanges rings with Julia and pledges “true constancy” (2.2.8). In his vows, he prays that on the day “wherein [he] sigh[s] not ‘Julia’ for thy sake, the next ensuing hour some foul mischance torment [him] for [his] love’s forgetfulness” (2.2.10-12), suggesting that Proteus would rather be harmed than betray his love for Julia. Just two scenes later, when he meets Silvia, Proteus immediately declares that “the remembrance of [his] former love is by a newer object quiet forgotten” (2.4.186-187). He compares his love for Julia to “a waxen image” (2.4.193) which “bears no impression of the thing it was” (2.4.194) after facing a flame. The metaphor of wax impressions underscores the fickle nature of love, which can be changed as easily as melting wax.

For most of the play, noble characters like Valentine, Proteus, Julia, and Silvia speak in blank verse while working-class characters like Speed and Lance speak in prose. A notable exception to this rule is in Act II, scene 1, when Speed speaks directly to the audience in a series of three rhymed couplets. Speed’s sudden use of rhyming verse reflects the fact that he has figured out Silvia’s letter-writing trick before Valentine. The irony of this moment is that, as a servant, Speed is presumed by standards of the time to be less intelligent than his master, Valentine. The fact that he has to explain Silvia’s trick to Valentine inverts audience expectations and momentarily upends the hierarchy of their relationship. Speed’s use of rhymed couplets in this moment reflects his temporary elevation.

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