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Plays › The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet › Act 2, Prologue

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

Act 2, Prologue — Prologue

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Enter Chorus.

Chorus

Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,

And young affection gapes to be his heir;

That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,

With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.

Now Romeo is beloved and loves again,

Alike bewitched by the charm of looks,

But to his foe supposed he must complain,

And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:

Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;

And she as much in love, her means much less

To meet her new beloved any where:

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,

Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

Exit.

Modern translation & notes

In plain English

Romeo's old infatuation with Rosaline is dying, and his new love for Juliet is ready to take its place. Rosaline, the beauty Romeo pined over, seems nothing compared to Juliet. Now Romeo loves and is loved in return, but he's fallen for an enemy, and the feud blocks their access to each other. Yet passion gives them power and time gives them opportunity, balancing danger with sweetness.

What’s happening

The Chorus delivers this sonnet as a bridge between Act 1's party scene and Act 2's balcony scene. The audience has just witnessed Romeo and Juliet's instant mutual attraction and learned of the impossible obstacle between them. The Chorus frames the central tension — reciprocal love thwarted by family hatred — and previews that they will find a way to meet despite the barriers.

Worth knowing

The speech is itself a Shakespearean sonnet (ABABCDCDEFEFGG), a form Shakespeare used for the Prologue to the play as well. The legal language of 'heir' and inheritance continues a pattern of treating desire as a dynasty that passes from one generation to the next. 'Fearful hooks' invokes the common Petrarchan conceit of love as a fishhook that catches the unwilling heart.

Playing the moment

This is a narrative bridge, not a dramatic scene — deliver it with the measured authority of a storyteller who knows the full arc. Pace it as a sonnet: let the quatrain structure shape your breath, building tension through the first three quatrains and resolving with warmth and inevitability in the final couplet. The tone should shift from brisk summary in the first quatrain to genuine tenderness and suspense by the end. Avoid melodrama; the Chorus observes and frames, never emotes as the lovers do.

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It is built for the person who has to be off book by tech week — school and college productions, community theatre, festivals, drama students and classical auditions — and for anyone who wants to hear a scene rather than skim it. Alongside the performance you get a plain-English translation of every speech, scene context, performance notes, and the ability to ask about any line and get an answer that already knows the play, the scene and who is speaking.

The text is the public-domain Cambridge/Globe edition. Translations and notes are AI-generated rehearsal aids for actors and students, not a scholarly apparatus. Yorick runs in a browser with nothing to install, and on iPhone and Android.

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