Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2, Scene 3

 

Two Gentlemen of Verona Act 2, Scene 3

Summary

In Act 2, Scene 3 of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, the scene shifts from the lovers' high emotion to low comedy, as Proteus's servant Lance prepares to depart. He enters, weeping, accompanied by his indifferent dog, Crab.

Lance laments that his weeping will last an hour, blaming his family's temperament. He says he has received his "proportion" (share of the estate) like the Prodigal Son and is off to court with Proteus. His main complaint, however, is his dog Crab's utter lack of empathy. He describes the emotional parting at his home: his mother, father, sister, maid, and even the cat were in distress, yet Crab shed not a single tear. He calls Crab a "pibble stone" (pebble) and jokes that even a Jew (a stereotype of hard-heartedness in Elizabethan drama) would have wept.

To illustrate the scene, Lance launches into a comic routine using his props. He uses his shoes to represent his parents (the one with the worser sole/hole is his mother), his staff is his sister, and his hat is the maid Nan. He then acts out the farewell, kissing the shoes as his weeping parents. Throughout this pantomime, he notes that Crab, representing himself—or is he the dog? He gets comically confused ("the dog is me, and I am myself")—remains utterly dry-eyed, unlike Lance who "lays the dust" with his tears.

Pantino enters, urgently telling Lance to board the ship as his master has already embarked. He asks why Lance is weeping and calls him an "ass." Lance responds with a deliberate pun: it's no matter if the "tide" is lost, for this is the "unkindest tied" (most cruel bond) a man ever had—referring to Crab, who is "tied here." Pantino, frustrated, launches into a chain of logic about losing the flood tide, the voyage, the master, and finally his service. Lance cuts him off by covering his mouth, saying he did it to prevent Pantino from losing his "tongue" in his long-winded "tale" (with a pun on "tail"). After more banter, Lance dramatically claims his tears could fill a dry river and his sighs propel the boat. When Pantino says he was sent to "call" him, Lance cheekily replies, "call me what thou dar’st." He finally agrees to go, and they exit.

Analysis

This scene is a masterful piece of comic relief and social commentary, serving multiple functions within the play's structure.

1. Comic Relief and Parody:

Following the intense, romantic farewell of Proteus and Julia, Lance's scene provides a sharp, bathetic contrast. His exaggerated grief parodies the heightened emotions of the noble characters. Where Proteus and Julia exchange rings and vows, Lance stages a farewell with shoes and a hat. Where Julia's silence was profound, Crab's silence is one of simple canine obliviousness. This juxtaposition highlights the artificiality and self-dramatization inherent in some of the lovers' posturing, grounding the play in a more recognizable, absurd reality.

2. Character of Lance: The Wise Fool:

Lance immediately establishes himself as the play's clown, but one with surprising depth.

  • Emotional Authenticity: His grief, though comic, feels genuine. He is being torn from his family and familiar world. His physical props make his emotion tangible and relatable in a way the lovers' poetry sometimes isn't.
  • Philosophical Confusion & Insight: His muddled identity crisis ("I am the dog. No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog. O, the dog is me, and I am myself") is a hilarious piece of metacommentary. It reflects the play's central themes of identity, service, and constancy. As a servant, his identity is subsumed by his master (Proteus); here, he is also emotionally overshadowed by his dog's "character." His rant about Crab's hardness of heart also ironically comments on the theme of inconstancy—Crab's "betrayal" prefigures the more serious human betrayals to come.
  • Verbal Wit: Lance is a master of puns and malapropisms. His confusion of "tide" and "tied" is brilliant. The "tide" is the external, pressing force of time and authority (his master's command). The "tied" is his internal, emotional bond to his home and his frustratingly passive dog. He feels bound ("tied") by his service, which forces the painful separation. His threat to Pantino about losing his "tongue" in his "tale/tail" shows a quick, subversive intelligence.

3. Social and Thematic Function:

  • The Servant's Perspective: The scene gives voice to the cost of travel and adventure for those who have no choice in the matter. While the gentlemen see Milan as an opportunity for education and romance, for Lance it is a forced dislocation from everything he loves. His "proportion like the Prodigious Son" is a comic mangling of the biblical parable, hinting at a small, practical stake rather than a grand inheritance.
  • Loyalty and Emotion: Crab is a perfect comic symbol of unresponsive loyalty. He is physically present (the constant companion) but emotionally absent. This mirrors, in a crude form, the kinds of failures in empathy and constancy that will drive the plot among the nobles. Lance's demand for Crab to perform emotion also satirizes the human need for external validation of our feelings.
  • Interruption by the World: Pantino represents the harsh, practical world that intrudes on emotion. His rapid-fire chain of consequences ("lose the flood... lose thy voyage... lose thy master... lose thy service") is a comic reductio ad absurdum of societal pressures and the logic of service, which Lance rightly tries to shut down.

4. Dramatic Purpose and Foreshadowing:

  • Pacing: It provides necessary breathing room between the emotionally charged Scenes 2 and 4.
  • Parallelism: Lance's departure mirrors Proteus's. Both are leaving home under paternal authority (Antonio's for Proteus, the social father-figure of the master for Lance). Both have a bittersweet farewell. This parallelism, treated comically, universalizes the experience of departure and loss.
  • Foreshadowing: Lance's relationship with the unmoved, "stony" Crab lightly foreshadows the more painful emotional neglect and betrayal that will occur. Julia will soon be in the position of Lance, loving someone (Proteus) who proves emotionally inconstant.

Act 2, Scene 3 is far more than mere comic filler. Through Lance's heartfelt, hilarious, and philosophically confused monologue, Shakespeare introduces a working-class perspective on the play's themes of separation, loyalty, and identity. Lance’s grief is as real as Julia's, but its expression—through misplaced anger at a dog and a puppet show with shoes—makes it profoundly human and funny. He acts as a comic choric figure, using puns and parody to comment on the main action, grounding the play’s romantic excesses while simultaneously enriching its emotional and thematic texture. The scene establishes Lance as one of Shakespeare's first great comic servants, whose humor is rooted in a palpable, relatable humanity.

 

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