The Two Noble Kinsmen

1 Enter Hymen with a torch burning; a Boy, in a white robe before
2 singing, and strewing flowers. After Hymen, a Nymph encompassed in her
3 tresses, bearing a wheaten garland; then Theseus between two other
4 Nymphs with wheaten chaplets on their heads. Then Hippolyta, the bride,
5 led by Pirithous, and another holding a garland over her head, her
6 tresses likewise hanging. After her, Emilia, holding up her train. Then
7 Artesius and Attendants.
8 [_Music._]
9 The Song
10 _Roses, their sharp spines being gone,
11 Not royal in their smells alone,
12 But in their hue;
13 Maiden pinks of odour faint,
14 Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
15 And sweet thyme true;_
16 _Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
17 Merry springtime’s harbinger,
18 With harebells dim,
19 Oxlips in their cradles growing,
20 Marigolds on deathbeds blowing,
21 Lark’s-heels trim;_
22 [_Strews flowers._]
23 _All dear Nature’s children sweet
24 Lie ’fore bride and bridegroom’s feet,
25 Blessing their sense.
26 Not an angel of the air,
27 Bird melodious or bird fair,
28 Is absent hence._
29 _The crow, the sland’rous cuckoo, nor
30 The boding raven, nor chough hoar,
31 Nor chatt’ring ’pie,
32 May on our bride-house perch or sing,
33 Or with them any discord bring,
34 But from it fly._
35 Enter three Queens in black, with veils stained, with imperial crowns.
36 The first Queen falls down at the foot of Theseus; the second falls
37 down at the foot of Hippolyta; the third before Emilia.
38 FIRST QUEEN.
39 For pity’s sake and true gentility’s,
40 Hear and respect me.
41 SECOND QUEEN.
42 For your mother’s sake,
43 And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair ones,
44 Hear and respect me.
45 THIRD QUEEN.
46 Now, for the love of him whom Jove hath marked
47 The honour of your bed, and for the sake
48 Of clear virginity, be advocate
49 For us and our distresses. This good deed
50 Shall raze you out o’ th’ book of trespasses
51 All you are set down there.
52 THESEUS.
53 Sad lady, rise.
54 HIPPOLYTA.
55 Stand up.
56 EMILIA.
57 No knees to me.
58 What woman I may stead that is distressed,
59 Does bind me to her.
60 THESEUS.
61 What’s your request? Deliver you for all.
62 FIRST QUEEN.
63 We are three queens whose sovereigns fell before
64 The wrath of cruel Creon, who endure
65 The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites,
66 And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes.
67 He will not suffer us to burn their bones,
68 To urn their ashes, nor to take th’ offence
69 Of mortal loathsomeness from the blest eye
70 Of holy Phœbus, but infects the winds
71 With stench of our slain lords. O, pity, Duke!
72 Thou purger of the earth, draw thy feared sword
73 That does good turns to th’ world; give us the bones
74 Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them;
75 And of thy boundless goodness take some note
76 That for our crowned heads we have no roof
77 Save this, which is the lion’s and the bear’s,
78 And vault to everything.
79 THESEUS.
80 Pray you, kneel not.
81 I was transported with your speech and suffered
82 Your knees to wrong themselves. I have heard the fortunes
83 Of your dead lords, which gives me such lamenting
84 As wakes my vengeance and revenge for ’em.
85 King Capaneus was your lord. The day
86 That he should marry you, at such a season
87 As now it is with me, I met your groom
88 By Mars’s altar. You were that time fair!
89 Not Juno’s mantle fairer than your tresses,
90 Nor in more bounty spread her. Your wheaten wreath
91 Was then nor threshed nor blasted. Fortune at you
92 Dimpled her cheek with smiles. Hercules, our kinsman,
93 Then weaker than your eyes, laid by his club;
94 He tumbled down upon his Nemean hide
95 And swore his sinews thawed. O grief and time,
96 Fearful consumers, you will all devour!
97 FIRST QUEEN.
98 O, I hope some god,
99 Some god hath put his mercy in your manhood,
100 Whereto he’ll infuse power, and press you forth
101 Our undertaker.
102 THESEUS.
103 O, no knees, none, widow!
104 Unto the helmeted Bellona use them,
105 And pray for me, your soldier.
106 Troubled I am.
107 [_Turns away._]
108 SECOND QUEEN.
109 Honoured Hippolyta,
110 Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slain
111 The scythe-tusked boar; that with thy arm, as strong
112 As it is white, wast near to make the male
113 To thy sex captive, but that this thy lord,
114 Born to uphold creation in that honour
115 First nature styled it in, shrunk thee into
116 The bound thou wast o’erflowing, at once subduing
117 Thy force and thy affection; soldieress
118 That equally canst poise sternness with pity,
119 Whom now I know hast much more power on him
120 Than ever he had on thee, who ow’st his strength
121 And his love too, who is a servant for
122 The tenor of thy speech, dear glass of ladies,
123 Bid him that we, whom flaming war doth scorch,
124 Under the shadow of his sword may cool us;
125 Require him he advance it o’er our heads;
126 Speak ’t in a woman’s key, like such a woman
127 As any of us three; weep ere you fail.
128 Lend us a knee;
129 But touch the ground for us no longer time
130 Than a dove’s motion when the head’s plucked off.
131 Tell him if he i’ th’ blood-sized field lay swollen,
132 Showing the sun his teeth, grinning at the moon,
133 What you would do.
134 HIPPOLYTA.
135 Poor lady, say no more.
136 I had as lief trace this good action with you
137 As that whereto I am going, and never yet
138 Went I so willing way. My lord is taken
139 Heart-deep with your distress. Let him consider;
140 I’ll speak anon.
141 THIRD QUEEN.
142 O, my petition was
143 Set down in ice, which by hot grief uncandied
144 Melts into drops; so sorrow, wanting form,
145 Is pressed with deeper matter.
146 EMILIA.
147 Pray, stand up;
148 Your grief is written in your cheek.
149 THIRD QUEEN.
150 O, woe!
151 You cannot read it there. There through my tears,
152 Like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream,
153 You may behold ’em. Lady, lady, alack!
154 He that will all the treasure know o’ th’ earth
155 Must know the center too; he that will fish
156 For my least minnow, let him lead his line
157 To catch one at my heart. O, pardon me!
158 Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits,
159 Makes me a fool.
160 EMILIA.
161 Pray you say nothing, pray you.
162 Who cannot feel nor see the rain, being in ’t,
163 Knows neither wet nor dry. If that you were
164 The ground-piece of some painter, I would buy you
165 T’ instruct me ’gainst a capital grief, indeed
166 Such heart-pierced demonstration. But, alas,
167 Being a natural sister of our sex,
168 Your sorrow beats so ardently upon me
169 That it shall make a counter-reflect ’gainst
170 My brother’s heart and warm it to some pity,
171 Though it were made of stone. Pray have good comfort.
172 THESEUS.
173 Forward to th’ temple! Leave not out a jot
174 O’ th’ sacred ceremony.
175 FIRST QUEEN.
176 O, this celebration
177 Will longer last and be more costly than
178 Your suppliants’ war! Remember that your fame
179 Knolls in the ear o’ th’ world; what you do quickly
180 Is not done rashly; your first thought is more
181 Than others’ laboured meditance, your premeditating
182 More than their actions. But, O Jove, your actions,
183 Soon as they move, as ospreys do the fish,
184 Subdue before they touch. Think, dear Duke, think
185 What beds our slain kings have!
186 SECOND QUEEN.
187 What griefs our beds,
188 That our dear lords have none!
189 THIRD QUEEN.
190 None fit for th’ dead.
191 Those that with cords, knives, drams, precipitance,
192 Weary of this world’s light, have to themselves
193 Been death’s most horrid agents, human grace
194 Affords them dust and shadow.
195 FIRST QUEEN.
196 But our lords
197 Lie blist’ring ’fore the visitating sun,
198 And were good kings when living.
199 THESEUS.
200 It is true, and I will give you comfort
201 To give your dead lords graves;
202 The which to do must make some work with Creon.
203 FIRST QUEEN.
204 And that work presents itself to th’ doing.
205 Now ’twill take form; the heats are gone tomorrow.
206 Then, bootless toil must recompense itself
207 With its own sweat. Now he’s secure,
208 Not dreams we stand before your puissance,
209 Rinsing our holy begging in our eyes
210 To make petition clear.
211 SECOND QUEEN.
212 Now you may take him, drunk with his victory.
213 THIRD QUEEN.
214 And his army full of bread and sloth.
215 THESEUS.
216 Artesius, that best knowest
217 How to draw out fit to this enterprise
218 The prim’st for this proceeding, and the number
219 To carry such a business: forth and levy
220 Our worthiest instruments, whilst we dispatch
221 This grand act of our life, this daring deed
222 Of fate in wedlock.
223 FIRST QUEEN.
224 Dowagers, take hands.
225 Let us be widows to our woes; delay
226 Commends us to a famishing hope.
227 ALL THE QUEENS.
228 Farewell!
229 SECOND QUEEN.
230 We come unseasonably; but when could grief
231 Cull forth, as unpanged judgement can, fitt’st time
232 For best solicitation?
233 THESEUS.
234 Why, good ladies,
235 This is a service, whereto I am going,
236 Greater than any war; it more imports me
237 Than all the actions that I have foregone,
238 Or futurely can cope.
239 FIRST QUEEN.
240 The more proclaiming
241 Our suit shall be neglected when her arms,
242 Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall
243 By warranting moonlight corselet thee. O, when
244 Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall
245 Upon thy tasteful lips, what wilt thou think
246 Of rotten kings or blubbered queens? What care
247 For what thou feel’st not, what thou feel’st being able
248 To make Mars spurn his drum? O, if thou couch
249 But one night with her, every hour in ’t will
250 Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
251 Thou shalt remember nothing more than what
252 That banquet bids thee to.
253 HIPPOLYTA.
254 Though much unlike
255 You should be so transported, as much sorry
256 I should be such a suitor, yet I think,
257 Did I not, by th’ abstaining of my joy,
258 Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit
259 That craves a present med’cine, I should pluck
260 All ladies’ scandal on me. Therefore, sir,
261 [_She kneels._]
262 As I shall here make trial of my prayers,
263 Either presuming them to have some force,
264 Or sentencing for aye their vigor dumb,
265 Prorogue this business we are going about, and hang
266 Your shield afore your heart, about that neck
267 Which is my fee, and which I freely lend
268 To do these poor queens service.
269 ALL QUEENS.
270 [_To Emilia_.] O, help now!
271 Our cause cries for your knee.
272 EMILIA.
273 [_To Theseus, kneeling_.] If you grant not
274 My sister her petition in that force,
275 With that celerity and nature, which
276 She makes it in, from henceforth I’ll not dare
277 To ask you anything, nor be so hardy
278 Ever to take a husband.
279 THESEUS.
280 Pray stand up.
281 I am entreating of myself to do
282 [_They rise._]
283 That which you kneel to have me.—Pirithous,
284 Lead on the bride; get you and pray the gods
285 For success and return; omit not anything
286 In the pretended celebration.—Queens,
287 Follow your soldier. [_To Artesius._] As before, hence you,
288 And at the banks of Aulis meet us with
289 The forces you can raise, where we shall find
290 The moiety of a number for a business
291 More bigger looked.
292 [_Exit Artesius._]
293 [_To Hippolyta._] Since that our theme is haste,
294 I stamp this kiss upon thy currant lip;
295 Sweet, keep it as my token. Set you forward,
296 For I will see you gone.
297 [_The wedding procession moves towards the temple._]
298 Farewell, my beauteous sister.—Pirithous,
299 Keep the feast full; bate not an hour on ’t.
300 PIRITHOUS.
301 Sir,
302 I’ll follow you at heels. The feast’s solemnity
303 Shall want till your return.
304 THESEUS.
305 Cousin, I charge you,
306 Budge not from Athens. We shall be returning
307 Ere you can end this feast, of which I pray you
308 Make no abatement. Once more, farewell all.
309 [_Exeunt all but Theseus and the Queens._]
310 FIRST QUEEN.
311 Thus dost thou still make good the tongue o’ th’ world.
312 SECOND QUEEN.
313 And earn’st a deity equal with Mars.
314 THIRD QUEEN.
315 If not above him, for
316 Thou, being but mortal, mak’st affections bend
317 To godlike honours; they themselves, some say,
318 Groan under such a mast’ry.
319 THESEUS.
320 As we are men,
321 Thus should we do; being sensually subdued,
322 We lose our human title. Good cheer, ladies.
323 Now turn we towards your comforts.
324 [_Flourish. Exeunt._]