The Two Noble Kinsmen

1 Enter Palamon and Arcite.
2 ARCITE.
3 Dear Palamon, dearer in love than blood
4 And our prime cousin, yet unhardened in
5 The crimes of nature, let us leave the city
6 Thebes, and the temptings in ’t, before we further
7 Sully our gloss of youth
8 And here to keep in abstinence we shame
9 As in incontinence; for not to swim
10 I’ th’ aid o’ th’ current, were almost to sink,
11 At least to frustrate striving; and to follow
12 The common stream, ’twould bring us to an eddy
13 Where we should turn or drown; if labour through,
14 Our gain but life and weakness.
15 PALAMON.
16 Your advice
17 Is cried up with example. What strange ruins,
18 Since first we went to school, may we perceive
19 Walking in Thebes! Scars and bare weeds
20 The gain o’ th’ martialist, who did propound
21 To his bold ends honour and golden ingots,
22 Which, though he won, he had not, and now flirted
23 By peace for whom he fought! Who then shall offer
24 To Mars’s so-scorned altar? I do bleed
25 When such I meet, and wish great Juno would
26 Resume her ancient fit of jealousy
27 To get the soldier work, that peace might purge
28 For her repletion, and retain anew
29 Her charitable heart, now hard and harsher
30 Than strife or war could be.
31 ARCITE.
32 Are you not out?
33 Meet you no ruin but the soldier in
34 The cranks and turns of Thebes? You did begin
35 As if you met decays of many kinds.
36 Perceive you none that do arouse your pity
37 But th’ unconsidered soldier?
38 PALAMON.
39 Yes, I pity
40 Decays where’er I find them, but such most
41 That, sweating in an honourable toil,
42 Are paid with ice to cool ’em.
43 ARCITE.
44 ’Tis not this
45 I did begin to speak of. This is virtue
46 Of no respect in Thebes. I spake of Thebes,
47 How dangerous, if we will keep our honours,
48 It is for our residing, where every evil
49 Hath a good colour; where every seeming good’s
50 A certain evil; where not to be e’en jump
51 As they are here were to be strangers, and,
52 Such things to be, mere monsters.
53 PALAMON.
54 ’Tis in our power—
55 Unless we fear that apes can tutor ’s—to
56 Be masters of our manners. What need I
57 Affect another’s gait, which is not catching
58 Where there is faith? Or to be fond upon
59 Another’s way of speech, when by mine own
60 I may be reasonably conceived, saved too,
61 Speaking it truly? Why am I bound
62 By any generous bond to follow him
63 Follows his tailor, haply so long until
64 The followed make pursuit? Or let me know
65 Why mine own barber is unblessed, with him
66 My poor chin too, for ’tis not scissored just
67 To such a favourite’s glass? What canon is there
68 That does command my rapier from my hip
69 To dangle ’t in my hand, or to go tiptoe
70 Before the street be foul? Either I am
71 The fore-horse in the team, or I am none
72 That draw i’ th’ sequent trace. These poor slight sores
73 Need not a plantain; that which rips my bosom
74 Almost to th’ heart’s—
75 ARCITE.
76 Our uncle Creon.
77 PALAMON.
78 He.
79 A most unbounded tyrant, whose successes
80 Makes heaven unfeared and villainy assured
81 Beyond its power there’s nothing; almost puts
82 Faith in a fever, and deifies alone
83 Voluble chance; who only attributes
84 The faculties of other instruments
85 To his own nerves and act; commands men service,
86 And what they win in ’t, boot and glory; one
87 That fears not to do harm; good, dares not. Let
88 The blood of mine that’s sib to him be sucked
89 From me with leeches; let them break and fall
90 Off me with that corruption.
91 ARCITE.
92 Clear-spirited cousin,
93 Let’s leave his court, that we may nothing share
94 Of his loud infamy; for our milk
95 Will relish of the pasture, and we must
96 Be vile or disobedient; not his kinsmen
97 In blood unless in quality.
98 PALAMON.
99 Nothing truer.
100 I think the echoes of his shames have deafed
101 The ears of heavenly justice. Widows’ cries
102 Descend again into their throats and have not
103 Due audience of the gods.
104 Enter Valerius.
105 Valerius!
106 VALERIUS.
107 The King calls for you; yet be leaden-footed
108 Till his great rage be off him. Phœbus, when
109 He broke his whipstock and exclaimed against
110 The horses of the sun, but whispered to
111 The loudness of his fury.
112 PALAMON.
113 Small winds shake him.
114 But what’s the matter?
115 VALERIUS.
116 Theseus, who where he threats appalls, hath sent
117 Deadly defiance to him and pronounces
118 Ruin to Thebes, who is at hand to seal
119 The promise of his wrath.
120 ARCITE.
121 Let him approach.
122 But that we fear the gods in him, he brings not
123 A jot of terror to us. Yet what man
124 Thirds his own worth—the case is each of ours—
125 When that his action’s dregged with mind assured
126 ’Tis bad he goes about?
127 PALAMON.
128 Leave that unreasoned.
129 Our services stand now for Thebes, not Creon.
130 Yet to be neutral to him were dishonour,
131 Rebellious to oppose; therefore we must
132 With him stand to the mercy of our fate,
133 Who hath bounded our last minute.
134 ARCITE.
135 So we must.
136 [_To Valerius._] Is ’t said this war’s afoot? Or, it shall be,
137 On fail of some condition?
138 VALERIUS.
139 ’Tis in motion;
140 The intelligence of state came in the instant
141 With the defier.
142 PALAMON.
143 Let’s to the King; who, were he
144 A quarter carrier of that honour which
145 His enemy come in, the blood we venture
146 Should be as for our health, which were not spent,
147 Rather laid out for purchase. But alas,
148 Our hands advanced before our hearts, what will
149 The fall o’ th’ stroke do damage?
150 ARCITE.
151 Let th’ event,
152 That never-erring arbitrator, tell us
153 When we know all ourselves; and let us follow
154 The becking of our chance.
155 [_Exeunt._]