The Two Noble Kinsmen

1 Enter Jailer’s Daughter alone.
2 DAUGHTER.
3 Let all the dukes and all the devils roar,
4 He is at liberty! I have ventured for him
5 And out I have brought him; to a little wood
6 A mile hence I have sent him, where a cedar
7 Higher than all the rest spreads like a plane
8 Fast by a brook, and there he shall keep close
9 Till I provide him files and food, for yet
10 His iron bracelets are not off. O Love,
11 What a stout-hearted child thou art! My father
12 Durst better have endured cold iron than done it.
13 I love him beyond love and beyond reason,
14 Or wit, or safety. I have made him know it;
15 I care not, I am desperate. If the law
16 Find me and then condemn me for ’t, some wenches,
17 Some honest-hearted maids, will sing my dirge
18 And tell to memory my death was noble,
19 Dying almost a martyr. That way he takes,
20 I purpose is my way too. Sure he cannot
21 Be so unmanly as to leave me here.
22 If he do, maids will not so easily
23 Trust men again. And yet he has not thanked me
24 For what I have done; no, not so much as kissed me,
25 And that, methinks, is not so well; nor scarcely
26 Could I persuade him to become a free man,
27 He made such scruples of the wrong he did
28 To me and to my father. Yet I hope,
29 When he considers more, this love of mine
30 Will take more root within him. Let him do
31 What he will with me, so he use me kindly;
32 For use me so he shall, or I’ll proclaim him,
33 And to his face, no man. I’ll presently
34 Provide him necessaries and pack my clothes up,
35 And where there is a path of ground I’ll venture,
36 So he be with me. By him, like a shadow
37 I’ll ever dwell. Within this hour the hubbub
38 Will be all o’er the prison. I am then
39 Kissing the man they look for. Farewell, father!
40 Get many more such prisoners and such daughters,
41 And shortly you may keep yourself. Now to him.
42 [_Exit._]