The Two Noble Kinsmen

1 Enter Jailer’s Daughter alone.
2 DAUGHTER.
3 He has mistook the brake I meant, is gone
4 After his fancy. ’Tis now well-nigh morning.
5 No matter; would it were perpetual night,
6 And darkness lord o’ th’ world. Hark, ’tis a wolf!
7 In me hath grief slain fear, and but for one thing,
8 I care for nothing, and that’s Palamon.
9 I reck not if the wolves would jaw me, so
10 He had this file. What if I hallowed for him?
11 I cannot hallow. If I whooped, what then?
12 If he not answered, I should call a wolf,
13 And do him but that service. I have heard
14 Strange howls this livelong night; why may ’t not be
15 They have made prey of him? He has no weapons;
16 He cannot run; the jingling of his gyves
17 Might call fell things to listen, who have in them
18 A sense to know a man unarmed and can
19 Smell where resistance is. I’ll set it down
20 He’s torn to pieces; they howled many together,
21 And then they fed on him. So much for that.
22 Be bold to ring the bell. How stand I then?
23 All’s chared when he is gone. No, no, I lie.
24 My father’s to be hanged for his escape;
25 Myself to beg, if I prized life so much
26 As to deny my act; but that I would not,
27 Should I try death by dozens. I am moped.
28 Food took I none these two days;
29 Sipped some water. I have not closed mine eyes
30 Save when my lids scoured off their brine. Alas,
31 Dissolve, my life! Let not my sense unsettle,
32 Lest I should drown, or stab, or hang myself.
33 O state of nature, fail together in me,
34 Since thy best props are warped! So, which way now?
35 The best way is the next way to a grave;
36 Each errant step beside is torment. Lo,
37 The moon is down, the crickets chirp, the screech owl
38 Calls in the dawn. All offices are done
39 Save what I fail in. But the point is this:
40 An end, and that is all.
41 [_Exit._]