THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN

Act 1 Scene 2

(Enter Palamon and Arcite)
l1l	Arcite	 Dear Palamon, dearer in love than blood,
l2l		And our prime cousin, yet unhardened in
l3l		The crimes of nature, let us leave the city,
l4l		Thebes, and the temptings in ’t, before we further
l5l		Sully our gloss of youth.
l6l		And here to keep in abstinence we shame
l7l		As in incontinence# for not to swim
l8l		I’ th’ aid o’ th’ current were almost to sink—
l9l		At least to frustrate striving# and to follow
l10l		The common stream ’twould bring us to an eddy
l11l		Where we should turn or drown# if labour through,
l12l		Our gain but life and weakness.
	Palamon	Your advice
l13l		Is cried up with example. What strange ruins
l14l		Since first we went to school may we perceive
l15l		Walking in Thebes? Scars and bare weeds
l16l		The gain o’ th’ martialist who did propound
l17l		To his bold ends honour and golden ingots,
l18l		Which though he won, he had not# and now flirted
l19l		By peace for whom he fought. Who then shall offer
l20l		To Mars’s so-scorned altar? I do bleed
l21l		When such I meet, and wish great Juno would
l22l		Resume her ancient fit of jealousy
l23l		To get the soldier work, that peace might purge
l24l		For her repletion and retain anew
l25l		Her charitable heart, now hard and harsher
l26l		Than strife or war could be.
	Arcite	Are you not out?
l27l		Meet you no ruin but the soldier in
l28l		The cranks and turns of Thebes? You did begin
l29l		As if you met decays of many kinds.
l30l		Perceive you none that do arouse your pity
l31l		But th’ unconsidered soldier?
	Palamon	Yes, I pity
l32l		Decays where’er I find them, but such most
l33l		That, sweating in an honourable toil,
l34l		Are paid with ice to cool ’em.
	Arcite	’Tis not this
l35l		I did begin to speak of. This is virtue,
l36l		Of no respect in Thebes. I spake of Thebes,
l37l		How dangerous, if we will keep our honours,
l38l		It is for our residing where every evil
l39l		Hath a good colour, where every seeming good’s
l40l		A certain evil, where not to be ev’n jump
l41l		As they are here were to be strangers, and
l42l		Such things to be, mere monsters.
	Palamon	’Tis in our power,
l43l		Unless we fear that apes can tutor’s, to
l44l		Be masters of our manners. What need I
l45l		Affect another’s gait, which is not catching
l46l		Where there is faith? Or to be fond upon
l47l		Another’s way of speech, when by mine own
l48l		I may be reasonably conceived—saved, too—
l49l		Speaking it truly? Why am I bound
l50l		By any generous bond to follow him
l51l		Follows his tailor, haply so long until
l52l		The followed make pursuit? Or let me know
l53l		Why mine own barber is unblest—with him
l54l		My poor chin, too—for ’tis not scissored just
l55l		To such a favourite’s glass? What canon is there
l56l		That does command my rapier from my hip
l57l		To dangle ’t in my hand? Or to go tiptoe
l58l		Before the street be foul? Either I am
l59l		The fore-horse in the team or I am none
l60l		That draw i’ th’ sequent trace. These poor slight sores
l61l		Need not a plantain. That which rips my bosom
l62l		Almost to th’ heart’s—
	Arcite	Our uncle Creon.
	Palamon	He,
l63l		A most unbounded tyrant, whose successes
l64l		Makes heaven unfeared and villainy assured
l65l		Beyond its power there’s nothing# almost puts
l66l		Faith in a fever, and deifies alone
l67l		Voluble chance# who only attributes
l68l		The faculties of other instruments
l69l		To his own nerves and act# commands men’s service,
l70l		And what they win in ’t, boot and glory# one
l71l		That fears not to do harm, good dares not. Let
l72l		The blood of mine that’s sib to him be sucked
l73l		From me with leeches. Let them break and fall
l74l		Off me with that corruption.
	Arcite	Clear-spirited cousin,
l75l		Let’s leave his court that we may nothing share
l76l		Of his loud infamy: for our milk
l77l		Will relish of the pasture, and we must
l78l		Be vile or disobedient# not his kinsmen
l79l		In blood unless in quality.
	Palamon	Nothing truer.
l80l		I think the echoes of his shames have deafed
l81l		The ears of heav’nly justice. Widows’ cries
l82l		Descend again into their throats and have not
		(Enter Valerius)
l83l		Due audience of the gods—Valerius.
l84l	Valerius	The King calls for you# yet be leaden-footed
l85l		Till his great rage be off him. Phoebus, when
l86l		He broke his whipstock and exclaimed against
l87l		The horses of the sun, but whispered to
l88l		The loudness of his fury.
	Palamon	Small winds shake him.
l89l		But what’s the matter?
l90l	Valerius	Theseus, who where he threats, appals, hath sent
l91l		Deadly defiance to him and pronounces
l92l		Ruin to Thebes, who is at hand to seal
l93l		The promise of his wrath.
	Arcite	Let him approach.
l94l		But that we fear the gods in him, he brings not
l95l		A jot of terror to us. Yet what man
l96l		Thirds his own worth—the case is each of ours—
l97l		When that his action’s dregged with mind assured
l98l		’Tis bad he goes about.
	Palamon	Leave that unreasoned.
l99l		Our services stand now for Thebes, not Creon,
l100l		Yet to be neutral to him were dishonour,
l101l		Rebellious to oppose. Therefore we must
l102l		With him stand to the mercy of our fate,
l103l		Who hath bounded our last minute.
	Arcite	So we must.
l104l		Is ’t said this war’s afoot? Or it shall be
l105l		On fail of some condition?
	Valerius	’Tis in motion,
l106l		The intelligence of state came in the instant
l107l		With the defier.
	Palamon	Let’s to the King, who, were he
l108l		A quarter carrier of that honour which
l109l		His enemy come in, the blood we venture
l110l		Should be as for our health, which were not spent,
l111l		Rather laid out for purchase. But, alas,
l112l		Our hands advanced before our hearts, what will
l113l		The fall o’ th’ stroke do damage?
	Arcite	Let th’ event—
l114l		That never-erring arbitrator—tell us
l115l		When we know all ourselves, and let us follow
l116l		The becking of our chance.
		(Exeunt)