The Two Noble Kinsmen
PROLOGUE
Flourish. Enter Speaker of the Prologue.
New plays and maidenheads are near akin:
Much followed both, for both much money gi’en,
If they stand sound and well. And a good play,
Whose modest scenes blush on his marriage day
And shake to lose his honour, is like her
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That after holy tie and first night’s stir
Yet still is Modesty and still retains
More of the maid, to sight, than husband’s pains.
We pray our play may be so, for I am sure
It has a noble breeder and a pure,
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A learned, and a poet never went
More famous yet ’twixt Po and silver Trent.
Chaucer, of all admired, the story gives;
There, constant to eternity, it lives.
If we let fall the nobleness of this
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And the first sound this child hear be a hiss,
How will it shake the bones of that good man
And make him cry from under ground, ‘Oh, fan
From me the witless chaff of such a writer
That blasts my bays and my famed works makes lighter
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Than Robin Hood!’ This is the fear we bring;
For, to say truth, it were an endless thing
And too ambitious to aspire to him,
Weak as we are, and, almost breathless, swim
In this deep water. Do but you hold out
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Your helping hands and we shall tack about
And something do to save us. You shall hear
Scenes, though below his art, may yet appear
Worth two hours’ travel. To his bones sweet sleep;
Content to you. If this play do not keep
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A little dull time from us, we perceive
Our losses fall so thick, we must needs leave.
Flourish. Exit.
1.1 Music. Enter Hymen with a torch burning; a Boy, in a white robe, before, singing and strewing flowers; after Hymen, a Nymph encompassed in her tresses, bearing a wheaten garland. Then THESEUS between two other nymphs with wheaten chaplets on their heads. Then HIPPOLYTA the bride, led by PIRITHOUS and another holding a garland over her head (her tresses likewise hanging). After her, EMILIA, holding up her train; Artesius; attendants; musicians.
BOY [Sings.]
Roses, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone
But in their hue;
Maiden pinks of odour faint,
Daisies smell-less yet most quaint,
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And sweet thyme true;
Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry springtime’s harbinger,
With harebells dim,
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
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Marigolds on deathbeds blowing,
Lark’s-heels trim: [Strews flowers.]
All dear Nature’s children sweet
Lie ’fore bride and bridegroom’s feet,
Blessing their sense.
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Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious, or bird fair,
Is absent hence.
The crow, the sland’rous cuckoo, nor
The boding raven, nor chough hoar,
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Nor chatt’ring ’pie,
May on our bride-house perch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,
But from it fly.
Enter three Queens in black, with veils stained, with imperial crowns. The First Queen falls down at the foot of Theseus; the Second falls down at the foot of Hippolyta; the Third before Emilia.
1QUEEN [to Theseus]
For pity’s sake and true gentility’s,
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Hear and respect me.
2QUEEN [to Hippolyta] For your mother’s sake
And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair ones,
Hear and respect me.
3QUEEN [to Emilia]
Now, for the love of him whom Jove hath marked
The honour of your bed and for the sake
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Of clear virginity, be advocate
For us and our distresses. This good deed
Shall raze you out o’th’ book of trespasses
All you are set down there.
THESEUS Sad lady, rise.
HIPPOLYTA Stand up.
EMILIA No knees to me!
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What woman I may stead that is distressed
Does bind me to her.
THESEUS
What’s your request?
[to First Queen] Deliver you for all.
1QUEEN
We are three queens whose sovereigns fell before
The wrath of cruel Creon, who endure
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The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites
And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes.
He will not suffer us to burn their bones,
To urn their ashes, nor to take th’offence
Of mortal loathsomeness from the blest eye
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Of holy Phoebus, but infects the winds
With stench of our slain lords. O pity, Duke;
Thou purger of the earth, draw thy feared sword
That does good turns to th’ world; give us the bones
Of our dead kings that we may chapel them;
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And of thy boundless goodness take some note
That for our crowned heads we have no roof,
Save this which is the lion’s and the bear’s
And vault to every thing.
THESEUS Pray you, kneel not:
I was transported with your speech and suffered
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Your knees to wrong themselves. I have heard the fortunes
Of your dead lords, which gives me such lamenting
As wakes my vengeance and revenge for ’em.
[to First Queen] King Capaneus was your lord. The day
That he should marry you, at such a season
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As now it is with me, I met your groom.
By Mars’s altar, you were that time fair!
Not Juno’s mantle fairer than your tresses
Nor in more bounty spread her. Your wheaten wreath
Was then nor threshed nor blasted; Fortune at you
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Dimpled her cheek with smiles. Hercules our kinsman,
Then weaker than your eyes, laid by his club;
He tumbled down upon his Nemean hide
And swore his sinews thawed. O, grief and time,
Fearful consumers, you will all devour!
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1QUEEN O, I hope some god,
Some god hath put his mercy in your manhood,
Whereto he’ll infuse power, and press you forth
Our undertaker.
THESEUS O, no knees, none, widow.
Unto the helmeted Bellona use them,
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And pray for me, your soldier.
Troubled I am. [Turns away.]
2QUEEN Honoured Hippolyta,
Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slain
The scythe-tusked boar; that with thy arm, as strong
As it is white, wast near to make the male
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To thy sex captive, but that this thy lord,
Born to uphold creation in that honour
First nature styled it in, shrunk thee into
The bound thou wast o’erflowing, at once subduing
Thy force and thy affection; soldieress,
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That equally canst poise sternness with pity,
Whom now I know hast much more power on him
Than ever he had on thee, who ow’st his strength
And his love too, who is a servant for
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br /> The tenor of thy speech; dear glass of ladies:
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Bid him that we, whom flaming war doth scorch,
Under the shadow of his sword may cool us.
Require him he advance it o’er our heads.
Speak’t in a woman’s key; like such a woman
As any of us three; weep ere you fail.
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Lend us a knee;
But touch the ground for us no longer time
Than a dove’s motion, when the head’s plucked off.
Tell him, if he i’th’ blood-sized field lay swollen,
Showing the sun his teeth, grinning at the moon,
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What you would do.
HIPPOLYTA Poor lady, say no more.
I had as lief trace this good action with you
As that whereto I am going, and never yet
Went I so willing way. My lord is taken
Heart-deep with your distress. Let him consider:
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I’ll speak anon. [Second Queen rises.]
3QUEEN O, my petition was
Set down in ice, which by hot grief uncandied
Melts into drops; so sorrow, wanting form,
Is pressed with deeper matter.
EMILIA Pray, stand up;
Your grief is written in your cheek.
3QUEEN O, woe,
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You cannot read it there. [Rises.]
There, through my tears,
Like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream,
You may behold ’em. Lady, lady, alack,
He that will all the treasure know o’th’ earth
Must know the centre too; he that will fish
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For my least minnow, let him lead his line
To catch one at my heart. O, pardon me;
Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits, Makes me a fool.
EMILIA Pray you, say nothing, pray you:
Who cannot feel nor see the rain, being in’t,
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Knows neither wet nor dry. If that you were
The ground-piece of some painter, I would buy you
T’instruct me ’gainst a capital grief, indeed
Such heart-pierced demonstration; but, alas,
Being a natural sister of our sex,
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Your sorrow beats so ardently upon me
That it shall make a counter-reflect ’gainst
My brother’s heart and warm it to some pity,
Though it were made of stone. Pray, have good comfort.
THESEUS Forward to th’ temple! Leave not out a jot
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O’th’ sacred ceremony.
1QUEEN O, this celebration
Will longer last and be more costly than
Your suppliants’ war! Remember that your fame
Knolls in the ear o’th’ world: what you do quickly
Is not done rashly; your first thought is more
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Than others’ laboured meditance; your premeditating
More than their actions; but, O Jove, your actions,
Soon as they move, as ospreys do the fish,
Subdue before they touch. Think, dear Duke, think
What beds our slain kings have!
2QUEEN What griefs our beds,
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That our dear lords have none!
3QUEEN None fit for th’ dead.
Those that with cords, knives, drams’ precipitance,
Weary of this world’s light, have to themselves
Been death’s most horrid agents, human grace
Affords them dust and shadow –
1QUEEN But our lords
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Lie blistering ’fore the visitating sun,
And were good kings when living.
THESEUS It is true.
And I will give you comfort,
To give your dead lords graves – the which to do,
Must make some work with Creon.
1QUEEN And that work
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Presents itself to th’ doing.
Now ’twill take form; the heats are gone tomorrow.
Then, bootless toil must recompense itself
With its own sweat; now, he’s secure,
Nor dreams we stand before your puissance
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Rinsing our holy begging in our eyes
To make petition clear.
2QUEEN Now you may take him,
Drunk with his victory –
3QUEEN And his army full
Of bread and sloth.
THESEUS [to officer] Artesius, that best knowest
How to draw out fit to this enterprise
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The prim’st for this proceeding and the number
To carry such a business – forth and levy
Our worthiest instruments, whilst we dispatch
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 546