The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 546

by William Shakespeare


  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,

  5

  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
<
br />   The tenor of thy speech; dear glass of ladies:

  90

  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

  155

  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

 

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