The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 547

by William Shakespeare


  This grand act of our life, this daring deed

  Of fate in wedlock.

  1QUEEN [to Second and Third Queens]

  Dowagers, take hands.

  165

  Let us be widows to our woes; delay

  Commends us to a famishing hope.

  QUEENS Farewell!

  2QUEEN

  We come unseasonably; but when could grief

  Cull forth, as unpanged judgement can, fitt’st time

  For best solicitation?

  THESEUS Why, good ladies,

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  This is a service, whereto I am going,

  Greater than any war; it more imports me

  Than all the actions that I have foregone,

  Or futurely can cope.

  1QUEEN The more proclaiming

  Our suit shall be neglected when her arms,

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  Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall

  By warranting moonlight corslet thee. O, when

  Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall

  Upon thy taste-full lips, what wilt thou think

  Of rotten kings or blubbered queens? What care

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  For what thou feel’st not, what thou feel’st being able

  To make Mars spurn his drum? O, if thou couch

  But one night with her, every hour in’t will

  Take hostage of thee for a hundred and

  Thou shalt remember nothing more than what

  185

  That banquet bids thee to.

  HIPPOLYTA Though much unlike

  You should be so transported, as much sorry

  I should be such a suitor, yet I think,

  Did I not, by th’abstaining of my joy

  Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit

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  That craves a present med’cine, I should pluck

  All ladies’ scandal on me. Therefore, sir, [Kneels.]

  As I shall here make trial of my prayers,

  Either presuming them to have some force,

  Or sentencing for aye their vigour dumb,

  195

  Prorogue this business we are going about and hang

  Your shield afore your heart, about that neck

  Which is my fee and which I freely lend

  To do these poor queens service.

  QUEENS [to Emilia] Oh, help now.

  Our cause cries for your knee.

  EMILIA [Kneels, to Theseus] If you grant not

  200

  My sister her petition in that force,

  With that celerity and nature, which

  She makes it in, from henceforth I’ll not dare

  To ask you anything nor be so hardy

  Ever to take a husband.

  THESEUS Pray, stand up.

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  I am entreating of my self to do

  That which you kneel to have me. [They rise.] Pirithous,

  Lead on the bride; get you and pray the gods

  For success and return; omit not anything

  In the pretended celebration. – Queens,

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  Follow your soldier.

  [to officer] As before – hence, you,

  And at the banks of Aulis meet us with

  The forces you can raise, where we shall find

  The moiety of a number for a business

  More bigger-looked. Exit officer.

  [to Hippolyta] Since that our theme is haste,

  215

  I stamp this kiss upon thy current lip;

  Sweet, keep it as my token. Set you forward,

  For I will see you gone.

  [Procession moves toward the temple.]

  – Farewell, my beauteous sister. – Pirithous,

  Keep the feast full; bate not an hour on’t.

  PIRITHOUS Sir,

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  I’ll follow you at heels; the feast’s solemnity

  Shall want till your return.

  THESEUS Cousin, I charge you,

  Budge not from Athens. We shall be returning

  Ere you can end this feast, of which I pray you

  Make no abatement. Once more, farewell all.

  225

  Exeunt all except Theseus and Queens.

  1QUEEN

  Thus dost thou still make good the tongue o’th’ world –

  2QUEEN And earn’st a deity equal with Mars –

  3QUEEN If not above him, for

  Thou, being but mortal, mak’st affections bend

  To godlike honours; they themselves, some say,

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  Groan under such a mast’ry.

  THESEUS As we are men,

  Thus should we do; being sensually subdued,

  We lose our human title. Good cheer, ladies:

  Now turn we towards your comforts.

  Flourish. Exeunt.

  1.2 Enter PALAMON and ARCITE.

  ARCITE Dear Palamon, dearer in love than blood

  And our prime cousin: yet unhardened in

  The crimes of nature, let us leave the city

  Thebes and the temptings in’t, before we further

  Sully our gloss of youth

  5

  And here to keep in abstinence we shame

  As in incontinence; for not to swim

  I’th’ aid o’th’ current, were almost to sink,

  At least to frustrate striving, and to follow

  The common stream, ’twould bring us to an eddy

  10

  Where we should turn or drown; if labour through,

  Our gain but life and weakness.

  PALAMON Your advice

  Is cried up with example. What strange ruins,

  Since first we went to school, may we perceive

  Walking in Thebes! Scars and bare weeds

  15

  The gain o’th’ martialist, who did propound

  To his bold ends honour and golden ingots,

  Which, though he won, he had not – and now flurted

  By Peace for whom he fought! Who then shall offer

  To Mars’s so scorned altar? I do bleed

  20

  When such I meet and wish great Juno would

  Resume her ancient fit of jealousy

  To get the soldier work, that Peace might purge

  For her repletion and retain anew

  Her charitable heart, now hard and harsher

  25

  Than strife or war could be.

  ARCITE Are you not out?

  Meet you no ruin but the soldier in

  The cranks and turns of Thebes? You did begin

  As if you met decays of many kinds.

  Perceive you none that do arouse your pity

  30

  But th’unconsidered soldier?

  PALAMON Yes, I pity

  Decays where’er I find them, but such most

  That, sweating in an honourable toil,

  Are paid with ice to cool ’em.

  ARCITE ’Tis not this

  I did begin to speak of. This is virtue

  35

  Of no respect in Thebes. I spake of Thebes –

  How dangerous, if we will keep our honours,

  It is for our residing, where every evil

  Hath a good colour; where every seeming good’s

  A certain evil; where not to be e’en jump

  40

  As they are here were to be strangers, and,

  Such things to be, mere monsters.

  PALAMON ’Tis in our power,

  Unless we fear that apes can tutor’s, to

  Be masters of our manners. What need I

  Affect another’s gait, which is not catching

  45

  Where there is faith, or to be fond upon

  Another’s way of speech when by mine own

  I may be reasonably conceived, saved too,

  Speaking it truly? Why am I bound

  By any generous bond to follow him

  5
0

  Follows his tailor, haply so long until

  The followed make pursuit? Or let me know

  Why mine own barber is unblessed, with him

  My poor chin too, for ’tis not scissored just

  To such a favourite’s glass? What canon is there

  55

  That does command my rapier from my hip

  To dangle’t in my hand, or to go tiptoe

  Before the street be foul? Either I am

  The fore-horse in the team or I am none

  That draw i’th’ sequent trace. These poor slight sores

  60

  Need not a plantain; that which rips my bosom

  Almost to th’ heart’s –

  ARCITE Our uncle Creon.

  PALAMON He.

  A most unbounded tyrant, whose successes

  Makes heaven unfeared and villainy assured

  Beyond its power there’s nothing; almost puts

  65

  Faith in a fever and deifies alone

  Voluble Chance; who only attributes

  The faculties of other instruments

  To his own nerves and act; commands men service

  And what they win in’t, boot and glory; one

  70

  That fears not to do harm; good, dares not. Let

  The blood of mine that’s sib to him be sucked

  From me with leeches, let them break and fall

  Off me with that corruption.

  ARCITE Clear-spirited cousin,

  Let’s leave his court, that we may nothing share

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  Of his loud infamy; for our milk

  Will relish of the pasture and we must

  Be vile or disobedient: not his kinsmen

  In blood unless in quality.

  PALAMON Nothing truer:

  I think the echoes of his shames have deafed

  80

  The ears of heavenly Justice. Widows’ cries

  Descend again into their throats and have not

  Due audience of the gods.

  Enter VALERIUS.

  Valerius!

  VALERIUS The king calls for you; yet be leaden-footed

  Till his great rage be off him. Phoebus, when

  85

  He broke his whipstock and exclaimed against

  The horses of the sun, but whispered to

  The loudness of his fury.

  PALAMON Small winds shake him.

  But what’s the matter?

  VALERIUS

  THESEUS, who, where he threats, appals, hath sent

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  Deadly defiance to him and pronounces

  Ruin to Thebes, who is at hand to seal

  The promise of his wrath.

  ARCITE Let him approach.

  But that we fear the gods in him, he brings not

  A jot of terror to us. Yet what man

  95

  Thirds his own worth (the case is each of ours)

  When that his action’s dregged with mind assured

  ’Tis bad he goes about?

  PALAMON Leave that unreasoned.

  Our services stand now for Thebes, not Creon.

  Yet to be neutral to him were dishonour,

  100

  Rebellious to oppose; therefore we must

  With him stand to the mercy of our fate,

  Who hath bounded our last minute.

  ARCITE So we must.

  [to Valerius] Is’t said this war’s afoot, or, it shall be,

  On fail of some condition?

  VALERIUS ’Tis in motion.

  105

  The intelligence of state came in the instant

  With the defier.

  PALAMON Let’s to the king – who, were he

  A quarter-carrier of that honour which

  His enemy come in, the blood we venture

  Should be as for our health, which were not spent,

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  Rather laid out for purchase; but, alas,

  Our hands advanced before our hearts, what will

  The fall o’th’ stroke do damage?

  ARCITE Let th’event,

  That never-erring arbitrator, tell us

  When we know all ourselves – and let us follow

  115

  The becking of our chance. Exeunt.

  1.3 Enter PIRITHOUS, HIPPOLYTA and EMILIA.

  PIRITHOUS No further.

  HIPPOLYTA Sir, farewell; repeat my wishes

  To our great lord, of whose success I dare not

  Make any timorous question; yet I wish him

  Excess and overflow of power, an’t might be

  To dure ill-dealing fortune. Speed to him!

 

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