The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 557
And with them their fair knights. Now, my fair sister,
You must love one of them.
EMILIA I had rather both;
So neither for my sake should fall untimely.
THESEUS Who saw ’em?
PIRITHOUS I a while.
GENTLEMAN And I.
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Enter Messenger.
THESEUS From whence come you, sir?
MESSENGER From the knights.
THESEUS Pray speak,
You that have seen them, what they are.
MESSENGER I will, sir,
And truly what I think. Six braver spirits
Than these they have brought, if we judge by the outside,
I never saw nor read of. He that stands
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In the first place with Arcite, by his seeming
Should be a stout man, by his face a prince,
His very looks so say him: his complexion
Nearer a brown than black, stern, and yet noble,
Which shows him hardy, fearless, proud of dangers.
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The circles of his eyes show fire within him,
And as a heated lion so he looks.
His hair hangs long behind him, black and shining
Like ravens’ wings; his shoulders broad and strong;
Armed long and round, and on his thigh a sword,
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Hung by a curious baldrick, when he frowns,
To seal his will with. Better o’ my conscience
Was never soldier’s friend.
THESEUS Thou hast well described him.
PIRITHOUS Yet a great deal short,
Methinks, of him that’s first with Palamon.
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THESEUS Pray, speak him, friend.
PIRITHOUS I guess he is a prince too,
And, if it may be, greater; for his show
Has all the ornament of honour in’t.
He’s somewhat bigger than the knight he spoke of,
But of a face far sweeter. His complexion
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Is, as a ripe grape, ruddy; he has felt
Without doubt what he fights for, and so apter
To make this cause his own. In’s face appears
All the fair hopes of what he undertakes
And, when he’s angry, then a settled valour,
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Not tainted with extremes, runs through his body
And guides his arm to brave things. Fear he cannot;
He shows no such soft temper. His head’s yellow,
Hard-haired, and curled, thick-twined like ivy tods,
Not to undo with thunder. In his face
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The livery of the warlike maid appears,
Pure red and white, for yet no beard has blessed him;
And in his rolling eyes sits Victory,
As if she ever meant to court his valour.
His nose stands high, a character of honour;
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His red lips, after fights, are fit for ladies.
EMILIA Must these men die too?
PIRITHOUS When he speaks, his tongue
Sounds like a trumpet. All his lineaments
Are as a man would wish ’em, strong and clean;
He wears a well-steeled axe, the staff of gold;
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His age some five-and-twenty.
MESSENGER There’s another,
A little man, but of a tough soul, seeming
As great as any; fairer promises
In such a body yet I never looked on.
PIRITHOUS O, he that’s freckle-faced?
MESSENGER The same, my lord.
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Are they not sweet ones?
PIRITHOUS Yes, they are well.
MESSENGER Methinks,
Being so few and well disposed, they show
Great and fine art in nature. He’s white-haired,
Not wanton white, but such a manly colour,
Next to an auburn; tough and nimble set,
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Which shows an active soul; his arms are brawny,
Lined with strong sinews. To the shoulder piece,
Gently they swell, like women new-conceived,
Which speaks him prone to labour, never fainting
Under the weight of arms; stout-hearted, still,
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But when he stirs, a tiger. He’s grey-eyed,
Which yields compassion where he conquers; sharp
To spy advantages and, where he finds ’em,
He’s swift to make ’em his. He does no wrongs,
Nor takes none; he’s round-faced and when he smiles
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He shows a lover; when he frowns, a soldier.
About his head he wears the winner’s oak
And in it stuck the favour of his lady.
His age, some six-and-thirty. In his hand
He bears a charging-staff, embossed with silver.
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THESEUS Are they all thus?
PIRITHOUS They are all the sons of honour.
THESEUS Now, as I have a soul, I long to see ’em.
[to Hippolyta] Lady, you shall see men fight now.
HIPPOLYTA I wish it,
But not the cause, my lord. They would show bravely
Fighting about the titles of two kingdoms.
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’Tis pity love should be so tyrannous.
– O, my soft-hearted sister, what think you?
Weep not, till they weep blood. Wench, it must be.
THESEUS
You have steeled ’em with your beauty.
[to Pirithous] Honoured friend,
To you I give the field; pray order it
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Fitting the persons that must use it.
PIRITHOUS Yes, sir.
THESEUS Come, I’ll go visit ’em! I cannot stay –
Their fame has fir’d me so; till they appear,
Good friend, be royal.
PIRITHOUS There shall want no bravery.
Exeunt all but Emilia.
EMILIA Poor wench, go weep, for whosoever wins
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Loses a noble cousin, for thy sins. Exit.
4.3 Enter Jailer, Wooer and Doctor.
DOCTOR Her distraction is more at some time of the
moon than at other some, is it not?
JAILER She is continually in a harmless distemper:
sleeps little; altogether without appetite, save often
drinking; dreaming of another world and a better; and,
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what broken piece of matter soe’er she’s about, the
name Palamon lards it, that she farces every business
withall, fits it to every question.
Enter Jailer’s Daughter.
Look where she comes; you shall perceive her
behaviour.
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DAUGHTER I have forgot it quite. The burden on’t was
‘Down-a, down-a’ and penned by no worse man than
Giraldo, Emilia’s Schoolmaster; he’s as fantastical too
as ever he may go upon’s legs – for in the next world
will Dido see Palamon, and then will she be out of love
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with Aeneas.
DOCTOR What stuff’s here? Poor soul!
JAILER Even thus all day long.
DAUGHTER Now for this charm that I told you of: you
must bring a piece of silver on the tip of your tongue,
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or no ferry. Then if it be your chance to come where
the blessed spirits are, there’s a sight now! We maids
that have our livers perished, cracked to pieces with
love, we shall come there and do nothing all day long
but pick flowers with Proserpine. Then will I make
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PALAMON a nosegay; then let him mark me – then.
DOCTOR How prettily she’s
amiss! Note her a little
further.
DAUGHTER Faith, I’ll tell you, sometime we go to
barley-break, we of the blessed. Alas, ’tis a sore life
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they have i’th’ other place – such burning, frying,
boiling, hissing, howling, chattering, cursing: oh, they
have shrewd measure; take heed! If one be mad, or
hang or drown themselves, there they go – Jupiter
bless us! – and there shall we be put in a cauldron of
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lead and usurers’ grease, amongst a whole million of
cutpurses, and there boil like a gammon of bacon that
will never be enough.
DOCTOR How her brain coins!
DAUGHTER Lords and courtiers that have got maids
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with child, they are in this place. They shall stand in
fire up to the navel and in ice up to the heart, and there
th’offending part burns and the deceiving part freezes.
In troth, a very grievous punishment, as one would
think, for such a trifle. Believe me, one would marry a
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leprous witch to be rid on’t, I’ll assure you.
DOCTOR How she continues this fancy! ’Tis not an
engrafted madness but a most thick and profound
melancholy.
DAUGHTER To hear there a proud lady and a proud city
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wife, howl together! I were a beast an I’d call it good
sport. One cries, ‘O, this smoke!’, another, ‘This fire!’
One cries, ‘O, that ever I did it behind the arras!’ and
then howls; th’other curses a suing fellow and her
garden house.
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Sings. I will be true, my stars, my fate etc. Exit.
JAILER What think you of her, sir?
DOCTOR I think she has a perturbed mind, which I
cannot minister to.
JAILER Alas, what then?
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DOCTOR Understand you she ever affected any man ere
she beheld Palamon?
JAILER I was once, sir, in great hope she had fixed her
liking on this gentleman, my friend.
WOOER I did think so too, and would account I had a
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great penn’orth on’t, to give half my state that both
she and I at this present stood unfeignedly on the same
terms.
DOCTOR That intemperate surfeit of her eye hath
distempered the other senses; they may return and
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settle again to execute their preordained faculties, but
they are now in a most extravagant vagary. This you
must do. Confine her to a place where the light may
rather seem to steal in than be permitted. Take upon
you, young sir her friend, the name of Palamon; say
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you come to eat with her and to commune of love.
This will catch her attention, for this her mind beats
upon; other objects that are inserted ’tween her mind
and eye become the pranks and friskins of her
madness. Sing to her such green songs of love as she
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says Palamon hath sung in prison. Come to her stuck
in as sweet flowers as the season is mistress of and
thereto make an addition of some other compounded
odours which are grateful to the sense. All this shall
become Palamon, for Palamon can sing, and Palamon
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is sweet and every good thing. Desire to eat with her,
carve her, drink to her and, still among, intermingle
your petition of grace and acceptance into her favour.
Learn what maids have been her companions and
play-feres and let them repair to her with Palamon in
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their mouths, and appear with tokens, as if they
suggested for him. It is a falsehood she is in, which is
with falsehoods to be combated. This may bring her to
eat, to sleep, and reduce what’s now out of square in
her into their former law and regiment. I have seen it
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approved, how many times I know not, but to make
the number more I have great hope in this. I will,
between the passages of this project, come in with my
appliance. Let us put it in execution and hasten the
success, which, doubt not, will bring forth comfort.
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Exeunt.
5.1 Flourish. Enter THESEUS, PIRITHOUS, HIPPOLYTA, attendants.
THESEUS Now let ’em enter and before the gods
Tender their holy prayers. Let the temples
Burn bright with sacred fires and the altars
In hallowed clouds commend their swelling incense