I have received much honour by your presence,
And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords.
Ye must all see the Queen, and she must thank ye.
She will be sick else. This day, no man think
He’s business at his house, for all shall stay—
This little one shall make it holiday. ⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt
Epilogue
Enter Epilogue
EPILOGUE
‘Tis ten to one this play can never please
All that are here. Some come to take their ease,
And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear,
We’ve frighted with our trumpets; so, ’tis clear,
They’ll say ’tis naught. Others to hear the city
Abused extremely, and to cry ‘That’s witty!’—
Which we have not done neither; that, I fear,
All the expected good we’re like to hear
For this play at this time is only in
The merciful construction of good women,
For such a one we showed ’em. If they smile,
And say “Twill do’, I know within a while
All the best men are ours—for ’tis ill hap
If they hold when their ladies bid ’em clap.
Exit
THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
BY JOHN FLETCHER AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
WHEN it first appeared in print, in 1634, The Two Noble Kinsmen was stated to be ‘by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr John Fletcher, and Mr William Shakespeare’. There is no reason to disbelieve this ascription: many plays of the period were not printed till long after they were acted, and there is other evidence that Shakespeare collaborated with Fletcher (1579―1625). The morris dance in Act 3, Scene 5, contains characters who also appear in Francis Beaumont’s Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn performed before James I on 20 February 1613. Their dance was a great success with the King; probably the King’s Men—some of whom may have taken part in the masque—decided to exploit its success by incorporating it in a play written soon afterwards, in the last year of Shakespeare’s playwriting life.
The Two Noble Kinsmen, a tragicomedy of the kind that became popular during the last years of the first decade of the seventeenth century, is based on Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, on which Shakespeare had already drawn for episodes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It tells a romantic tale of the conflicting claims of love and friendship: the ‘two noble kinsmen’, Palamon and Arcite, are the closest of friends until each falls in love with Emilia, sister-in-law of Theseus, Duke of Athens. Their conflict is finally resolved by a formal combat with Emilia as the prize, in which the loser is to be executed. Arcite wins, and Palamon’s head is on the block as news arrives that Arcite has been thrown from his horse. Dying, Arcite commends Emilia to his friend, and Theseus rounds off the play with a meditation on the paradoxes of fortune.
Studies of style suggest that Shakespeare was primarily responsible for the rhetorically and ritualistically impressive Act 1, for Act 2, Scene 1. Act 3, Scenes 1 and 2; and for most of Act 5 (Scene 4 excepted), which includes emblematically spectacular episodes related to his other late plays. Fletcher appears mainly to have written the scenes showing the rivalry of Palamon and Arcite along with the sub-plots concerned with the Jailer’s daughter’s love for Palamon and the rustics’ entertainment for Theseus.
Though the play was adapted by William Davenant as The Rivals (1664), its first known performances since the seventeenth century were at the Old Vic in 1928; it has been played only occasionally since then, but was chosen to open the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1986. Critical interest, too, has been slight; but Shakespeare’s contributions are entirely characteristic of his late style, and Fletcher’s scenes are both touching and funny.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
PROLOGUE
THESEUS, Duke of Athens
HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, later wife of Theseus
EMILIA, her sister
PIRITHOUS, friend of Theseus
Hymen, god of marriage
A BOY, who sings
ARTESIUS, an Athenian soldier
Three QUEENS, widows of kings killed in the siege of Thebes
VALERIUS, a Theban
A HERALD
WOMAN, attending Emilia
An Athenian GENTLEMAN
MESSENGERS
Six KNIGHTS, three attending Arcite and three Palamon
A SERVANT
A JAILER in charge of Theseus’ prison
The JAILER’S DAUGHTER
The JAILER’S BROTHER
The WOOER of the Jailer’s daughter
Two FRIENDS of the Jailer
A DOCTOR
Six COUNTRYMEN, one dressed as a babion, or baboon
Gerald, a SCHOOLMASTER
NELL, a country wench
Four other country wenches: Friz, Madeline, Luce, and Barbara Timothy, a TABORER
EPILOGUE
Nymphs, attendants, maids, executioner, guard
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Prologue Flourish. Enter Prologue
PROLOGUE
New plays and maidenheads are near akin:
Much followed both, for both much money giv’n
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
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,
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
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, 'O fan
From me the witless chaff of such a writer,
That blasts my bays and my famed works makes
lighter
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
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’ travail. To his bones, sweet sleep;
Content to you. If this play do not keep
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. Then Artesius ⌈and other attendants⌉
BOY (sings during procession)
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,
And sweet thyme true;
Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry springtime’s harbinger,
With harebells dim;
Oxlips, in their cradles growing,
Marigolds, on deathbeds blowing,
Lark’s-heels trim;
All dear nature’s children swe
et,
Lie fore bride and bridegroom’s feet,He strews flowers
Blessing their sense.
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,
Nor chatt’ring pie,
May on our bridehouse 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
FIRST QUEEN (to Theseus)
For pity’s sake and true gentility’s,
Hear and respect me.
SECOND QUEEN (to Hippolyta)
For your mother’s sake, And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair ones,
Hear and respect me.
THIRD QUEEN (to Emilia)
Now for the love of him whom Jove hath marked
The honour of your bed, and for the sake
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 (to First Queen)
Sad lady, rise.
HIPPOLYTA (to Second Queen) Stand up.
EMILIA (to Third Queen)
No knees to me. What woman I may stead that is distressed
Does bind me to her.
THESEUS (to First Queen)
What’s your request? Deliver you for all.
FIRST QUEEN ⌈kneeling still⌉
We are three queens whose sovereigns fell before
The wrath of cruel Creon; who endured
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
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;
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 everything.
THESEUS
Pray you, kneel not: I was transported with your speech, and suffered
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.
King Capaneus was your lord: the day
That he should marry you—at such a season
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 6
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.
FIRST QUEEN ⌈kneeling still⌉
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:⌈The First Queen rises⌉
Unto the helmeted Bellona use them
And pray for me, your soldier. Troubled I am.
He turns away
SECOND QUEEN ⌈kneeling still⌉
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
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,
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
The tenor of thy speech; dear glass of ladies,
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.
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 swoll’n,
Showing the sun his teeth, grinning at the moon,
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.
I’ll speak anon.
⌈The Second Queen rises⌉
THIRD QUEEN (kneeling ⌈still⌉ to Emilia)
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.
THIRD QUEEN
O woe,
You cannot read it there; there, through my tears,
Like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream,
You may behold ’em.
⌈The Third Queen rises⌉
Lady, lady, alack—
He that will all the treasure know o’th’ earth
Must know the centre too; he that will fish
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,
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,
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
O’th’ sacred ceremony.
FIRST QUEEN
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
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.
SECOND QUEEN
What griefs our beds,
That our dear lords have none.
THIRD QUEEN
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.
FIRST QUEEN
But our lords
Lie blist’ring 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.
FIRST QUEEN
And that work 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,
Not dreams we stand before your puissance
Rinsing our holy begging in our eyes
To make petition clear.
SECOND QUEEN
Now you may take him,
Drunk with his victory.
THIRD QUEEN
And his army full
Of bread and sloth.
THESEUS
Artesius, that best knowest How to draw out, fit to this enterprise
The prim’st for this proceeding and the number
To carry such a business: forth and levy
Our worthiest instruments, whilst we dispatch
This grand act of our life, this daring deed
Of fate in wedlock.
FIRST QUEEN (to the other two Queens)
Dowagers, take hands;
Let us be widows to our woes; delay
Commends us to a famishing hope.
ALL THREE QUEENS
Farewell.
SECOND QUEEN
We come unseasonably, but when could grief
Cull forth, as unpanged judgement can, fitt’st time
For best solicitation?
THESEUS
Why, good ladies,
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.
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 411