The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  FIRST QUEEN

  The more proclaiming

  Our suit shall be neglected when her arms,

  Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall

  By warranting moonlight corslet thee! O when

  Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall

  Upon thy tasteful lips, what wilt thou think

  Of rotten kings or blubbered queens? What care

  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

  That banquet bids thee to.

  HIPPOLYTA (to Theseus)

  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

  That craves a present medicine, I should pluck

  All ladies’ scandal on me. ⌈Kneels⌉ Therefore, sir,

  As I shall here make trial of my prayers,

  Either presuming them to have some force,

  Or sentencing for aye their vigour dumb,

  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.

  ALL THREE QUEENS (to Emilia)

  O, help now,

  Our cause cries for your knee.

  EMILIA (kneels to Theseus)

  If you grant not

  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.

  ⌈They rise⌉

  I am entreating of myself to do

  That which you kneel to have me.—Pirithous,

  Lead on the bride: get you and pray the gods

  For success and return; omit not anything

  In the pretended celebration.—Queens,

  Follow your soldier. (To Artesius) 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 Artesius

  (To Hippolyta) Since that our theme is haste,

  I stamp this kiss upon thy current lip—

  Sweet, keep it as my token. (To the wedding party) Set

  you forward,

  For I will see you gone.

  (To Emilia) Farewell, my beauteous sister.—Pirithous,

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

  PIRITHOUS

  Sir,

  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.

  Exeunt Hippolyta, Emilia, Pirithous, and train towards the temple

  FIRST QUEEN

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

  SECOND QUEEN

  And earn’st a deity equal with Mars—

  THIRD QUEEN

  If not above him, for Thou being but mortal mak’st affections bend

  To godlike honours; they themselves, some say,

  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.

  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

  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

  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 flirted

  By peace for whom he fought. Who then shall offer

  To Mars’s so-scorned altar? I do bleed

  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

  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

  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,

  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 ev’n jump

  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

  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

  Follows his tailor, haply so long until

  The followed make pursuit? Or let me know

  Why mine own barber is unblest—with him

  My poor chin, too—for ’tis not scissored just

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

  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

  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 v
illainy assured

  Beyond its power there’s nothing; almost puts

  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’s service,

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

  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

  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

  The ears of heav’nly justice. Widows’ cries

  Descend again into their throats and have not

  Enter Valerius

  Due audience of the gods—Valerius.

  VALERIUS

  The King calls for you; yet be leaden-footed

  Till his great rage be off him. Phoebus, when

  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

  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

  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,

  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.

  Is’t said this war’s afoot? Or it shall be

  On fail of some condition?

  VALERIUS

  ’Tis in motion,

  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,

  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

  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;

  Store never hurts good governors.

  PIRITHOUS

  Though I know His ocean needs not my poor drops, yet they

  Must yield their tribute there. (To Emilia) My precious

  maid,

  Those best affections that the heavens infuse

  In their best-tempered pieces keep enthroned

  In your dear heart.

  EMILIA

  Thanks, sir. Remember me To our all-royal brother, for whose speed

  The great Bellona I’ll solicit; and

  Since in our terrene state petitions are not

  Without gifts understood, I’ll offer to her

  What I shall be advised she likes. Our hearts

  Are in his army, in his tent.

  HIPPOLYTA

  In’s bosom.

  We have been soldiers, and we cannot weep

  When our friends don their helms, or put to sea,

  Or tell of babes broached on the lance, or women

  That have sod their infants in—and after eat them—

  The brine they wept at killing ’em: then if

  You stay to see of us such spinsters, we

  Should hold you here forever.

  PIRITHOUS

  Peace be to you As I pursue this war, which shall be then

  Beyond further requiring.

  Exit Pirithous

  EMILIA

  How his longing Follows his friend! Since his depart, his sports,

  Though craving seriousness and skill, passed slightly

  His careless execution, where nor gain

  Made him regard or loss consider, but

  Playing one business in his hand, another

  Directing in his head, his mind nurse equal

  To these so diff’ring twins. Have you observed him

  Since our great lord departed?

  HIPPOLYTA

  With much labour; And I did love him for’t. They two have cabined

  In many as dangerous as poor a corner,

  Peril and want contending; they have skiffed

  Torrents whose roaring tyranny and power

  I’th’ least of these was dreadful, and they have

  Fought out together where death’s self was lodged;

  Yet fate hath brought them off. Their knot of love,

  Tied, weaved, entangled with so true, so long,

  And with a finger of so deep a cunning,

  May be outworn, never undone. I think

  Theseus cannot be umpire to himself,

  Cleaving his conscience into twain and doing

  Each side like justice, which he loves best.

  EMILIA

  Doubtless There is a best, and reason has no manners

  To say it is not you. I was acquainted

  Once with a time when I enjoyed a playfellow;

  You were at wars when she the grave enriched,

  Who made too proud the bed; took leave o’th’

  moon—

  Which then looked pale at parting—when our count

  Was each eleven.

  HIPPOLYTA

  ’Twas Flavina.

  EMILIA

  Yes.

  You talk of Pirithous’ and Theseus’ love:

  Theirs has more ground, is more maturely seasoned,

  More buckled with strong judgement, and their needs

  The one of th‘other may be said to water

  Their intertangled roots of love; but I

  And she I sigh and spoke of were things innocent,

  Loved for we did, and like the elements,

  That know not what, nor why, yet do effect

  Rare issues by their operance, our souls

  Did so to one another. What she liked

  Was then of me approved; what not, condemned—

  No more arraignment. The flower that I would pluck

  And put between my breasts—O then but beginning

  To swell about the blossom—she would long

  Till she had such another, and commit it

  To the like innocent cradle, where, phoenix-like,

  They died in perfume. On my head no toy

  But was her pattern. Her affections—pretty,

  Though happily her careless wear—I followed

 
; For my most serious decking. Had mine ear

  Stol’n some new air, or at adventure hummed one,

  From musical coinage, why, it was a note

  Whereon her spirits would sojourn—rather dwell on—

  And sing it in her slumbers. This rehearsal—

  Which, seely innocence wots well, comes in

  Like old emportment’s bastard—has this end:

  That the true love ’tween maid and maid may be

  More than in sex dividual.

  HIPPOLYTA

  You’re out of breath, And this high-speeded pace is but to say

  That you shall never, like the maid Flavina,

  Love any that’s called man.

  EMILIA I am sure I shall not.

  HIPPOLYTA

  Now alack, weak sister, I must no more believe thee in this point—

  Though in’t I know thou dost believe thyself—

  Than I will trust a sickly appetite

  That loathes even as it longs. But sure, my sister,

  If I were ripe for your persuasion, you

  Have said enough to shake me from the arm

  Of the all-noble Theseus, for whose fortunes

  I will now in and kneel, with great assurance

  That we more than his Pirithous possess

  The high throne in his heart.

  EMILIA

  I am not

  Against your faith, yet I continue mine.

  Exeunt

  1.4 Cornetts. A battle struck within. Then a retreat. Flourish. Then enter Theseus, victor. The three Queens meet him and fall on their faces before him. Also enter a Herald, and attendants bearing Palamon and Arcite on two hearses

  FIRST QUEEN (to Theseus)

  To thee no star be dark.

  SECOND QUEEN (to Theseus) Both heaven and earth

  Friend thee for ever.

  THIRD QUEEN (to Theseus) All the good that may Be wished upon thy head, I cry ‘Amen’ to’t.

  THESEUS

  Th’impartial gods, who from the mounted heavens

  View us their mortal herd, behold who err

  And in their time chastise. Go and find out

  The bones of your dead lords and honour them

  With treble ceremony: rather than a gap

  Should be in their dear rites we would supply’t.

  But those we will depute which shall invest

  You in your dignities, and even each thing

  Our haste does leave imperfect. So adieu,

  And heaven’s good eyes look on you.

  Exeunt the Queens

  What are those?

  HERALD

  Men of great quality, as may be judged

  By their appointment. Some of Thebes have told’s

  They are sisters’ children, nephews to the King.

  THESEUS

  By th’ helm of Mars I saw them in the war,

  Like to a pair of lions smeared with prey,