ARCITE  Dear Palamon, dearer in love tha...

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 labor 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 honor 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 honorable 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 honors,

It is for our residing, where every evil

Hath a good color; where every seeming good's

A certain evil; where not to be e'en 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 unblessed, with him

My poor chin too, for 'tis not scissored just

To such a favorite'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 forehorse 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 villainy 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 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

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

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 appalls, 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 dishonor,

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;

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 honor 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.

They exit.

Shakespeare, William, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Act 1, Sc. 2

• Full text on Project Gutenberg