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