The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613)

Intro

Online Critical Edition in Progress - Version 1.c.
Date variant: 1612
Shakespeare Network - https://shakespearenetwork.net/

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Act II, Scene 1

Athens. A garden, with a prison in the background.

JAILER
[Enter Jailer and Wooer.]
I may depart with little while I live; something I
may cast to you, not much. Alas, the prison I keep,
though it be for great ones, yet they seldom come;
before one salmon you shall take a number of minnows.
I am given out to be better lined than it can
appear to me report is a true speaker. I would I
were really that I am delivered to be. Marry, what
I have, be it what it will, I will assure upon my
daughter at the day of my death.

WOOER
Sir, I demand no more than your own offer,
and I will estate your daughter in what I have
promised.

JAILER
Well, we will talk more of this when the solemnity
is past. But have you a full promise of her?
When that shall be seen, I tender my consent.

[Enter the Jailer's Daughter, carrying rushes.]

WOOER
I have sir. Here she comes.

JAILER
[to Daughter]
Your friend and I have chanced
to name you here, upon the old business. But no
more of that now; so soon as the court hurry is
over, we will have an end of it. I' th' meantime,
look tenderly to the two prisoners. I can tell you they are princes.

DAUGHTER
These strewings are for their chamber. 'Tis
pity they are in prison, and 'twere pity they should
be out. I do think they have patience to make any
adversity ashamed. The prison itself is proud of
'em, and they have all the world in their chamber.

JAILER
They are famed to be a pair of absolute men.

DAUGHTER
By my troth, I think fame but stammers
'em. They stand a grise above the reach of report.

JAILER
I heard them reported in the battle to be the only doers.

DAUGHTER
Nay, most likely, for they are noble suff'rers.
I marvel how they would have looked had they
been victors, that with such a constant nobility enforce
a freedom out of bondage, making misery
their mirth and affliction a toy to jest at.

JAILER
Do they so?

DAUGHTER
It seems to me they have no more sense
of their captivity than I of ruling Athens. They eat
well, look merrily, discourse of many things, but
nothing of their own restraint and disasters. Yet
sometimes a divided sigh, martyred as 'twere i' th'
deliverance, will break from one of them--when
the other presently gives it so sweet a rebuke that
I could wish myself a sigh to be so chid, or at least
a sigher to be comforted.

WOOER
I never saw 'em.

JAILER
The Duke himself came privately in the night,
and so did they.

[Enter Palamon and Arcite, in shackles, above.]

What the reason of it is, I know not. Look, yonder
they are; that's Arcite looks out.

DAUGHTER
No, sir, no, that's Palamon. Arcite is the
lower of the twain; you may perceive a part of him.

JAILER
Go to, leave your pointing; they would not
make us their object. Out of their sight.

DAUGHTER
It is a holiday to look on them. Lord, the
diff'rence of men!
[Jailer, Daughter, and Wooer exit.]

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The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613)

Act II, Scene 1

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