The Two Noble Kinsmen
Act II, Scene 1
Athens. A garden, with a prison in the background.
Jailer
1 - 8
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I may depart with little, while I live; something I may cast
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to you, not much. Alas, the prison I keep, though it be for
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great ones, yet they seldom come: before one salmon, you
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shall take a number of minnows. I am given out to be better
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lin’d than it can appear to me report is a true speaker. I
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would I were really that I am deliver’d to be. Marry, what I
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have (be it what it will) I will assure upon my daughter at
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the day of my death.
Wooer
9 - 10
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Sir, I demand no more than your own offer, and I will estate
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your daughter in what I have promis’d.
Jailer
11 - 13
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Well, we will talk more of this when the solemnity is past.
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But have you a full promise of her? When that shall be seen,
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I tender my consent.
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Enter Daughter with strewings.
Wooer
14
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I have, sir. Here she comes.
Jailer
15 - 19
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Your friend and I have chanc’d to name you here, upon the
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old business. But no more of that now; so soon as the court
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hurry is over, we will have an end of it. I’ th’ mean time,
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look tenderly to the two prisoners. I can tell you they are
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princes.
Daughter
20 - 24
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These strewings are for their chamber. ’Tis pity they are in
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prison, and ’twere pity they should be out. I do think they
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have patience to make any adversity asham’d. The prison
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itself is proud of ’em; and they have all the world in their
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chamber.
Jailer
25
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They are fam’d to be a pair of absolute men.
Daughter
26 - 27
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By my troth, I think fame but stammers ’em, they stand a
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grise above the reach of report.
Jailer
28
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I heard them reported in the battle to be the only doers.
Daughter
29 - 32
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Nay, most likely, for they are noble suff’rers. I marvel how
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they would have look’d had they been victors, that with such
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a constant nobility enforce a freedom out of bondage, making
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misery their mirth, and affliction a toy to jest at.
Daughter
34 - 41
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It seems to me they have no more sense of their captivity
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than I of ruling Athens. They eat well, look merrily,
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discourse of many things, but nothing of their own restraint
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and disasters. Yet sometime a divided sigh, martyr’d as
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’twere i’ th’ deliverance, will break from one of them; when
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the other presently gives it so sweet a rebuke that I could
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wish myself a sigh to be so chid, or at least a sigher to be
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comforted.
Wooer
42
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I never saw ’em.
Jailer
43 - 45
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The Duke himself came privately in the night, and so did
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they. What the reason of it is, I know not.
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Enter Palamon and Arcite above.
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Look yonder they are! That’s Arcite looks out.
Daughter
46 - 47
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No, sir, no, that’s Palamon. Arcite is the lower of the
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twain; you may perceive a part of him.
Jailer
48 - 49
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Go to, leave your pointing. They would not make us their
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object. Out of their sight.
Daughter
50 - 51
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It is a holiday to look on them. Lord, the diff’rence of
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men!
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Exeunt Jailer, Wooer, and Daughter.
