The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE II. Thebes. The Court of the Palace
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?
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 heavenly 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. Phœbus, 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.
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