Listen to Act 1. LibriVox volunteers recorded “Prologue and Act 1” as one track, so it runs past this scene and includes stage directions this page leaves out. LibriVox catalog.
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?
PALAMON
Yes, I pity Decays where’er I find them, but such most That, sweating in an honourable toil, Are paid with ice to cool ’em.
ARCITE
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 honours, It is for our residing, where every evil a good colour; where every seeming good’s A certain evil; where not to be jump As they are here were to be strangers, and, Such things to be, mere monsters.
PALAMON
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 not scissored just To such a favourite’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 fore-horse 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 heavenly justice. Widows’ cries Descend again into their throats and have not Due audience of the gods.
PALAMON
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, 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 bad he goes about?
PALAMON
Leave that unreasoned. Our services stand now for Thebes, not Creon. Yet to be neutral to him were dishonour, Rebellious to oppose; therefore we must With him stand to the mercy of our fate, Who bounded our last minute.
ARCITE
So we must. Is ’t said this war’s afoot? Or, it shall be, On fail of some condition?
VALERIUS
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 honour 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.