Herald. Men of great quality, as may be judg'd By their appointment; some of Thebes have told's They are sisters' children, nephews to the king.

Theseus. By the helm of Mars, I saw them in the war,
Like to a pair of lions smear'd with prey,

Make lanes in troops aghast; I fix'd my note
Constantly on them, for they were a mark

Worth a god's view. What was't that prisoner told me,
When I inquir'd their names?

Herald. Nor in a state of life: had they been taken
When their last hurts were given, 'twas possible

They might have been recover'd; yet they breathe,
And have the name of men.

Theseus.

Then like men use 'em ;

The very lees of such, millions of rates

Exceed the wine of others. All our surgeons

Convent in their behoof; our richest balms,

Rather than niggard, waste: their lives concern us

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30

Much more than Thebes is worth. Rather than have 'em
Freed of this plight, and in their morning state,

Sound and at liberty, I would 'em dead;
But, forty thousand fold, we had rather have 'em
Prisoners to us than death. Bear 'em speedily
From our kind air to them unkind

and minister

What man to man may do; for our sake, more :
Since I have known fight's fury, friends' behests,
Love's provocations, zeal, a mistress' task,
Desire of liberty, a fever, madness,

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Hath set a mark

which nature could not reach to

Without some imposition, sickness in will,

Or wrestling strength in reason. For our love
And great Apollo's mercy, all our best
Their best skill tender!1-Lead into the city;
Where having bound things scatter'd, we will post
To Athens 'fore our army.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE V. — Another Part of the Field.

Enter the Queens with the hearses of their husbands in a funeral solemnity, etc.

Song.

Urns and odours bring away!

Vapours, sighs, darken the day!

1 This corrupt passage has puzzled all the commentators. Skeat says: "It is clear that friends should be a genitive case, coupled as it is with Love's provocations; and the suggestion fight's fury is a great improvement upon the fright's fury of the old editions. The introduction of in after zeal, as proposed by Mr. Dyce, is also a happy thought. But there we may as well stop. I understand the word that before Hath, nothing being commoner in our dramatists than the omission of the relative; and I retain Hath, without altering it, as some have done, to Have. I interpret it thus: 'For I have known the fury of fight, the requisitions of friends, the provocations of love, the zeal employed in executing a mistress's task, or the desire of liberty-to be (or, to amount to) a fever or a madness, which has proposed an aim (for endeavours) which the man's natural strength could not attain to, without at least some forcing, or some fainting of the will, or some severe struggle in the mind.' This is at least as good as any previous explanations, and further discussion of so difficult a passage would be useless. Imposition means demand or requirement, in an excessive degree." Littledale adds: Theseus directs that the prisoners shall be removed from all sights that might be suggestive of their captivity and so hinder their recovery, since he knows that, among other causes, desire of liberty hath sometimes produced a degree of mental apathy or delirium (set a mark of sickness of will or wrestling strength in reason) which could only be combated by practising some deception (nature could not reach to, etc.)."

"

Our dole1 more deadly looks than dying;
Balms, and gums, and heavy cheers,2
Sacred vials fill'd with tears,

And clamours through the wild air flying!
Come, all sad and solemn shows,
That are quick-eyed pleasure's foes!

We convent nought else but woes.
We convent, etc.

ΙΟ

3d Queen. This funeral path brings to your household's

grave.

Joy seize on you again! Peace sleep with him!

2d Queen. And this to yours!

Yours this way! Heavens lend

Ist Queen.
A thousand differing ways to one sure end!

3d Queen. This world's a city full of straying streets, And death's the market-place, where each one meets.*

[Exeunt severally.5

3 Bring together.

1 Sorrow.

2 Sad mien.

4 An old epitaph in the churchyard of Abernethy, Scotland, runs thus:—

"The world's a city

Full of streets,

And death's a market
That every one meets;
But if life were a thing
That money could buy,
The poor could not live

And the rich would not die."

5 Littledale doubts that Shakespeare wrote this scene.

ACT II.

SCENE I.' — Athens. A Garden, with a Castle in the Back

ground.

Enter Gaoler and Wooer.

Gaoler. 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.

Gaoler. 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. Wooer. I have, sir.

Here she comes.

Enter Gaoler's Daughter, with rushes.

Gaoler. 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' the mean time, look tenderly to the two prisoners. I can tell you they are princes.

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1 Hickson, Coleridge and Littledale attribute this scene to Shakespeare; Weber, Spalding, and Dyce to Fletcher.

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.

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

Daughter. By my troth, I think fame but stammers 'em ; they stand a grise1 above the reach of report.

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

Daughter. Nay, most likely; for they are noble sufferers. 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.

Gaoler. Do they so?

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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 sometime a divided sigh, martyred as 'twere i' the 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.

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Gaoler. The duke himself came privately in the night, and so did they; what the reason of it is, I know not. (PALAMON and ARCITE appear at a window, above.) 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.

1 Step.

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