ACT II. SCENE I. Athens. A Garden, with a Castle in the back ground. Enter Jailer and Wooer. Jailer. 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. Wooer. I have, sir. Here she comes. Enter Jailer's Daughter with strewings. Jailer. 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. Daugh. 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: 1 Depart for part; the two being used interchangeably. See vol. x. page 40, note 58. 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 2 men. Daugh. By my troth, I think fame but stammers 'em; they stand a grise 3 above the reach of report. Jailer. I heard them reported in the battle to be the only doers. Daugh. 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. Jailer. Do they so? Daugh. 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. Jailer. 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 of a tower. Look, yonder they are! that's Arcite looks out. Daugh. 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! 2 Absolute for finished or perfect. See page 65, note 6. 3 Grise is step or degree. See vol. xv. page 255, note 6. 4 The Jailer is giving the reason why the wooer had not seen the prisoners: Theseus came to Athens in the night, and they with him. Daugh. It is a holiday to look on them. Lord, the difference of men !5 [Exeunt. *Pal. Why, strong enough to laugh at misery, *And bear the chance of war yet. We are prisoners, *Where is Thebes now? where is our noble country? 5 It is our settled conviction that this scene was written by Shakespeare. In the first place, the scene is in prose; and although Shakespeare frequently writes long scenes of this kind in prose, Fletcher seldom or never does so.t In the next place, there is not a single gross word or thought in the wholescene; and, indeed, nothing can be more delicately managed. Moreover, it seems certain that this scene could not have been written by the writer of the following one, which is allowed by all to be by Fletcher: for, although, in the first scene, the Jailer's Daughter says, distinctly enough, "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"; in the second scene, they are represented as the reverse of all this, and discoursing of nothing but "their own restraint and disasters." The arrangement of the scene is Shakespeare's: it is quite in his manner to commence, as it does, in the very middle of the conversation between the Jailer and his daughter's suitor. Shakespeare never gives us occasion to say, with Sneer in The Critic, "How came he not to ask that question before?" In the following scene by Fletcher, when the two cousins begin by asking each other how they do, Sneer's question does rise to our lips. The style of composition is quite of the same character as we find in such plays as The Winter's Tale, where prose is used in scenes of a serious nature.— HICKSON. *Where are our friends and kindreds? Never more *Must we behold those comforts; never see *The hardy youths strive for the games of honour, *Hung with the painted favours of their ladies, *Like tall ships under sail; then start amongst 'em, *And, as an east wind, leave 'em all behind us *Like lazy clouds, whilst Palamon and Arcite, *Even in the wagging of a wanton leg, *Outstripp'd the people's praises, won the garlands, Ere they had time to wish 'em ours. O, never *Shall we two exercise, like twins of honour, *Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses *Like proud seas under us! Our good swords now, *Better the red-eyed god of war ne'er ware, *Ravish'd our sides, like age, must run to rust, *And deck the temples of those gods that hate us; *These hands shall never draw 'em out like lightning, *To blast whole armies, more! *Arc. No, Palamon, *Those hopes are prisoners with us: here we are, And here the graces of our youths must wither, *Like a too-timely Spring; here age must find us, *And, which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried; *The sweet embraces of a loving wife, *Loaden with kisses, arm'd with thousand Cupids, *Shall never clasp our necks; no issue know us, *No figures of ourselves shall we e'er see, *To glad our age, and like young eagles teach 'em *Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say *Remember what your fathers were, and conquer! *The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments, *And in their songs curse ever-blinded Fortune, *Till she for shame see what a wrong she has done *To youth and nature. This is all our world; *We shall know nothing here but one another; *Pal. 'Tis too true, Arcite. To our Theban hounds, Arc. Yet, cousin, *Even from the bottom of these miseries, *From all that fortune can inflict upon us, *I see two comforts rising, two mere 2 blessings, *If the gods please to hold here, a brave patience, *And the enjoying of our griefs together. *Whilst Palamon is with me, let me perish *If I think this our prison ! *'Tis a main goodness, cousin, that our fortunes *Arc. Shall we make worthy uses of this place, *That all men hate so much? 1 That is, a wild-boar stuck as full of arrows as a Parthian quiver. |