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These hands shall never draw 'em out like lightning

To blast whole armies more.

ARCITE 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, armed 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,

Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes.

The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it;

Summer shall come, and with her all delights,

But dead-cold winter must inhabit here still.

PALAMON 'Tis too true, Arcite. To our Theban hounds

That shook the aged forest with their echoes,

No more now must we holler; no more shake

Our pointed javelins whilst the angry swine

Flies like a Parthian quiver from our rages, ...

Struck with our well-steeled darts. All valiant uses --

The food and nourishment of noble minds --

In us two here shall perish; we shall die --

Which is the curse of honor -- lastly,

Children of grief and ignorance.

ARCITE Yet, cousin,

Even from the bottom of these miseries,

From all that fortune can inflict upon us,

I see two comforts rising -- two mere 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.

PALAMON Certainly

'Tis a main goodness, cousin, that our fortunes

Were twined together. 'Tis most true, two souls

Put in noble bodies, let 'em suffer

The gall of hazard, so they grow together,

Will never sink; they must not, say they could.

A willing man dies sleeping and all's done.

ARCITE Shall we make worthy uses of this place

That all men hate so much?

PALAMON How, gentle cousin?

ARCITE Let's think this prison holy sanctuary,

To keep us from corruption of worse men.

We are young, and yet desire the ways of honor

That liberty and common conversation,

The poison of pure spirits, might, like women,

Woo us to wander from. What worthy blessing

Can be, but our imaginations

May make it ours? And here being thus together,

We are an endless mine to one another:

We are one another's wife, ever begetting ...

Crave our acquaintance. I might sicken, cousin,

Where you should never know it, and so perish

Without your noble hand to close mine eyes,

Or prayers to the gods. A thousand chances,

Were we from hence, would sever us.

PALAMON You have made me --

I thank you, cousin Arcite -- almost wanton

With my captivity. What a misery

It is to live abroad, and everywhere!

'Tis like a beast, methinks. I find the court here;

I am sure, a more content; and all those pleasures ...

That woo the wills of men to vanity

I see through now, and am sufficient

To tell the world 'tis but a gaudy shadow,

That old Time, as he passes by, takes with him.

What had we been, old in the court of Creon,

Where sin is justice, lust and ignorance

The virtues of the great ones? Cousin Arcite,

Had not the loving gods found this place for us,

We had died as they do, ill old men, unwept,

And had their epitaphs, the people's curses. ...

Shall I say more?

ARCITE I would hear you still.

PALAMON Ye shall.

Is there record of any two that loved

Better than we do, Arcite?

ARCITE Sure there cannot.

PALAMON I do not think it possible our friendship

Should ever leave us.

ARCITE Till our deaths it cannot,

[Enter Emilia and her Woman (below). Palamon sees Emilia and is silent.]

And after death our spirits shall be led

To those that love eternally. Speak on, sir.

EMILIA