ARCITE.
I saw her too.
PALAMON.
Yes, but you must not love her.
ARCITE.
I will not as you doe, to worship her,
As she is heavenly, and a blessed Goddes;
I love her as a woman, to enjoy her:
So both may love.
PALAMON.
You shall not love at all.
ARCITE.
Not love at all!
Who shall deny me?
PALAMON.
I, that first saw her; I, that tooke possession
First with mine eyes of all those beauties
In her reveald to mankinde: if thou lou’st her,
Or entertain’st a hope to blast my wishes,
Thou art a Traytour, Arcite, and a fellow
False as thy Title to her: friendship, blood,
And all the tyes betweene us I disclaime,
If thou once thinke upon her.
ARCITE.
Yes, I love her,
And if the lives of all my name lay on it,
I must doe so; I love her with my soule:
If that will lose ye, farewell, Palamon;
I say againe, I love, and in loving her maintaine
I am as worthy and as free a lover,
And have as just a title to her beauty
As any Palamon or any living
That is a mans Sonne.
PALAMON.
Have I cald thee friend?
ARCITE.
Yes, and have found me so; why are you mov’d thus?
Let me deale coldly with you: am not I
Part of your blood, part of your soule? you have told me
That I was Palamon, and you were Arcite.
PALAMON.
Yes.