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.
’Tis 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
Hath a good colour; where every seeming good’s
A certain evil; where not to be e’en jump
As they are here were to be strangers, and,
Such things to be, mere monsters.
PALAMON.
’Tis 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 ’tis 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.
Enter Valerius.