If we were in a situation to give due effect to the supernatural part of the story, the miserable end of Palamon would affect us with a mingled sense of pity and indignation. He has been promised success by the divinity whom he adored, and yet he lies vanquished with the uplifted axe glittering above his head. Both the drama and Chaucer's poem assume the existence of such feelings on our part, and hasten to remove the cause of them. Chaucer's celestial agency to work out the plot. A way is devised for reconciling the contending oracles; and the catastrophe which effects that end, is, in the old poet, anxiously prepared by celestial agency.[53:4] Arcite has got the victory in the field, as his
warlike divinity had promised him; and an evil spirit is raised for the purpose of bringing about his death, that the votary of the Queen of Love may be allowed to enjoy the gentler meed which his protectress had pledged herself to bestow. These supernal intrigues are, in the play, no more than hinted at in the way of metaphor.
A cry is heard for delay of the execution; Perithous rushes in, ascends the scaffold, and, raising Palamon from the block, announces the approaching death of Arcite, with nearly the same circumstances as in the poem. While he rode townwards from the lists, on a black steed which had been the gift of Emily, he had been thrown with violence, and now lies on the brink of dissolution. Description of Arcite's mishap is bad, but Shakspere's. The speech which describes Arcite's misadven[54:1]ture has been much noticed by the critics, and by some lavishly praised. With deference, I think it decidedly bad, but undeniably the work of Shakspeare. Over-labourd, involvd, hard, yet Shakspere's, with his words and thoughts. The whole manner of it is that of some of his long and over-laboured descriptions. It is full of illustration, infelicitous but not weak; in involvement of sentence and hardness of phrase no passage in the play comes so close to him; and there are traceable in one or two instances, not only his words, but the trains of thought in which he indulges elsewhere, especially the description of the horse, which closely resembles some spirited passages in the Venus and Adonis. It is needless to quote any part of this speech.
End of the Two Noble Kinsmen.
The after-part of this scene, which ends the play, contains some forcible and lofty reflection, and the language is exceedingly vigorous and weighty. In Chaucer, the feelings of the dying Arcite are expressed at much length, and very touchingly; in the play, they are dispatched shortly, and the attention continued on Palamon, who had been its previous object:—
(Enter Theseus, Hippolita, Emilia, Arcite in a chair.)
Palamon. Oh, miserable end of our alli|ance!
The gods are mighty!—Arcite, if thy heart,
Thy worthy, manly heart, be yet unbro|ken,
Give me thy last words. I am Palamon,
One that yet loves thee dying.
Arcite. Take Emil|ia,
And with her all the world's joy. Reach thy hand:
Farewell! I've told my last hour. I was false,
But never treacherous: Forgive me, cous|in!
One kiss from fair Emilia!—'Tis done:
Take her.—I die!
Palamon. Thy brave soul seek Elys|ium!