Page 1305 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Groan under such a mastery.

THESEUS
As we are men,
Thus should we do; being sensually subdued,
We lose our human title. Good cheer, ladies;
Now turn we towards your comforts.

Flourish. Exeunt.

Scene II IT

Enter Palamon and Arcite.

ARCITE
Dear Palamon, dearer in love than blood

And our prime cousin, yet unhardened in
The crimes of nature, let us leave the city
Thebes, and the temptings in’t, before we further

Sully our gloss of youth; [5]
And here to keep in abstinence we shame
As in incontinence; for not to swim
I’th’aid o’th’current were almost to sink,
At least to frustrate striving; and to follow

The common stream, ’twould bring us to an eddy [10]
Where we should turn or drown; if labour through,
Our gain but life and weakness.

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 [15]
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 [20]