Page 1322 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

PALAMON

How, gentle cousin?

ARCITE
Let’s think this prison holy sanctuary, [125]
To keep us from corruption of worse men.
We are young and yet desire the ways of honour,

That liberty and common conversation,
The poison of pure spirits, might like women
Woo us to wander from. What worthy blessing [130]
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
New births of love; we are father, friends, acquaintance; [135]

We are, in one another, families.
I am your heir, and you are mine; this place
Is our inheritance; no hard oppressor
Dare take this from us; here with a little patience

We shall live long and loving. No surfeits seek us; [140]
The hand of war hurts none here, nor the seas
Swallow their youth. Were we at liberty.
A wife might part us lawfully, or business;

Quarrels consume us; envy of ill men
Crave our acquaintance. I might sicken, cousin, [145]
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 [150]

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 [155]