ARKCODEX
Act I, Scene 1
1Athens. Before a temple.
2Enter Hymen with a torch burning; a Boy, in a white robe, before, singing and strewing flowers; after Hymen, a Nymph, encompassed in her tresses, bearing a wheaten garland; then Theseus, between two other Nymphs with wheaten chaplets on their heads; then Hippolyta, the bride, led by Pirithous, and another holding a garland over her head, her tresses likewise hanging; after her, Emilia, holding up her train; Artesius and Attendants.
3Song. Music.
4Roses, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
But in their hue.
Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
And sweet thyme true.
Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry spring-time’s harbinger
With her bells dim.
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on deathbeds blowing,
Larks’-heels trim.
All dear Nature’s children sweet,
Lie ’fore bride and bridegroom’s feet,
Blessing their sense! Strewing flowers.
Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious, or bird fair,
Be absent hence!
The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor
The boding raven, nor chough hoar
Nor chatt’ring pie,
May on our bride-house perch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,
But from it fly!
5Enter three Queens, in black, with veils stained, and wearing imperial crowns. The First Queen falls down at the foot of Theseus; the Second falls down at the foot of Hippolyta; the Third before Emilia.
6First QueenFor pity’s sake and true gentility’s,
Hear, and respect me!
7Second QueenFor your mother’s sake,
And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair ones,
Hear, and respect me!
8Third QueenNow, for the love of him whom Jove hath mark’d
The honour of your bed, and for the sake
Of clear virginity, be advocate
For us and our distresses! This good deed
Shall raze you out o’ the book of trespasses
All you are set down there.
9TheseusSad lady, rise.
10HippolytaStand up.
11EmiliaNo knees to me:
What woman I may stead that is distress’d,
Does bind me to her.
12TheseusWhat’s your request? deliver you for all.
13First QueenWe are three queens, whose sovereigns fell before
The wrath of cruel Creon; who endure
The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites,
And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes:
He will not suffer us to burn their bones,
To urn their ashes, nor to take th’ offence
Of mortal loathsomeness from the blest eye
Of holy Phoebus, but infects the winds
With stench of our slain lords. O, pity, duke!
Thou purger of the earth, draw thy fear’d sword
That does good turns to the world; give us the bones
Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them;
And, of thy boundless goodness, take some note
That for our crowned heads we have no roof
Save this, which is the lion’s and the bear’s,
And vault to everything!
14TheseusPray you, kneel not:
I was transported with your speech, and suffer’d
Your knees to wrong themselves. I’ve heard the fortunes
Of your dead lords, which gives me such lamenting
As wakes my vengeance and revenge for ’em.
King Capaneus was your lord: the day
That he should marry you, at such a season
As now it is with me, I met your groom
By Mars’s altar; you were that time fair,
Not Juno’s mantle fairer than your tresses,
Nor in more bounty spread her; your wheaten wreath
Was then nor thrash’d nor blasted; Fortune at you
Dimpled her cheek with smiles; Hercules our kinsman—
Then weaker than your eyes—laid by his club;
He tumbled down upon his Nemean hide,
And swore his sinews thaw’d. O, grief and time,
Fearful consumers, you will all devour!
15First QueenO, I hope some god,
Some god hath put his mercy in your manhood,
Whereto he’ll infuse power, and press you forth
Our undertaker!
16TheseusO, no knees, none, widow!
Unto the helmeted Bellona use them,
And pray for me, your soldier.—
Troubled I am. Turns away.
17Second QueenHonour’d Hippolyta,
Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slain
The scythe-tusk’d boar; that, with thy arm as strong
As it is white, wast near to make the male
To thy sex captive, but that this thy lord—
Born to uphold creation in that honour
First Nature styl’d it in—shrunk thee into
The bound thou wast o’erflowing, at once subduing
Thy force and thy affection; soldieress,
That equally canst poise sternness with pity;
Who now, I know, hast much more power on him
Than e’er he had on thee; who ow’st his strength
And his love too, who is a servant for
The tenor of thy speech; dear glass of ladies,
Bid him that we, whom flaming War doth scorch,
Under the shadow of his sword may cool us;
Require him he advance it o’er our heads;
Speak’t in a woman’s key, like such a woman
As any of us three; weep ere you fail;
Lend us a knee;
But touch the ground for us no longer time
Than a dove’s motion when the head’s pluck’d off;
Tell him, if he i’ the blood-siz’d field lay swoln,
Showing the sun his teeth, grinning at the moon,
What you would do!
18HippolytaPoor lady, say no more:
I had as lief trace this good action with you
As that whereto I’m going, and nev’r yet
Went I so willing, way. My lord is taken
Heart-deep with your distress: let him consider;
I’ll speak anon.
19Third QueenTo Emilia. O, my petition was
Set down in ice, which, by hot grief uncandied,
Melts into drops; so sorrow, wanting form,
Is press’d with deeper matter.
20EmiliaPray, stand up:
Your grief is written in your cheek.
21Third QueenO, woe!
You cannot read it there; there through my tears,
Like wrinkled pebbles in a glassy stream,
You may behold ’em. Lady, lady, alack!
He that will all the treasure know o’ th’ earth
Must know the centre too; he that will fish
For my least minnow, let him lead his line
To catch one at my heart. O, pardon me!
Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits,
Makes me a fool.
22EmiliaPray you, say nothing; pray you:
Who cannot feel nor see the rain, being in’t,
Knows neither wet nor dry. If that you were
The ground-piece of some painter, I would buy you
T’instruct me ’gainst a capital grief indeed;—
Such heart-pierc’d demonstration!—but, alas,
Being a natural sister of our sex,
Your sorrow beats so ardently upon me,
That it shall make a counter-reflect ’gainst
My brother’s heart, and warm it to some pity,
Though it were made of stone: pray have good comfort.
23TheseusForward to th’ temple! leave not out a jot
O’ the sacred ceremony.
24First QueenO, this celebration
Will longer last, and be more costly, than
Your suppliant’s war! Remember that your fame
Knolls in th’ ear o’ the world: what you do quickly
Is not done rashly; your first thought is more
Than others’ labour’d meditance; your premeditating
More than their actions; but—O Jove!—your actions,
Soon as they move, as asprayes do the fish,
Subdue before they touch: think, dear duke, think
What beds our slain kings have!
25Second QueenWhat griefs our beds,
That our dear lords have none!
26Third QueenNone fit for the dead!
Those that with cords, knives, drams, precipitance,
Weary of this world’s light, have to themselves
Been death’s most horrid agents, humane grace
Affords them dust and shadow.
27First QueenBut our lords
Lie blistering ’fore the visitating sun,
And were good kings when living.
28TheseusIt is true;
And I will give you comfort,
To give your dead lords graves: the which to do
Must make some work with Creon.
29First QueenAnd that work
Presents itself to the doing:
Now ’twill take form; the heats are gone to-morrow;
Then bootless toil must recompense itself
With its own sweat; now he is secure,
Not dreams we stand before your puissance,
Wrinching our holy begging in our eyes,
To make petition clear.
30Second QueenNow you may take him
Drunk with his victory.
31Third QueenAnd his army full
Of bread and sloth.
32TheseusArtesius, that best know’st
How to draw out fit to this enterprise
The prim’st for this proceeding, and the number
To carry such a business; forth and levy
Our worthiest instruments; whilst we despatch
This grand act of our life, this daring deed
Of fate in wedlock.
33First QueenDowagers, take hands;
Let us be widows to our woes; delay
Commends us to a famishing hope.
34All QueensFarewell!
35Second QueenWe come unseasonably; but when could grief
Cull forth, as unpang’d judgment can, fitt’st time
For best solicitation?
36TheseusWhy, good ladies,
This is a service, whereto I am going,
Greater than any war; it more imports me
Than all the actions that I have foregone,
Or futurely can cope.
37First QueenThe more proclaiming
Our suit shall be neglected: when her arms,
Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall
By warranting moonlight corslet thee, O, when
Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall
Upon thy tasteful lips, what wilt thou think
Of rotten kings or blubber’d queens? what care
For what thou feel’st not, what thou feel’st being able
To make Mars spurn his drum? O, if thou couch
But one night with her, every hour in’t will
Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
Thou shalt remember nothing more than what
That banquet bids thee to!
38HippolytaThough much unlike kneeling
You should be so transported, as much sorry
I should be such a suitor; yet I think,
Did I not by th’ abstaining of my joy,
Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit
That craves a present medicine, I should pluck
All ladies’ scandal on me: therefore, sir,
As I shall here make trial of my prayers,
Either presuming them to have some force,
Or sentencing for aye their vigour dumb,
Prorogue this business we are going about, and hang
Your shield afore your heart, about that neck
Which is my fee, and which I freely lend
To do these poor queens service.
39All QueensTo Emilia. O, help now!
Our cause cries for your knee.
40EmiliaIf you grant not kneeling
My sister her petition, in that force,
With that celerity and nature, which
She makes it in, from henceforth I’ll not dare
To ask you anything, nor be so hardy
Ever to take a husband.
41TheseusPray, stand up:
I am entreating of myself to do
That which you kneel to have me.—Pirithous,
Lead on the bride: get you and pray the gods
For success and return; omit not anything
In the pretended celebration.—Queens,
Follow your soldier.—To Artesius. As before, hence you,
And at the banks of Aulis meet us with
The forces you can raise, where we shall find
The moiety of a number, for a business
More bigger look’d.—Since that our theme is haste,
I stamp this kiss upon thy currant lip; Kisses Hippolyta.
Sweet, keep it as my token.—Set you forward;
For I will see you gone.—Exit Artesius.
Farewell, my beauteous sister.—Pirithous,
Keep the feast full; bate not an hour on’t.
42PirithousSir,
I’ll follow you at heels: the feast’s solemnity
Shall want till your return.
43TheseusCousin, I charge you
Budge not from Athens; We shall be returning
Ere you can end this feast, of which, I pray you,
Make no abatement. Once more, farewell all.
44First QueenThus dost thou still make good
The tongue o’ the world.
45Second QueenAnd earn’st a deity
Equal with Mars.
46Third QueenIf not above him; for
Thou, being but mortal, mak’st affections bend
To godlike honours; they themselves, some say,
Groan under such a mastery.
47TheseusAs we are men,
Thus should we do; being sensually subdu’d,
We lose our humane title. Good cheer, ladies!
Now turn we towards your comforts. Flourish. Exeunt.