SCENE I.

Athens.

ACT V.

A Court before the Temples of Mars, Venus, and Diana.

A flourish. Enter THESEUS, PIRITHOUS, HIPPOLYTA, and At

tendants.

Thes. Now let 'em enter, and before the gods
Tender their holy prayers: let the temples
Burn bright with sacred fires, and the altars
In hallow'd clouds commend their swelling incense
To those above us: let no due be wanting:
They have a noble work in hand, will honour
The very powers that love 'em.

Pir.

Sir, they enter.

A flourish of cornets. Enter PALAMON, ARCITE, and their

Knights.

Thes. You valiant and strong-hearted enemies,
You royal germane foes, that this day come
To blow that nearness out that flames between ye,
Lay by your anger for an hour, and dove-like
Before the holy altars of your helpers,

The all-fear'd gods, bow down your stubborn bodies.
Your ire is more than mortal; so your help be!
And, as the gods regard ye, fight with justice.
I'll leave you to your prayers, and betwixt ye
I part my wishes.

Pir.

Honour crown the worthiest ! [Exeunt all but PALAMON, ARCITE, and their Knights.

1 Germane is, properly, brother, but was used for kinsman.

Pal. The glass is running now that cannot finish
Till one of us expire: think you but thus,
That, were there aught in me which strove to show
Mine enemy in this business, were't one eye
Against another, arm oppress'd by arm,

I would destroy th' offender; coz, I would,

Though parcel of myself: then from this gather
How I should tender you.

Arc.

I am in labour

To push your name, your ancient love, our kindred,
Out of my memory; and i' the self-same place
To seat something I would confound: so hoist we
The sails, that must these vessels port2 even where
The heavenly Limiter pleases.

Pal.

You speak well. Before I turn, let me embrace thee, cousin :

This I shall never do again.

Arc.

One farewell!

Pal. Why, let it be so farewell, coz !

Arc.

Farewell, sir!

[They embrace. - Exeunt PALAMON and his Knights.

Knights, kinsmen, lovers, yea, my sacrifices,
True worshippers of Mars, whose spirit in you
Expels the seeds of fear, and th' apprehension
Which still is father of it, go with me
Before the god of our profession: there
Require of him the hearts of lions, and

The breath of tigers, yea, the fierceness too,
Yea, the speed also, - to go on, I mean,

Else wish we to be snails. You know my prize

Must be dragg'd out of blood; force and great feat

2 To port is to bring into port or harbour. In the next line, Limiter is appointer. The word does not occur again in Shakespeare; but the use of to limit for to appoint is quite frequent. See vol. ix. page 271, note 3.

3

Must put my garland on, where she shall stick
The queen of flowers: our intercession, then,
Must be to him that makes the camp a cestron
Brimm'd with the blood of men: give me your aid,
And bend your spirits towards him.

[They advance to the altar of Mars, and fall on their
faces; then kneel.

Thou mighty one, that with thy power hast turn'd
Green Neptune into purple; whose approach
Comets prewarn; whose havoc in vast 4 field
Unearthed skulls proclaim; whose breath blows down
The teeming Ceres' foison; 5 who dost pluck
With hand armipotent from forth blue clouds
The mason'd turrets; that both makest and break'st
The stony girths of cities; me thy pupil,
Young'st follower of thy drum, instruct this day
With military skill, that to thy laud

I may advance my streamer, and by thee

Be styled the lord o' the day. Give me, great Mars,
Some token of thy pleasure.

[Here they fall on their faces as before, and there is
heard clanging of armour, with a short thunder,
as the burst of a battle, whereupon they all rise

and bow to the altar.

O great corrector of enormous 6 times,
Shaker of o'er-rank States, thou grand decider
Of dusty and old titles, that heal'st with blood
The Earth when it is sick, and curest the world

8 Cestron is cistern; probably another form of the word.

4 Vast, not in the sense of large, but of the Latin vastus, waste, desolate;

or rather of devastating, destructive. See vol. xii. page 36, note 14.

5 Foison is abundance, especially of such fruits as Ceres had in charge. See vol. vii. page 83, note 23.

8 Enormous in the radical Latin sense; out of rule, abnormal, or errant from the normal state. See vol. xv. page 62, note 30.

7

O' the plurisy of people; I do take

Thy signs auspiciously, and in thy name
To my design march boldly. Let us go.8

Re-enter PALAMON and his Knights.

Pal. Our stars must glister with new fire, or be To-day extinct; our argument is love,

Which if the goddess of it grant, she gives

Victory too: then blend your spirits with mine,
You, whose free nobleness do make my cause
Your personal hazard: to the goddess Venus
Commend we our proceeding, and implore
Her power unto our party.

--

[Exeunt.

[They advance to the altar of Venus, and fall on their
faces; then kneel,

Hail, sovereign queen of secrets, who hast power
To call the fiercest tyrant from his rage,

To weep unto a girl; that hast the might

Even with an eye-glance to choke Mars's drum,
And turn th' alarm to whispers ; that canst make
A cripple flourish with his crutch, and cure him
Before Apollo; that mayst force the king.

To be his subject's vassal, and induce

Plurisy, from the Latin plus, is superabundance. Shakespeare has it repeatedly so. See vol. xiv. page 283, note 24.

8 The three concluding scenes of the fifth Act, like the stately march or the procession of a triumph, with all its "pride, pomp, and circumstance," proceed, without interval or interruption, to the end. The human agents have become instruments in the hands of the gods, to whose "divine arbitrement" the event is referred; an impeding and inevitable fate is visible; "The glass is running now that cannot finish till one of us expire"; and we, the spectators, with the actors, abandon ourselves to "the sails that must these vessels port even where the heavenly Limiter pleases." The address of Arcite to his friends, "Knights, kinsmen, lovers," is sufficiently remarkable; but the address to Mars, which follows, unparalleled as an invocation, is one of the grandest examples of the application of circumstances to the character of a power that we have ever met with. - HICKSON.

Stale gravity to dance: the pollèd 9 bachelor-
Whose youth, like wanton boys through bonfires,
Have 10 skipt thy flame
And make him, to the scorn of his hoarse throat,
Abuse young lays of love. What godlike power
Hast thou not power upon? to Phoebus thou
Add'st flames, hotter than his; the heavenly fires
Did scorch his mortal son, thine him; 11 the huntress
All moist and cold, some say, began to throw
Her bow away, and sigh: take to thy grace
Me, thy vow'd soldier, who do bear thy yoke
As 'twere a wreath of roses, yet is heavier
Than lead itself, stings more than nettles. I
Have never been foul-mouth'd against thy law;
Ne'er reveal'd secret, for I knew none,—would not,
Had I kenn'd all that were; I never practised
Upon man's wife, nor would the libels read
Of liberal wits; I never at great feasts
Sought to betray a beauty, but have blush'd
At simpering sirs that did; I have been harsh
To large confessors, 12 and have hotly ask'd them
If they had mothers? I had one, a woman,
And women 'twere they wrong'd. I knew a man
Of eighty Winters, this I told them, who

at seventy thou canst catch,

—

A lass of fourteen brided; 'twas thy power

To put life into dust: the agèd cramp
Had screw'd his square foot round,

9 Polled is shorn or bald-headed. So Ezekiel, xliv. 20, speaking of the priests: "Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long; they shall only poll their heads."

10 An instance of the verb agreeing with the nearest noun, instead of with

its proper subject. Often so. See vol. xiv. page 154, note 12.

11 Alluding to the old myth of Phaethon. See vol. i. page 206, note 10. 12 Large, here, is loose, coarse, licentious. Men boasting of their lewd intrigues and their seductions, are the sort referred to.