The Two Noble Kinsmen

By William Shakespeare and John Fletcher

Co-written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, this is a captivating play that explores themes of love, friendship, and rivalry. Set against the backdrop of ancient Greece, the story follows two cousins, Palamon and Arcite, whose close bond is tested by their mutual

• Language: English
• Publisher: Left of Brain Books
• Release date: Feb 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9781396324758

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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The Two Noble Kinsmen Apocryphal

By

William Shakespeare

First published in 1634

Image 1

Published by Left of Brain Books

Copyright © 2023 Left of Brain Books

ISBN 978-1-396-32475-8

eBook Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations permitted by copyright law. Left of Brain Books is a division of Left Of Brain Onboarding Pty Ltd.

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE

About the Book

The Two Noble Kinsmen is a Jacobean comedy, first published in 1634 and attributed to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. Formerly a point of controversy, the dual attribution is now generally accepted by the scholarly consensus. Researchers have applied a range of tests and techniques to determine the relative shares of Shakespeare and Fletcher in the play-Hallet Smith, in The Riverside Shakespeare, cites metrical characteristics, vocabulary and word-compounding, incidence of certain contractions, kinds and uses of imagery, and characteristic lines of certain types-in their attempts to distinguish the shares of Shakespeare and Fletcher in the play. Smith offers a breakdown that agrees, in general if not in all details, with those of other scholars.

(Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Author

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 - 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the Bard of Avon (or simply The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated

into every major living language and are performed more often than t hose of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585

and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590

and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language.

In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called

bardolatry. In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship

and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

Around 150 years after Shakespeare's death, doubts began to emerge about the authorship of Shakespeare's works. Alternative candidates proposed include Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Although all alternative candidates are almost universally rejected in academic circles, popular interest in the subject, particularly the Oxfordian theory, has continued into the 21st century."

(Quote from wikipedia.org)

CONTENTS

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE

THE PERSONS REPRESENTED IN THE PLAY ......................................... 1

PROLOGVE......................................................................................... 2

ACTUS PRIMUS ............................................................................. 4

ACTUS SECUNDUS ...................................................................... 25

ACTUS TERTIUS ........................................................................... 52

ACTUS QUARTUS ........................................................................ 85

ACTUS QUINTUS ....................................................................... 104

THE PERSONS REPRESENTED IN THE PLAY

Hymen,

Theseus,

Hippolita, Bride to Theseus

Emelia, Sister to Theseus

[Emelia's Woman],

Nymphs,

Three Queens,

Three valiant Knights,

Palamon, and

Arcite, The two Noble Kinsmen, in love with fair Emelia

[Valerius],

Perithous,

[A Herald],

[A Gentleman],

[A Messenger],

[A Servant],

[Wooer],

[Keeper],

Jaylor,

His Daughter, in love with Palamon

[His brother],

[A Doctor],

[4] Countreymen,

[2 Friends of the Jaylor],

[3 Knights],

[Nel, and other]

Wenches,

A Taborer,

Gerrold, A Schoolmaster.)

PROLOGVE

Florish.

New Playes, and Maydenheads, are neare a kin, Much follow'd both, for both much mony g'yn, If they stand sound, and well: And a good Play (Whose modest Sceanes blush on his marriage day, And shake to loose his honour) is like hir That after holy Tye and first nights stir Yet still is Modestie, and still retaines More of the maid to sight, than Husbands paines; We pray our Play may be so; For I am sure It has a noble Breeder, and a pure,

A learned, and a Poet never went

More famous yet twixt Po and silver Trent: Chaucer (of all admir'd) the Story gives, There constant to Eternity it lives.

If we let fall the Noblenesse of this,

And the first sound this child heare, be a hisse, How will it shake the bones of that good man, And make him cry from under ground, 'O fan From me the witles chaffe of such a wrighter That blastes my Bayes, and my fam'd workes makes lighter Then Robin Hood!' This is the feare we bring; For to say Truth, it were an endlesse thing, And too ambitious, to aspire to him,

Weake as we are, and almost breathlesse swim In this deepe water. Do but you hold out Your helping hands, and we shall take about, And something doe to save us: You shall heare

Sceanes, though below his Art, may yet appeare Worth two houres travell. To his bones sweet sleepe: Content to you. If this play doe not keepe A little dull time from us, we perceave Our losses fall so thicke, we must needs leave. [Florish.]

ACTUS PRIMUS

[Scaena 1.] (Athens. Before a temple.)

[Enter Hymen with a Torch burning: a Boy, in a white Robe before singing, and strewing Flowres: After Hymen, a Nimph, encompast in her Tresses, bearing a wheaten Garland. Then Theseus between two other Nimphs with wheaten Chaplets on their heades. Then Hipolita the Bride, lead by Pirithous, and another holding a Garland over her head (her Tresses likewise hanging.) After her Emilia holding up her Traine. (Artesius and Attendants.)]

The Song, [Musike.]

Roses their sharpe spines being gon,

Not royall in their smels alone,

But in their hew.

Maiden Pinckes, of odour faint,

Dazies smel-lesse, yet most quaint

And sweet Time true.

Prim-rose first borne child of Ver,

Merry Spring times Herbinger,

With her bels dimme.

Oxlips, in their Cradles growing,

Mary-golds, on death beds blowing,

Larkes-heeles trymme.

All deere natures children sweete,

Ly fore Bride and Bridegroomes feete, [Strew Flowers.]

Blessing their sence.

Not an angle of the aire,

Bird melodious, or bird faire,

Is absent hence.

The Crow, the slaundrous Cuckoe, nor

The boding Raven, nor Chough hore

Nor chattring Pie,

May on our Bridehouse pearch or sing,

Or with them any discord bring,

But from it fly.

[Enter 3. Queenes in Blacke, with vailes staind, with imperiall Crownes. The 1. Queene