# Scene I explained — The Two Noble Kinsmen

> Chapter companion for The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare.

## What happens

The Gaoler learns that Palamon has been pardoned and his daughter's role in the escape has been forgiven, but the Wooer reports that the Gaoler's daughter has gone mad from love and fear, wandering in the woods and singing distractedly. She is brought in, raving about Palamon and imagining a sea voyage, leaving her father in despair.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Madness

The Gaoler's daughter is driven to madness by her love for Palamon, mixing fear, devotion, and delusion in her songs and actions.

### Suffering and Redemption

The Gaoler suffers anxiety over his daughter's fate and his own, while Palamon's pardon offers a form of redemption for the family.

## Character check-ins

### Gaoler

Anxious about his fate after Palamon's escape, relieved by news of pardon, then devastated by his daughter's madness.

### Daughter

The Gaoler's daughter, driven mad by love for Palamon and fear for her father; sings and raves incoherently.

### Wooer

Reports the daughter's madness after finding her by the lake, singing and making flower rings.

### Palamon

Mentioned as having cleared the Gaoler and secured his pardon, and as the object of the daughter's love.

### Pirithous

Mentioned as supporting the queens' plea for mercy, helping secure the prisoners' pardon.

### Hippolyta

Mentioned as begging for the prisoners' pardon alongside Emilia.

## Key lines

> I heard a voice, a shrill one; and attentive I gave my ear; when I might well perceive 'Twas one that sung, and, by the smallness of it, A boy or woman.

I heard a high-pitched voice singing, and listening closely, I realized it was either a boy or a woman.

_The Wooer describes first hearing the daughter's mad singing by the lake._

> She sung much, but no sense; only I heard her Repeat this often, 'Palamon is gone, Is gone to the wood to gather mulberries; I'll find him out to-morrow.'

She sang a lot but without coherence, except she kept saying that Palamon had gone to the woods to pick mulberries and she would find him tomorrow.

_The daughter's mad rambling focuses on Palamon's imagined whereabouts._

> The place Was knee-deep where she sat; her careless tresses A wreath of bulrush rounded; about her stuck Thousand fresh water-flowers of several colours; That methought she appear'd like the fair nymph That feeds the lake with waters, or as Iris Newly dropt down from heaven.

She sat in water up to her knees, her hair loosely crowned with a wreath of bulrushes, and covered with many colorful water flowers, so that she looked like a water nymph or the rainbow goddess Iris just descended from heaven.

_The Wooer poetically describes the daughter's appearance in her madness._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-iv-scene-i
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters