The Two Noble Kinsmen · Chapter
Scene II explained
Emilia, alone with two pictures of Palamon and Arcite, struggles to choose between them, vacillating wildly in her affections.
What happens
Emilia, alone with two pictures of Palamon and Arcite, struggles to choose between them, vacillating wildly in her affections. She is interrupted by news that the knights have arrived for the tournament. Theseus, Hippolyta, and Pirithous enter, and messengers describe the six knights in detail. Emilia laments that her beauty will cause bloodshed, and the scene ends with her sorrowful resignation.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Madness
Emilia's soliloquy reveals love as a maddening force that confuses her reason, making her 'sotted' and 'utterly lost' as she swings between favoring Arcite and Palamon.
Fate and Free Will
Emilia laments that her beauty is the 'sacrifice' to an unhappy fate, while the tournament is framed as an inevitable outcome of the lovers' rivalry, blending choice and destiny.
Honor and Chivalry
The detailed descriptions of the knights emphasize their noble bearing, martial skill, and honor, reflecting the chivalric code that governs the impending combat.
Characters to notice
- Emilia
Emilia is torn between Palamon and Arcite, first favoring Arcite's beauty, then Palamon's manly face, lamenting her own indecision and the impending bloodshed.
- Theseus
Theseus eagerly anticipates the tournament, ordering Pirithous to prepare the field and expressing his desire to see the knights.
- Hippolyta
Hippolyta wishes to see the fight but laments the cause, calling love tyrannous, and comforts her weeping sister Emilia.
- Pirithous
Pirithous describes the knight leading with Palamon in detail, praising his noble appearance and valorous demeanor.
- Messenger
The messenger describes the knights, including the one with Arcite and a freckle-faced knight, providing vivid accounts of their appearances and qualities.
Key passages
“Yet I may bind those wounds up, that must open And bleed to death for my sake else: I’ll choose, And end their strife”
I can still prevent the wounds that will otherwise bleed out because of me; I will make a choice and stop their conflict.
Emilia resolves to choose between Palamon and Arcite to avoid their deaths.
“What a mere child is fancy, That, having two fair gauds of equal sweetness, Cannot distinguish, but must cry for both!”
Desire is like a child who, faced with two equally beautiful toys, cannot choose and cries for both.
Emilia compares her indecision to a child's inability to choose between two attractive options.
“My unspotted youth must now be soil’d With blood of princes, and my chastity Be made the altar where the lives of lovers... must be the sacrifice To my unhappy beauty”
My pure youth will be stained by the blood of princes, and my virginity will become the altar on which lovers' lives are sacrificed to my unfortunate beauty.
Emilia laments that her beauty will cause the deaths of noble men.