_Arc._ No, Palamon, Those hopes are prisoners with us: here we are, And here the graces of our youth must wither, Like a too-timely spring: here age must find us, And which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried; The sweet embraces of a loving wife Loaden with kisses, arm’d with thousand Cupids, Shall never clasp our necks! No issue know us, No figures of ourselves shall we e’er see, To glad our age, and like young eaglets teach ’em Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say, Remember what your fathers were, and conquer! The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments, And in their songs curse ever-blinded fortune, Till she for shame see what a wrong she has done To youth and nature. This is all our world: We shall know nothing here, but one another; Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes; The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it; Summer shall come, and with her all delights, But dead-cold winter must inhabit here still. _Pal._ ’Tis too true, Arcite! To our Theban hounds, That shook the aged forest with their echoes, No more now must we halloo; no more shake Our pointed javelins, while the angry swine Flies like a Parthian quiver from our rages, Struck with our well-steel’d darts! All valiant uses (The food and nourishment of noble minds) In us two here shall perish; we shall die (Which is the curse of honour) lazily, Children of grief and ignorance. _Arc._ Yet, cousin, Even from the bottom of these miseries, From all that fortune can inflict upon us, I see two comforts rising, two mere blessings, If the Gods please to hold here; a brave patience, And the enjoying of our griefs together. Whilst Palamon is with me, let me perish If I think this our prison! _Pal._ Certainly, ’Tis a main goodness, cousin, that our fortunes Were twinn’d together; ’tis most true, two souls Put in two noble bodies, let ’em suffer The gall of hazard, so they grow together, Will never sink; they must not; say they could, A willing man dies sleeping, and all’s done. _Arc._ Shall we make worthy uses of this place, That all men hate so much? _Pal._ How, gentle cousin?