SECOND QUEEN. For your mother’s sake, And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair ones, Hear and respect me. THIRD QUEEN. Now, for the love of him whom Jove hath marked The honour of your bed, and for the sake Of clear virginity, be advocate For us and our distresses. This good deed Shall raze you out o’ th’ book of trespasses All you are set down there. THESEUS. Sad lady, rise. HIPPOLYTA. Stand up. EMILIA. No knees to me. What woman I may stead that is distressed, Does bind me to her. THESEUS. What’s your request? Deliver you for all. FIRST QUEEN. We are three queens whose sovereigns fell before The wrath of cruel Creon, who endure The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites, And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes. He will not suffer us to burn their bones, To urn their ashes, nor to take th’ offence Of mortal loathsomeness from the blest eye Of holy Phœbus, but infects the winds With stench of our slain lords. O, pity, Duke! Thou purger of the earth, draw thy feared sword That does good turns to th’ world; give us the bones Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them; And of thy boundless goodness take some note That for our crowned heads we have no roof Save this, which is the lion’s and the bear’s, And vault to everything. THESEUS. Pray you, kneel not. I was transported with your speech and suffered Your knees to wrong themselves. I have heard the fortunes Of your dead lords, which gives me such lamenting As wakes my vengeance and revenge for ’em. King Capaneus was your lord. The day That he should marry you, at such a season As now it is with me, I met your groom By Mars’s altar. You were that time fair! Not Juno’s mantle fairer than your tresses, Nor in more bounty spread her. Your wheaten wreath Was then nor threshed nor blasted. Fortune at you Dimpled her cheek with smiles. Hercules, our kinsman, Then weaker than your eyes, laid by his club; He tumbled down upon his Nemean hide And swore his sinews thawed. O grief and time, Fearful consumers, you will all devour! FIRST QUEEN. O, I hope some god, Some god hath put his mercy in your manhood, Whereto he’ll infuse power, and press you forth Our undertaker. THESEUS. O, no knees, none, widow! Unto the helmeted Bellona use them, And pray for me, your soldier. Troubled I am. [_Turns away._]