When choice is not a choice
Shakespeare's "The Two Noble Kinsmen," the Bondi Junction attack, and evergreen misogyny
I’m reading through Shakespeare’s plays in an attempt to make sense of the world. Today I’m writing about his last play, “The Two Noble Kinsmen.” For a quick reference to posts on previous plays, click here. I’ll end the series next week with a look back on the 37 plays.
The recent brutal attack in Sydney, where a man stabbed to death six people and wounded others, brought back a memory from our time living there. This was soon after the government’s mass gun buy-back. Whenever I told Australians that I came from Texas, the subject quickly turned to guns. Those who had traveled to Texas recalled being gobsmacked at seeing guns racked for display in pickup trucks. They were curious how we lived with the constant threat of guns in the US, and in Texas particularly.
One night in King’s Cross, a man went off his nut and stabbed multiple people before he was apprehended. Everyone I spoke to said, after acknowledging the horror, well at least he didn’t have a gun, looking hard at me. There really isn’t an upside to random violence, but yes, it could have been worse. And it is, in places where gun ownership isn’t regulated responsibly.
I thought of that as I read about the attacker in Bondi Junction. He was a young man who was allegedly distraught that he didn’t have a girlfriend. He may not have been in his right mind, but he could reason. Like Shakespeare’s disturbed youth who also caused a girl’s death, “though he be mad, there’s method in’t.” The perpetrator was mad at women. Most of his victims were female, even the baby who was too young to reject him.
In her newsletter, Jill Filipovic links this attack with the spate of punching attacks in New York City. Women are being assaulted randomly in the city, for no discernible reason other than they were walking around while being female.
In both cities, men with mental health issues appear to have targeted women for random acts of violence. It’s easy to point to the mental health part of the equation and say that these are simply disturbed men and there is no rhyme or reason to their behavior. But there is some rhyme to it. They aren’t attacking any random passerby. They’re attacking female ones.
To be a woman in a misogynistic culture is to be a target of men’s passions—anger, lust, or revenge. The randomness of these attacks threatens every women, all of the time. There is no place in which a woman can fully claim a right to take up space without fear of being co-opted into a man’s violent fantasy. It’s nothing less than terrorism based on a concerted intent to overpower a class of people.
Interestingly, The Two Noble Kinsmen is not so much about the men in the title as it is about women who are the objects of men’s desires. Let’s see how that works out.
Summary
Athens is celebrating the marriage of the Duke, Theseus, to his bride, the Amazonian princess Hippolyta1. Three women dressed in mourning approach the wedding couple and Hippolyta’s sister Emilia. The women are queens who’ve been widowed by the tyrant Creon of Thebes. Creon won’t allow the queens to gather their husbands’ bones for burial, so they have come to beg Theseus to intervene. Theseus, Hippolyta, and Emilia are moved by their story, and Theseus declares he’ll avenge their cause by waging war against Creon.
In Thebes, Creon’s nephews Arcite and Palamon (who are cousins) commiserate about their uncle’s brutal rule, which has made Thebes a wasteland. The young men hear that Theseus is arriving to wage a battle against Creon. Despite their hatred of Creon, they decide to support him out of loyalty to Thebes.
Pirithous, Theseus’ close friend, takes leave of Hippolyta and Emilia to go to Athens to join Theseus. Remarking on the close friendship between Pirithous and Theseus, Emilia remembers a childhood friend who died when they were both 11 years old. Their friendship was so intimate that Emilia can’t imagine another relationship that could be so meaningful to her. Hippolyta wonders whether Emilia could ever love a man as much.
Theseus wins the battle against Thebes and urges the widowed queens to gather their husbands’ bones and bury them. He remarks that he was impressed with two men from Thebes during the battle: they had fought valiantly, and he found them impressive despite being on the opposing side. Theseus directs Pirithous to ensure the two men receive medical attention before they’re imprisoned. These men are our play’s two noble kinsmen.
Arcite and Palamon make an impression on everyone at the jail: the jailer thinks they must be princes and the jailer’s daughter is smitten. Hopeless for the future, the two friends take comfort that they’re together. They decide that they can be happy the rest of their lives if only they remain together.
From their cell, the two young men see Emilia in the garden and both fall instantly in love with her. The men start quarreling, each claiming the right to love Emilia. Their heated exchange leads them to swear they would kill each other if only they had weapons.
The jailer brings Arcite from his cell to Theseus. When the jailer returns unaccompanied, he tells Palamon that the Duke has released Arcite, freeing him but banishing him forever. Palamon assumes the worst of his friend, thinking he will be able to win Emilia while Palamon wastes away in prison.
Still in Athens, Arcite pities himself for being banished and imagines that Palamon is better placed to woo Emilia. He decides he won’t leave the kingdom. With Thebes now in ruin he has nowhere to go; he also doesn’t want to be far from Emilia. As he wanders through the countryside he comes across some countrymen. From them, he learns that the Duke has organized a May Day tournament, which is where the countrymen are headed. Arcite decides to disguise himself and enter the games as a wrestler.
The jailer’s daughter has fallen in love with Palamon, and she decides to set him free.
At the games, Arcite wins the tournament. Theseaus praises him, while being curious about who he is. Arcite dodges the Duke’s questions, since Theseus has banished him. Pirithous brings Arcite to Emilia, suggesting that Emilia accept him as her servant. Emilia says he can serve her if he rides well in the next morning’s games.
The jailer’s daughter has helped Palamon to escape. She’s hidden him in a nearby wood, and has left to find food and a file so that he can remove his chains. Although delirious with love, she notes that he hasn’t thanked her for her help, and she suspects he may not love her. She thinks about how she found it difficult to persuade him to leave the prison, and she’s unsettled by his reluctance.
Palamon and Arcite meet in the wild while the court is celebrating May Day with outdoor festivities. Palamon challenges Arcite to a duel. Arcite agrees, promising to return that night with food and a file to remove his friend’s irons. Palamon retreats into the brush.
The jailer’s daughter returns with food and a file to free Palamon, but she can’t find him. She assumes the howls she hears are animals who’ve savaged him. She despairs: her father will be punished for Palamon’s escape; she’s not eaten for two days to provide Palamon with food; and she hasn’t slept. She’s prepared to die of misery.
Arcite brings Palamon food, wine, and a file. He promises to return with weapons for their fight. The jailer’s daughter, cold and forlorn, slips into madness.
Men arrive for a morris dance2 to entertain the Duke. After the women join them, they discover they’re missing one woman for the dance. The jailer’s daughter arrives, ‘mad as a March hare.’ The men decide that if they can get her to dance, they’ll have the number they need for the show. Theseus and his entourage arrive and watch the morris dance. The show over, Theseus leads his people off to the May Day sporting events.
Arcite arrives with the swords and armor; Arcite admits that he stole the gear from the Duke. Arcite and Palamon dress each other to prepare for their fight, taking care to protect each other, and reminiscing of battles fought together. Although they’re committed to fight against each other for Emilia’s hand, they lapse into long-held feelings for each other before trading insults again.
Theseus finds them while they’re fighting and declares that their battle without his approval is illegal: he orders their deaths. Hippolyta and Emilia sink to their knees to implore Theseus to be merciful; Pirithous joins them. Theseus relents and says he’ll spare their lives; Emilia asks him instead to banish them. Theseus asks her to think up another punishment, since he’s certain that every day they’d fight over her. Theseus even asks the two men if they’d agree to her conditions, and both say no, they’d rather die than live without Emilia.
Theseus suggests to Emilia that she choose one of them for a husband; the one she doesn’t choose must die. The men think this is a terrific solution. Emilia cannot choose between them, so Theseus declares his decision: they must go to Thebes for a month before they can return to Athens. Each can bring with him three knights. On their return, they must battle each other. The winner takes Emilia; the loser must die.
The jailer learns that he’s been cleared of charges for Palamon’s escape. He also hears that Palamon has provided a dowry for the jailer’s daughter to marry. The only problem is that the daughter is raving mad.
Emilia studies the portraits of Arcite and Palamon to discover her feelings for them, but cannot make a choice. Although opposites in looks and demeanor, she imagines good qualities in both. She receives news that Palamon and Arcite have returned to Athens, accompanied by three knights each as Theseus had directed. Emilia now worries that the loser’s attendants will be put to death as well. She wanted no violence; now the choice of her mate will result in the loss of four lives.
The jailer brings a doctor to observe his distressed daughter. The doctor diagnoses her as mad, which is a condition he cannot cure. He recommends that the jailer keep his daughter in a darkened room and have the Wooer (a man who’s in love with the jailer’s daughter) visit the jailer’s daughter in the guise of Palamon. The doctor thinks that with food and rest she’ll come to her senses.
Arcite and Palamon prepare to do battle. Arcite prays to Mars, as does Palamon to Venus. Each asks for a sign of favor, and each receives one. Emilia, separately, prays to Diana asking that she intervene and determine whether she should remain a virgin, and if not, which man to marry. In response, a tree rises with a single rose, which Emilia takes to mean that both men will fall, leaving her alone, ‘unplucked.’ Then the flower falls and the tree descends. This, she thinks, doesn’t bode well.
The doctor checks in with the Wooer, who’s been impersonating Palamon, to see if the ruse is working. The jailer is troubled that his daughter is being used dishonestly. Nonetheless, he goes along with the plot out of concern for his daughter’s health. When the jailer goes to retrieve his daughter, the doctor advises the Wooer not to resist any carnal wishes the daughter might have, since that would surely ‘cure’ her of her ‘melancholy humour.’
As the royal contingent prepares to watch the battle, Emilia holds back, not wanting to watch. Theseus insists she must, and Hippolyta urges her to do so as well. Since Emilia persists, Theseus allows her to stay behind. Emilia therefore only knows what she hears from the field. First Palamon seems to be victorius, then Arcite. Theseus enters with the victor, Arcite, and hands the winner over to Emilia. Emilia’s response is: “Is this winning?”
Palamon and his three knights are in custody with the jailer, awaiting execution. Palamon asks the jailer how his daughter fares, and he’s happy to hear that she’s recovered and soon to be married. This cheers Palamon, who gives his purse to the jailer to give to the daughter, and his knights do the same.
As Palamon lies down to put his head on the block, cries from outside urge the execution to be stopped. Pirithous arrives with disastrous news: Arcite’s horse threw Arcite and came down with his full force on the stricken man. Arcite, dying, wants to speak with Palamon. He tells Palamon to wed Emilia. After Arcite dies, Theseus notes that the gods have spoken: Mars made Arcite victorious, and Venus gave Palamon the love he sought. Palamon reflects on the cost of desire:
PALAMON O cousin,
That we should things desire which do cost us
The loss of our desire! That naught could buy
Dear love, but loss of dear love!
-Act 5 Scene 6
Theseus has the last word, and with it he reconstructs the events as if they were inevitable.
THESEUS […] O you heavenly charmers, What things you make of us! For what we lack We laugh, for what we have, are sorry; still Are children in some kind. Let us be thankful For that which is, and with you leave dispute That are above our question. Let’s go off And bear us like the time. Flourish. Exeunt. -Act 5 Scene 6
Thoughts
Based on Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, this play mostly stays true to its source. The play invents a new character in the jailer’s daughter, around whom it spins a secondary plot. Untouched is the role fate plays in governing love and life.
The jailer’s daughter
Let’s pause to consider the jailer’s daughter. She claims of her love for Palamon: “I love him beyond love and beyond reason / Or wit or safety.” (Act 2 Scene 6) Palamon doesn’t encourage her love nor does he return it. Having lost track of Palamon, and suffering from lack of food and sleep, she slips into the madness she once predicted of her love for him (‘beyond reason”). In love, she lavished her passion on a man of her imagination, since she knew little of him as a person. Losing hope, she gives in fully to her imagination:
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
[…] Where am I now?
Yonder’s the sea and there’s a ship—how’t tumbles!
And there’s a rock lies watching under water—
Now, now it beats upon it—now, now, now,
There’s a leak sprung, a sound one—how they cry!
Open her before the wind—you’ll lose all else.
Up with a course or two and tack about, boys.
Good night, good night, you’re gone. I am very hungry.
-Act 3 Scene 3
The jailer’s daughter can be seen as a harbinger of the two kinsmen’s fates. They, too, fall immediately in love with the idea of Emilia as they spy her from their jail cell. All they know of her is her beauty; they imagine every other quality of hers they describe. They’re so enamored of their idea of her that they risk their friendship and their lives to pursue her.
In her final scene, the jailer’s daughter imagines that Palamon had given a horse to her:
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
Did you ne’er see the horse he gave me?
JAILER Yes.
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
How do you like him?
JAILER He’s a very fair one.
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
You never saw him dance?
JAILER No.
JAILER’S DAUGHTER I have, often.
He dances very finely, very comely,
And, for a jig, come cut and long-tail to him.
He turns ye like a top.
JAILER That’s fine, indeed.
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
He dances the morris twenty mile an hour,
And that will founder the best hobbyhorse,
If I have any skill, in all the parish—
And gallops to the tune of ‘Light o’ love’.
What think you of this horse?
JAILER Having these virtues
I think he might be brought to play at tennis.
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
Alas, that’s nothing.
JAILER Can he write and read too?
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
A very fair hand, and casts himself th’accounts
Of all his hay and provender. That ostler
Must rise betime that cozens him. You know,
The chestnut mare the Duke has?
JAILER Very well.
JAILER’S DAUGHTER
She is horribly in love with him, poor beast,
But he is like his master—coy and scornful.
-Act 5 Scene 3
The dancing horse that the daughter imagines prefigures the real one that Arcite rides to his death:
PIRITHOUS
[…] on this horse is Arcite
Trotting the stones of Athens, which the calkins
Did rather tell than trample; for the horse
Would make his length a mile, if’t pleased his rider
To put pride in him. As he thus went counting
The flinty pavement, dancing, as ‘twere, to th’ music
His own hooves made—for, as they say, from iron
Came music’s origin—what envious flint,
Cold as old Saturn and like him possessed
With fire malevolent, darted a spark,
Or what fierce sulphur else, to this end made,
I comment not—the hot horse, hot as fire,
Took toy at this and fell to what disorder
His power could give his will; bounds; comes on end;
[…] on his hind hooves—
On end he stands—
That Arcite’s legs, being higher than his head,
Seemed with strange art to hang. His victor’s wreath
Even then fell off his head; and presently
Backward the jade comes o’er and his full pose
Becomes the rider’s load.
-Act 5 Scene 6
Trampled by a dancing horse first imagined by the jailer’s daughter, Arcite loses his life and cedes Emilia to Palamon. The jailer’s daughter, unhappy in love, accedes to the false love pushed on her by the doctor and the Wooer. Emilia and the jailer’s daughter both become brides, but under troubling circumstances.
This play ends in marriages, but also death. The Epilogue anticipates a muddled reaction to this uncertain ending:
EPILOGUE
I would now ask ye how ye like the play,
But, as it is with schoolboys, cannot say.
I am cruel fearful. Pray yet stay awhile,
And let me look upon ye. No man smile?
Then it goes hard, I see.
The play resolves seemingly on a happy note. The Wooer, in love with the jailer’s daughter from the beginning, marries her. His pursuit of her faced serious challenges, yet he overcame them. He loves her through her madness and, despite the prurient urging of the doctor, treats her honourably when she’s most vulnerable. The other marriage is similarly blessed: Palamon loves Emilia without bounds and she reads into his picture a character she could love. These should be happy unions. Why does it feel that something is wanting?
Are we responsible for our lives, or are we pieces on a board, moved about by supernatural forces?
Falling in love, falling into madness, falling to one’s death: the story asks us to judge what part humans play in life’s turning points. A person falling has no agency.
Characters in the play blame or entreat the gods for human outcomes: they conjure Saturn, Mars, and Venus, heavenly bodies that rule the world of men. From this perspective, life happens to people, who in turn forge their characters in their responses to adversity.
The two kinsmen don’t approve of their uncle’s tyranny in Thebes, yet they feel helpless to do anything other than defend their city when it’s attacked. That choioce made, they participate fully, exhibiting extraordinary valor and determination in battle. Because Theseus forms a positive opinion of them on the battlefield, he forgives all of their subsequent trespasses. He expels Arcite then doesn’t hold him accountable for flouting the banishment order. Quite the opposite: he gives Arcite an opportunity to marry his sister-in-law. Likewise, Theseus forgives Palamon (and the jailer and his daughter) for breaking out of prison, and he ultimately allows Palamon to marry Emilia even after ordering Palamon’s execution.
Strangely, the fact that the kinsmen willingly forsake their lifelong friendship matters little in judging them as potential suitors to Emilia. Instead, the characters assess the men through their own singular lens. Theseus treats them equally, based on his battlefield observations of their similarities in character as warriors. Emilia interprets their portraits to discern their character differences, based on their physical dissimilarities. The audience sees two, fully differentiated kinsmen: whether in love or in jealousy, their lines depict them as distinct individuals. We see their differences once they fall out over their love of the same woman. As Emilia says, they’re opposites in many ways. And yet, the play’s title assigns them one coin, two sides: two noble kinsmen.
Does it matter which man went under the horse and which survives to marry Emilia? The play leaves it to the gods to sort out. The would-be bride says she has no preference. She prays to Diana to either let her remain unmarried or provide her with a husband. Palamon prays to Venus, goddess of love, before the battle. He may lose the battle but he wins the love.
When choice is not a choice
When the doctor urges the Wooer to take advantage of Emilia to ‘cure’ her, I had to read and re-read the lines repeatedly to make sure I wasn’t imaging what I’d read. Lechery’s not uncommon in Shakespeare’s plays, but its presence here is jarring. Rather than caring for his patient, the doctor presses a man to take advantage of her vulnerable state. I can’t blame modern sensibility for my reaction: the jailer himself is taken aback by this so-called medical advice.
Also curious is the fact that such a major part wasn’t given a name. We’ve seen this before with the Fool’s role in Lear, for example, but major characters are usually named: for instance, Olivia’s fool in Twelfth Night is named Feste. The jailer’s role in this play might have no more scope than being a jailer (and a father), but the play gives his daughter an individual presence. Why not endow her with a name?
It’s possible that her anonymity could be the point: she is to be considered only a young woman, of marriageable age.3 The man who wants her, the Wooer, is similarly unnamed. They’re stock characters in something like a morris dance, except for the fact that her role breaks out into a moving portrait of a woman with an articulated interior life. Her character, unlike any of the others that approach decisions with a pronounced lack of determination, makes a firm choice that she doesn’t renounce. Sadly, it’s one that no one can endorse. She must be tricked into marrying a man others agree is more suitable for her.
Another woman is faced with making a choice in love. Theseus asks Emilia to choose between the two kinsmen. She’s put in this position not because she’s enamored of either but because they lay claim to her. Her preference is to marry neither of them. As she and Hippolyta agreed, Emilia is unlikely to ever find a relationship as close as that she had with her childhood friend. Faced with making a decision she doesn’t want to make, Emilia turns to Diana. I can’t imagine a more melancholy image than this, of a woman who’s ‘bride-habited but maiden hearted.’
EMILIA (praying to Diana) O sacred, shadowy, cold, and constant queen, Abandoner of revels, mute contemplative, Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure As wind-fanned snow [….] I am bride-habited, But maiden-hearted. A husband I have ‘pointed, But do not know him. -Act 5 Scene 3
In the end, it’s Arcite, not Emilia or even the powerful Duke, who appoints her husband. Emilia has no choice. Her final line is “This day I give to tears.”
Were it not for the story of the jailer’s daughter, whose choice was taken from her, we might assume that Emilia was fortunate to be married to an honorable man, as in Chaucer’s tale. With their stories intertwined, Emilia’s fate brings sorrow. She is left to make the best of what others have decided for her.
Stuck in the 14th century
The ‘gamergate’ era of the previous decade opened the floodgates for online male trolls to bring their harassment of women into the real world. Today, women regularly report instances of men, unknown to them, who approach them in public to tell them what they should be doing (or not doing), and to offer their unsolicited opinions of them. The women experiencing harassment are doing nothing provocative. They’re just living in the world (running, working out at a gym, eating alone in a restaurant), but since they’re by themselves they’re more vulnerable to attack. While not necessarily being illegal, the men’s actions are intended to harass and diminish women. Their effect is to exert power over anonymous women who cross their paths. Not all threats come from a gun.
Life is a series of events originating outside our control—some are terrifying and some bring unblemished joy. You can assign these moments to fate, however you think of that, or you can view them as inevitable in a naturally chaotic world. But most of life’s miseries result from choices made by a few, narrowing the options for the many.
This has been an age-old story, but it wasn’t righteous in Chaucer’s day, nor in Shakespeare’s. Surrounded by the artifacts of modern technology, we’re no more enlightened today.
Thanks for reading,
This play doesn’t make the point, but it’s worth noting that Theseus had captured Hippolyta in a successful military attack. She was therefore his slave.
An early form of itinerant theatre, morris dancers perform in costume as stock characters.
It could be a carryover from its source, The Canterbury Tales, which named characters for their roles: ‘miller,’ ‘wife of Bath’ and so on. However, all of the other roles in this play with significant stage time have character names. The exceptions are the characters in the subplot: the daughter, wooer, jailer, and doctor.
So glad you’re going to wrap up with a retrospective! I miss this stack already! On “The Jailor’s Daughter,” Steinbeck did something similar in Of Mice and Men, with the character, a woman, who was unknowingly a catalyst of the story’s outcome. I think it was “Shorty’s Wife? Correct me if I’m wrong, but in any case this gives me a reason, as if any were needed, to reread that story from a new perspective. Thanks!
This is really interesting. It was Curley’s wife (but I had to look it up). And yes, very similar.