The Two Noble Kinsmen

William Shakespeare, John Fletcher

Summary

The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare is a Jacobean tragicomedy, first published in 1634 and attributed jointly to John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. Its plot derives from "The Knight's Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, which had already been dramatised at least twice before. This play is believed to have been William Shakespeare's final play before he retired to Stratford-Upon-Avon and died three years later.

Formerly a point of controversy, the dual attribution is now generally accepted by scholarly consensus.

A prologue informs the audience that the play is based on a story from Chaucer.

Three queens come to plead with Theseus and Hippolyta, rulers of Athens, to avenge the deaths of their husbands by the hand of the tyrant Creon of Thebes. Creon has killed the three kings and refuses to allow them proper burial. Theseus agrees to wage war on Creon.

In Thebes, Palamon and Arcite, cousins and close friends, are bound by duty to fight for Creon, though they are appalled by his tyranny. In a hard-fought battle Palamon and Arcite enact prodigies of courage, but the Thebans are defeated by Theseus. Palamon and Arcite are imprisoned but philosophically resign themselves to their fate. Their stoicism is instantly destroyed when from their prison window they see Princess Emilia, Hippolyta's sister.

Available since: 06/03/2022.

Other books that might interest you

Taking My Reincarnation One Step...

KAYA

Even as a working adult, Sarasa Ichinokura suffers from an unshakable fatigue that’s plagued her since childhood. She goes to bed one night, exhausted from her office job, and encounters a goddess(?) who informs her that her perpetual lack of energy is actually due to a deficit of “mana.” Then, without any further explanation or time to process what’s happening to her, Sarasa is thrust into a fantasy world!
 
She awakens in the body of a ten-year-old girl in a strange land filled with flying beasts and oversized wolves. She accordingly prepares for the worst, but a monster hunter named Nelly takes her in. The hitch is...now that Sarasa finally has the energy to do everything she wants to, being cooped up in a cabin is just no fun! She seeks to stand on her own in this scary new world—and that’s going to mean learning magic.
 
It may be slow going, but Sarasa knows what to do—the best way to take her reincarnation is one step at a time!

Show book

Rejected alpha’s luna queen

Jesse Shackelford

They called her “healer’s whelp.” Low-rank. Tainted. Unfit to stand near a crown.But on the night of the Moon-Moot, Eira Thorne feels the mate-bond snap into place like a brand—hot, undeniable, sacred under old law. For one heartbeat, she thinks the pack will finally be forced to see her.Then Rurik Blackthorne looks her dead in the eye and forsakes her.He names Lady Isolde Ashriver as his Luna-to-be. He casts Eira beyond the Briarline with no shelter, no mercy, and a bond-scar that still pulls at her ribs like a chain.Exile should mean distance.Instead, it wakes something ancient.A pale crescent blooms on Eira’s wrist—quiet as a bruise, sharp as a promise—and suddenly the shadows beyond the border aren’t random. They’re waiting. Hunting. Closing in for what her blood might be worth.With danger snapping at her heels and truth buried under pack politics, Eira has only one way forward: stop begging to be chosen… and start taking back what was stolen.Because if she really is a queen, they don’t get to throw her away.

Show book