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The Two Noble Kinsmen

Chapter 35: EPILOGVE
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About This Book

Two aristocratic cousins who were once close become rivals after both fall for the same woman; their friendship unravels into exile, secret returns, and a climactic martial contest that ends in sudden death and prompts questions of honor, fate, and grief. A ruling lord arbitrates and seeks to contain the violence, while a comic–tragic subplot about a jailer’s daughter and her unreciprocated passion adds earthy humor and human consequence. The work interweaves chivalric romance, classical motifs, and dark comedy to explore how desire, loyalty, and fortune collide and how punishment, penance, and reconciliation try to restore social order.

EPILOGVE

I would now aske ye how ye like the Play,
But, as it is with Schoole Boyes, cannot say,
I am cruell fearefull: pray, yet stay a while,
And let me looke upon ye: No man smile?
Then it goes hard, I see; He that has
Lov’d a yong hansome wench, then, show his face—
Tis strange if none be heere—and if he will
Against his Conscience, let him hisse, and kill
Our Market: Tis in vaine, I see, to stay yee;
Have at the worst can come, then! Now what say ye?
And yet mistake me not: I am not bold;
We have no such cause. If the tale we have told
(For tis no other) any way content ye
(For to that honest purpose it was ment ye)
We have our end; and ye shall have ere long,
I dare say, many a better, to prolong
Your old loves to us: we, and all our might
Rest at your service. Gentlemen, good night. [Florish.]

FINIS