Reading boundaryStart: How great a sorrow suff’reth now Arcite!Stop after: For I will tell you forth as I began.
Summary
Arcite bitterly regrets his release. Exile prevents him from seeing Emily, while Palamon can at least glimpse her and might someday benefit from changing Fortune. Arcite reflects that people ignorantly pray for things that harm them: wealth may cause death, and freedom may expose someone to danger. Like a drunk who knows he has a home but cannot find the road, people seek happiness by the wrong route.
In prison, Palamon reaches the opposite conclusion. He imagines that free Arcite can rally their Theban relatives, attack Athens, and win Emily, while his own imprisonment and love double his pain. Jealousy drives him to protest that innocent humans suffer more than beasts, even as criminals go free; he blames Saturn, Juno, Venus, and divine destiny. The narrator leaves the comparison to lovers: Palamon can see Emily but cannot leave, while Arcite can travel but cannot see her.
Who’s who
Arcite — Exiled Theban knight who now regards his release as a worse prison.
Palamon — Arcite’s imprisoned cousin, who envies Arcite’s freedom and possibilities.
Emily — The absent object of both cousins’ love and the measure each uses for freedom.
Fortune — The changeable power Arcite invokes when imagining that Palamon’s circumstances may improve.
Saturn, Juno, and Venus — Gods Palamon blames for imprisonment, Thebes’s ruin, love, and jealousy.