The Two Noble Kinsmen
Act IV

ACT IV

SCENE i

The Jailer hears from his friends that Palamon has made sure that the Jailer will not be blamed for his escape. Palamon has also contributed a dowry to the Jailer’s Daughter for her marriage. The Daughter’s Wooer brings news of her madness, which her father already suspected: “Either this was her love to Palamon, / Or fear of my miscarrying on his scape, / Or both” (IV.i.49-51). The Wooer describes his overhearing her singing, and she seems deranged along rather characteristic Shakespearean lines: warbling “Willow, willow, willow” (IV.i.80) and such. She would have gone out like Ophelia — “She saw me, and straight sought the flood” (IV.i.95) — but the Wooer yanked her out of the water. The Jailer’s Brother brings the Daughter in, and she rants insanely for two or three pages, all about Palamon: “There is at least two hundred now with child by him — / There must be four — … / and all these must be boys” (IV.i.128-130). Peachy. Then another three pages of nonsense.

SCENE ii

This scene and the following “most clearly indicate some confusion in the text” given the wonky exits and entrances (Potter 33).
Emilia has decided, “I’ll choose, / And end their strife” (IV.ii.2-3). She has pictures of the two kinsmen and cannot decide which is more attractive, praising each with classical references. “I am a fool, my reason is lost in me; / I have no choice, and I have lied so lewdly, / That women ought to beat me” (IV.ii.34-36). A Gentleman announces the arrival of the knights, and Emilia complains to Diana that she’ll be blamed for the “blood of princes” (IV.ii.60). Theseus and the others enter, and both Pirithous and a Messenger tediously describes the knights who will compete.

SCENE iii

A Doctor is consulted about the madness of the Jailer’s Daughter, whose latest themes are death and hell. She “knows something about a schoolmaster but calls him Giraldo rather than Gerald” (from III.v) (Potter 34). Her reference to Dido (IV.iii.15) is, of course, anachronistic. The Doctor’s diagnosis: “‘Tis not an engraff’d madness, but a most thick and profound melancholy” (IV.iii.48-49); the “surfeit of her eye” on Palamon has imbalanced her senses (IV.iii.69ff). His learned recommendation is that the Wooer pretend to be Palamon and date her, chat her up: “It is falsehood she is in, which is with falsehoods to be combated” (IV.iii.93-94). He says easy; you say sleazy.

The Jailer’s Daughter’s inability to tell “the difference between ‘Palamon’ and Palamon,” reflects Emilia’s inability to differentiate between the two noble kinsmen (Garber 900).