un?"

Now when Arcite had for a year or two endured this torment, he dreamed one
night that the god Mercury appeared to him, and said to him, "To Athens
shalt thou wend." Whereupon Arcite started up, and saw in the mirror that
his sufferings had so changed him that he might live in Athens unknown. So
he clad himself as a labourer, and went with one squire to Athens, and
offered his service at the court, where for a year or two he was page of
the chamber to Emilia, and passed under the name of Philostrate. And in the
course of time he was so honoured that Theseus took notice of him, and made
him squire of his own chamber, and maintained him nobly.

Meantime Palamon had lain seven years in prison, when it befel on the third
day of May (as the old books that tell this story say) that, aided by a
friend, he broke prison, having given his gaoler to drink of drugged wine,
and so fled the city, and lay hid in a grove. Hither by chance came Arcite
to do observance to May; and first Palamon heard him sing

"Wel-come be thou, faire fresshe May;
I hope that I som grene gete may,"

and thereafter fall into a study, as lovers will, lamenting his hard fate
that he should be passing under a false name, and daily be slain by the
eyes of Emilia. Whereat Palamon started up, and reproached him, and
challenged him to fight; and Arcite answered him no less boldly, saying he
would bring him arms and weapons on the morrow, as well as meat and drink
and bedding for the night.

So on the morrow the two donned their harness, helping each other to arm,
and then fell a-fighting, Palamon like a wild lion, and Arcite like a cruel
tiger, till they were ankle-deep in blood.

On the same day rode forth Theseus with Hippolyta and Emilia to hunt the
hart, and Theseus was aware of the two knights fighting. He spurred his
steed between them, and cried to them to hold their hands. And Palamon told
him who they were, and why they fought. Theseus at first was angry, and
condemned them both to death; but when the queen Hippolyta and Emilia and
the ladies of their train pleaded for them, he relented, bethinking himself
of what love is, for he himself had been a servant [lover] in his time;
wherefore, at the request of the queen and Emilia, he forgave them, if they
would swear to do his country no harm, and be his friends. And when they
had sworn, he reasoned with them, that each was worthy to wed Emilia, but
that both could not so do; therefore let eac