The Two Noble Kinsmen

A late collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher reworks Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale into a drama of friendship broken by love. Palamon and Arcite are cousins and inseparable companions until, imprisoned together in Athens, both catch sight of Princess Emilia from their cell window and fall for her at once. Devotion curdles into rivalry, and the two are driven toward a tournament whose winner claims Emilia and whose loser forfeits his life. A subplot follows a jailer’s daughter whose own hopeless love for Palamon tips into madness. First published in 1634 and thought to have reached the stage around 1613, it is among the last plays Shakespeare had a hand in. Read it free as a PDF and EPUB edition.