suffer more. 
  A serpent shoots his sting at unaware;
  An ambush’d thief forelays a traveller: 
  The man lies murder’d, while the thief and snake,
  One gains the thickets, and one threads the brake. 
  This let divines decide; but well I know,
  Just, or unjust, I have my share of woe,
  Through Saturn seated in a luckless place,
  And Juno’s wrath, that persecutes my race;
  Or Mars and Venus, in a quartile, move 500
  My pangs of jealousy for Arcite’s love.

    Let Palamon oppress’d in bondage mourn,
  While to his exiled rival we return. 
  By this, the sun, declining from his height,
  The day had shorten’d to prolong the night;
  The lengthen’d night gave length of misery
  Both to the captive lover and the free. 
  For Palamon in endless prison mourns,
  And Arcite forfeits life if he returns: 
  The banish’d never hopes his love to see, 510
  Nor hopes the captive lord his liberty. 
  ’Tis hard to say who suffers greater pains: 
  One sees his love, but cannot break his chains: 
  One free, and all his motions uncontroll’d,
  Beholds whate’er he would, but what he would behold. 
  Judge as you please, for I will haste to tell
  What fortune to the banish’d knight befell.

    When Arcite was to Thebes return’d again,
  The loss of her he loved renew’d his pain;
  What could be worse, than never more to see 520
  His life, his soul, his charming Emily? 
  He raved with all the madness of despair,
  He roar’d, he beat his breast, he tore his hair. 
  Dry sorrow in his stupid eyes appears,
  For, wanting nourishment, he wanted tears: 
  His eye-balls in their hollow sockets sink,
  Bereft of sleep, he loathes his meat and drink. 
  He withers at his heart, and looks as wan
  As the pale spectre of a murder’d man: 
  That pale turns yellow, and his face receives 530
  The faded hue of sapless boxen leaves: 
  In solitary groves he makes his moan,
  Walks early out, and ever is alone: 
  Nor, mix’d in mirth, in youthful pleasures shares,
  But sighs when songs and instruments he hears. 
  His spirits are so low, his voice is drown’d,
  He hears as from afar, or in a swound,
  Like the deaf murmurs of a distant sound: 
  Uncomb’d his locks and squalid his attire,
  Unlike the trim of love and gay desire; 540
  But full of museful mopings, which presage
  The loss of reason, and conclude in rage.

    This when he had endured a year and more,
  Now wholly changed from what he was before,
  It happen’d once, that, slumbering as he lay,
  He dream’d (his dream began at break of day)
  That Hermes o’er his head in air appear’d,
  And with soft words his drooping spirits cheer’d: