Summary
The Prologue announces that the following performance is based on a tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. They entreat the audience to be understanding that though they strive to honor Chaucer, they may not possess the same merit as the great medieval writer.
Act One opens with the wedding celebration of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. The festivities are quickly interrupted by three queens dressed all in black. They tell Theseus that Creon, the King of Thebes, defeated all of their kingdoms but will not allow their late husbands a proper burial. They entreat Theseus to invade Thebes and attack Creon's forces.
Theseus is hesitant because of his wedding, but Hippolyta and her sister, Emilia, soon convince him to go through with the war.
Meanwhile, in Thebes, cousins Arcite and Palamon are discussing ways to leave Thebes because their uncle, King Creon, is a tyrant. When Valerius tells them that Theseus is invading, they agree to stay behind and fight for Thebes.
In Athens, Hippolyta and Emilia discuss friendship, specifically Theseus's long-term friendship with his fellow soldier, Pirithous, and Emilia's childhood friendship with Flavina, who died young. Emilia does not think she will ever love a man as much as she loved Flavina.
Theseus defeats Creon's forces and the three queens are able to properly bury their husbands.
The wounded Arcite and Palamon are brought to Theseus as prisoners of war, and Theseus immediately recognizes their nobility. He orders them to be detained in an Athenian prison and given good treatment so they can recover.
Analysis
The Two Noble Kinsmen announces itself, right away, as a play inspired by another literary text. While Shakespeare and his contemporaries often based their plays on various source material, The Two Noble Kinsmen is one of the few that makes audiences aware of its predecessor from the outset. Before the beginning of the play proper, the Prologue announces how this performance is indebted to Geoffrey Chaucer, a famous and celebrated writer from the medieval period of English literature (the medieval period directly preceded the early modern period, lasting until roughly the beginning of the sixteenth century). Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales is the inspiration behind the play, and Shakespeare and Fletcher even recycle the same character names that Chaucer himself used.
The Prologue's announcement is also significant because in directly alluding to Chaucer's text, the Prologue suggests that The Two Noble Kinsmen might share more thematic and stylistic similarities with its source material. Indeed, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is often considered an ironic mediation on medieval social, political, and religious norms. As such, many of the characters in the Tales are more like caricatures, ironic portraits of common figures like friars, nuns, widows, and, of course, knights.
The reference to the specific source material therefore helps prepare the audience for a similarly ironic portrayal of early modern life, and readers will see this irony play out as early as the first act. Perhaps the biggest source of irony for both Chaucer and Shakespeare and Fletcher is the notion of the chivalric code, the set of moral standards to which English knights (and later, men in general) were expected to subscribe.
In Act One, Theseus leaves his wedding celebration in order to carry out his chivalric responsibility of defending the Three Queens. Similarly, Palamon and Arcite feel compelled to stay and fight for Thebes (their homeland) even though they despise their uncle, King Creon. While these are not examples of overt irony, they prepare the audience for later choices – some honorable, some absurd – made by characters based on their adherence to the chivalric lifestyle.
In alluding to Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" early on, then, the play draws connections between itself and a famous (if not the most famous) satirical English work with which the audience would have been familiar.
