Jailer's Daughter

Play

The Two Noble Kinsmen

Summary

The unnamed daughter of the jailer who guards Palamon, she falls desperately in love with him, helps him escape, loses him in the forest, and descends into a genuine and heartbreaking madness. Her soliloquies as she loses her mind — mixing fantasy, grief, and sexual longing — are among the most affecting writing in the play (generally attributed to Fletcher) and have drawn frequent comparison to Ophelia. She is eventually cured by a ruse in which her Wooer disguises himself as Palamon, giving the play's subplot a happy ending that is also quietly troubling.

Notable Quotations

"Let all the dukes and all the devils roar, / He is at liberty! I have ventured for him, / And out I have brought him to a little wood / A mile hence." *(II.vi)*

"I am very cold, and all the stars are out too, / The little stars and all, that look like aglets." *(III.iv)*

Cross-references

• The Two Noble Kinsmen — the play
• Romances (Late Plays)
• character_palamon — the knight she loves and liberates
• character_theseus_2nk — under whose authority she lives