# Daughter — The Two Noble Kinsmen character guide

> Daughter in The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Daughter Nay

**First appearance:** 0009-act-ii-scene-i

## Snapshot

The Gaoler's daughter, whose love for the imprisoned Palamon grows so consuming it eventually unseats her reason.

## Who they are

She is a young woman of the Gaoler's household who falls for Palamon while he is held captive, and her passion runs far past what her station or his situation can return. Her devotion is both tender and destabilizing, a private obsession that will swell into a public spectacle of madness. She matters because her unrequited love shadows the play's aristocratic romances with a humbler, more desperate version of the same consuming force.

## In the story

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-ii-scene-i)

Expresses admiration for the imprisoned princes and corrects her father's identification of them.

### [Scene IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-ii-scene-iv)

The Gaoler's Daughter delivers a soliloquy expressing her love for Palamon and her plan to free him.

### [Scene VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-ii-scene-vi)

Expresses her love and desperation after freeing Palamon, planning to follow him.

### [Scene II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-iii-scene-ii)

Alone in the forest, she is frantic and despairing, fearing Palamon has been eaten by wolves and contemplating her own death.

### [Scene IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-iii-scene-iv)

The Gaoler's Daughter appears alone, lost in the forest, speaking in a feverish and disjointed manner.

### [Scene V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-iii-scene-v)

The Gaoler's Daughter, now mad, joins the Morris dance and sings a fragment of a song.

### [Scene I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-iv-scene-i)

The Gaoler's daughter, driven mad by love for Palamon and fear for her father; sings and raves incoherently.

### [Scene III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-iv-scene-iii)

Appears in a distracted state, raving about Palamon, Dido, and fantastical punishments in the afterlife.

### [Scene II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/chapters/act-v-scene-ii)

Mistakes the Wooer for Palamon, speaks of a fantastical horse, and plans a wedding at the world's end, showing her madness.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/characters/daughters
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_two_noble_kinsmen_se/characters