chunk: John Gower introduces each act with a prologue. The play opens in the court of Antiochus, king of Antioch, who has offered the hand of his beautiful daughter to any man who answers his riddle; but those who fail shall die.
  I am no viper, yet I feed
  
  On mother's flesh which did me breed.
  
  I sought a husband, in which labour
  
  I found that kindness in a father:
  
  He's father, son, and husband mild;
  
  I mother, wife, and yet his child.
  
  How they may be, and yet in two,