Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
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And yet are steep’d in favours; so am I,
That have this golden chance, and know not why.
What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one,
Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers. Let thy effects
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So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,
As good as promise.
[Reads.] When as a lion’s whelp shall, to himself
unknown, without seeking find, and be embrac’d by a
piece of tender air: and when from a stately cedar shall be
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lopp’d branches, which, being dead many years, shall
after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow,
then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be
fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty.
’Tis still a dream: or else such stuff as madmen
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Tongue, and brain not: either both, or nothing,
Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such
As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,
The action of my life is like it, which
I’ll keep, if but for sympathy.
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Re-enter Gaolers.
1 GAOLER Come, sir, are you ready for death?
POSTHUMUS Over-roasted rather: ready long ago.
1 GAOLER Hanging is the word, sir: if you be ready for
that, you are well cook’d.
POSTHUMUS So, if I prove a good repast to the
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spectators, the dish pays the shot.
1 GAOLER A heavy reckoning for you sir: but the
comfort is you shall be called to no more payments,
fear no more tavern-bills, which are often the sadness
of parting, as the procuring of mirth: you come in faint
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for want of meat, depart reeling with too much drink:
sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you
are paid too much: purse and brain, both empty: the
brain the heavier for being too light; the purse too
light, being drawn of heaviness. O, of this
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contradiction you shall now be quit. O, the charity of
a penny cord! it sums up thousands in a trice: you have
no true debitor and creditor but it: of what’s past, is,
and to come, the discharge: your neck, sir, is pen,
book, and counters; so the acquittance follows.
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POSTHUMUS I am merrier to die than thou art to live.
1 GAOLER Indeed sir, he that sleeps feels not the
toothache: but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and
a hangman to help him to bed, I think he would
change places with his officer: for, look you, sir, you
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know not which way you shall go.
POSTHUMUS Yes, indeed do I, fellow.
1 GAOLER Your death has eyes in’s head then: I have not
seen him so pictur’d: you must either be directed by
some that take upon them to know, or to take upon
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yourself that which I am sure you do not know, or
jump the after-inquiry on your own peril: and how
you shall speed in your journey’s end, I think you’ll
never return to tell on.
POSTHUMUS I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes
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to direct them the way I am going, but such as wink,
and will not use them.
1 GAOLER What an infinite mock is this, that a man
should have the best use of eyes to see the way of
blindness! I am sure hanging’s the way of winking.
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Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER Knock off his manacles, bring your
prisoner to the king.
POSTHUMUS Thou bring’st good news, I am call’d to be
made free.
1 GAOLER I’ll be hang’d then.
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POSTHUMUS Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no
bolts for the dead. Exeunt all but First Gaoler.
1 GAOLER Unless a man would marry a gallows, and
beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone: yet, on
my conscience, there are verier knaves desire to live,
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for all he be a Roman; and there be some of them too,
that die against their wills; so should I, if I were one. I
would we were all of one mind, and one mind good: O,
there were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak
against my present profit, but my wish hath a
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preferment in’t. Exit.
5.5 Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, lords, officers and attendants.
CYMBELINE
Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made
Preservers of my throne: woe is my heart,
That the poor soldier that so richly fought,
Whose rags sham’d gilded arms, whose naked breast
Stepp’d before targes of proof, cannot be found:
5
He shall be happy that can find him, if
Our grace can make him so.
BELARIUS I never saw
Such noble fury in so poor a thing;
Such precious deeds in one that promised nought
But beggary and poor looks.
CYMBELINE No tidings of him?
10
PISANIO
He hath been search’d among the dead and living;
But no trace of him.
CYMBELINE To my grief, I am
The heir of his reward,
[to Belarius, Guiderius and Arviragus]
which I will add
To you, the liver, heart, and brain of Britain,
By whom (I grant) she lives. ’Tis now the time
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To ask of whence you are. Report it.
BELARIUS Sir,
In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen:
Further to boast were neither true nor modest,
Unless I add we are honest.
CYMBELINE Bow your knees:
Arise my knights o’th’ battle, I create you
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Companions to our person, and will fit you
With dignities becoming your estates.
Enter CORNELIUS and Ladies.
There’s business in these faces; why so sadly
Greet you our victory? you look like Romans,
And not o’th’ court of Britain.
CORNELIUS Hail, great king!
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To sour your happiness, I must report
The queen is dead.
CYMBELINE Who worse than a physician
Would this report become? But I consider,
By med’cine life may be prolong’d, yet death
Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?
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CORNELIUS With horror, madly dying, like her life,
Which (being cruel to the world) concluded
Most cruel to herself. What she confess’d
I will report, so please you. These her women
Can trip me, if I err, who with wet cheeks
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Were present when she finish’d.
CYMBELINE Prithee say.
CORNELIUS
First, she confess’d she never lov’d you: only
Affected greatness got by you: not you:
Married your royalty, was wife to your place:
Abhorr’d your person.
CYMBELINE She alone knew this:
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And but she spoke it dying, I would not
Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.
&
nbsp; CORNELIUS
Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love
With such integrity, she did confess
Was as a scorpion to her sight, whose life
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(But that her flight prevented it) she had
Ta’en off by poison.
CYMBELINE O most delicate fiend!
Who is’t can read a woman? Is there more?
CORNELIUS
More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had
For you a mortal mineral, which, being took,
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Should by the minute feed on life and ling’ring
By inches waste you. In which time, she purpos’d
By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to
O’ercome you with her show; and in time
(When she had fitted you with her craft) to work
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Her son into th’adoption of the crown:
But, failing of her end by his strange absence,
Grew shameless-desperate, open’d (in despite
Of heaven and men) her purposes: repented
The evils she hatch’d were not effected: so
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Despairing died.
CYMBELINE Heard you all this, her women?
LADIES We did, so please your highness.
CYMBELINE Mine eyes
Were not in fault, for she was beautiful:
Mine ears that heard her flattery, nor my heart
That thought her like her seeming. It had been
vicious
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To have mistrusted her: yet, O my daughter,
That it was folly in me, thou mayst say,
And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all!
Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, the Soothsayer and other Roman prisoners, guarded; POSTHUMUS behind, and IMOGEN.
Thou com’st not, Caius, now for tribute; that
The Britons have raz’d out, though with the loss
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Of many a bold one: whose kinsmen have made suit
That their good souls may be appeas’d with slaughter
Of you their captives, which ourself have granted:
So think of your estate.
LUCIUS Consider, sir, the chance of war, the day
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Was yours by accident: had it gone with us,
We should not, when the blood was cool, have
threaten’d
Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods
Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives
May be call’d ransom, let it come: sufficeth
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A Roman with a Roman’s heart can suffer:
Augustus lives to think on’t: and so much
For my peculiar care. This one thing only
I will entreat, my boy (a Briton born)
Let him be ransom’d: never master had
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A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,
So tender over his occasions, true,
So feat, so nurse-like: let his virtue join
With my request, which I’ll make bold your highness
Cannot deny: he hath done no Briton harm,
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Though he have serv’d a Roman. Save him, sir,
And spare no blood beside.
CYMBELINE I have surely seen him:
His favour is familiar to me. Boy,
Thou hast look’d thyself into my grace,
And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore,
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To say, live boy: ne’er thank thy master, live;
And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt,
Fitting my bounty, and thy state, I’ll give it:
Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner,
The noblest ta’en.
IMOGEN I humbly thank your highness.
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LUCIUS I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad,
And yet I know thou wilt.
IMOGEN No, no alack,
There’s other work in hand: I see a thing
Bitter to me as death: your life, good master,
Must shuffle for itself.
LUCIUS The boy disdains me,
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He leaves me, scorns me: briefly die their joys
That place them on the truth of girls and boys.
Why stands he so perplex’d?
CYMBELINE What wouldst thou, boy?
I love thee more and more: think more and more
What’s best to ask. Know’st him thou look’st on?
speak,
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Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin? thy friend?
IMOGEN He is a Roman, no more kin to me
Than I to your highness, who being born your vassal,
Am something nearer.
CYMBELINE Wherefore ey’st him so?
IMOGEN I’ll tell you, sir, in private, if you please
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 118
