The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Be given to your remembrance—the description

  Of what is in her chamber nothing saves

  The wager you have laid.

  GIACOMO

  Then, if you can

  Be pale, I beg but leave to air this jewel. See!

  He shows the bracelet

  And now ’tis up again; it must be married

  To that your diamond. I’ll keep them.

  POSTHUMUS

  Jove!

  Once more let me behold it. Is it that

  Which I left with her?

  GIACOMO

  Sir, I thank her, that.

  She stripped it from her arm. I see her yet.

  Her pretty action did outsell her gift,

  And yet enriched it too. She gave it me,

  And said she prized it once.

  POSTHUMUS

  Maybe she plucked it off

  To send it me.

  GIACOMO

  She writes so to you, doth she?

  POSTHUMUS

  O, no, no, no—’tis true! Here, take this too.

  He gives Giacomo his ring

  It is a basilisk unto mine eye,

  Kills me to look on’t. Let there be no honour

  Where there is beauty, truth where semblance, love

  Where there’s another man. The vows of women

  Of no more bondage be to where they are made

  Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing!

  O, above measure false!

  PILASIO

  Have patience, sir,

  And take your ring again; ’tis not yet won.

  It may be probable she lost it, or

  Who knows if one her woman, being corrupted,

  Hath stol’n it from her?

  POSTHUMUS

  Very true,

  And so I hope he came by’t. Back my ring.

  He takes his ring again

  Render to me some corporal sign about her

  More evident than this; for this was stol’n.

  GIACOMO

  By Jupiter, I had it from her arm.

  POSTHUMUS

  Hark you, he swears, by Jupiter he swears.

  ‘Tis true, nay, keep the ring, ’tis true. I am sure

  She would not lose it. Her attendants are

  All sworn and honourable. They induced to steal it?

  And by a stranger? No, he hath enjoyed her.

  The cognizance of her incontinency

  Is this. She hath bought the name of whore thus

  dearly.

  He gives Giacomo his ring

  There, take thy hire, and all the fiends of hell

  Divide themselves between you!

  FILARIO

  Sir, be patient.

  This is not strong enough to be believed

  Of one persuaded well of.

  POSTHUMUS

  Never talk on’t.

  She hath been colted by him.

  GIACOMO

  If you seek

  For further satisfying, under her breast—

  Worthy the pressing—lies a mole, right proud

  Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,

  I kissed it, and it gave me present hunger

  To feed again, though full. You do remember

  This stain upon her?

  POSTHUMUS

  Ay, and it doth confirm

  Another stain as big as hell can hold,

  Were there no more but it.

  GIACOMO

  Will you hear more?

  POSTHUMUS

  Spare your arithmetic, never count the turns.

  Once, and a million!

  GIACOMO

  I’ll be sworn.

  POSTHUMUS

  No swearing.

  If you will swear you have not done‘t, you lie,

  And I will kill thee if thou dost deny

  Thou’st made me cuckold.

  GlACOMO

  I’ll deny nothing.

  POSTHUMUS

  O that I had her here to tear her limb-meal!

  I will go there and do’t i’th’ court, before

  Her father. I’ll do something.

  Exit

  FILARIO

  Quite besides

  The government of patience! You have won.

  Let’s follow and pervert the present wrath

  He hath against himself.

  GIACOMO

  With all my heart.

  Exeunt

  2.5 Enter Posthumus

  POSTHUMUS

  Is there no way for men to be, but women

  Must be half-workers? We are bastards all,

  And that most venerable man which I

  Did call my father was I know not where

  When I was stamped. Some coiner with his tools

  Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seemed

  The Dian of that time: so doth my wife

  The nonpareil of this. O vengeance, vengeance!

  Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained,

  And prayed me oft forbearance; did it with

  A pudency so rosy the sweet view on’t

  Might well have warmed old Saturn; that I thought

  her

  As chaste as unsunned snow. O all the devils!

  This yellow Giacomo in an hour—was’t not?—

  Or less—at first? Perchance he spoke not, but

  Like a full-acorned boar, a German one,

  Cried ‘O!’ and mounted; found no opposition

  But what he looked for should oppose and she

  Should from encounter guard. Could I find out

  The woman’s part in me—for there’s no motion

  That tends to vice in man but I affirm

  It is the woman’s part; be it lying, note it,

  The woman’s; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;

  Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;

  Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,

  Nice longing, slanders, mutability,

  All faults that man can name, nay, that hell knows,

  Why, hers in part or all, but rather all—

  For even to vice

  They are not constant, but are changing still

  One vice but of a minute old for one

  Not half so old as that. I’ll write against them,

  Detest them, curse them, yet ’tis greater skill

  In a true hate to pray they have their will.

  The very devils cannot plague them better.

  Exit

  3.1 ⌈Flourish.⌉ Enter in state Cymbeline, the Queen, Cloten, and lords at one door, and at another, Caius Lucius and attendants

  CYMBELINE

  Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?

  LUCIUS

  When Julius Caesar—whose remembrance yet

  Lives in men’s eyes, and will to ears and tongues

  Be theme and hearing ever—was in this Britain

  And conquered it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,

  Famous in Caesar’s praises no whit less

  Than in his feats deserving it, for him

  And his succession granted Rome a tribute,

  Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately

  Is left untendered.

  QUEEN

  And, to kill the marvel,

  Shall be so ever.

  CLOTEN

  There will be many Caesars

  Ere such another Julius. Britain’s a world

  By itself, and we will nothing pay

  For wearing our own noses.

  QUEEN

  That opportunity

  Which then they had to take from ‘s, to resume

  We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,

  The kings your ancestors, together with

  The natural bravery of your isle, which stands

  As Neptune’s park, ribbed and paled in

  With banks unscalable and roaring waters,

  With sands that will not bear your enemies’
boats,

  But suck them up to th’ topmast. A kind of conquest

  Caesar made here, but made not here his brag

  Of ‘came and saw and overcame’. With shame—

  The first that ever touched him—he was carried

  From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping,

  Poor ignorant baubles, on our terrible seas

  Like eggshells moved upon their surges, cracked

  As easily ’gainst our rocks; for joy whereof

  The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point—

  O giglot fortune!—to master Caesar’s sword,

  Made Lud’s town with rejoicing fires bright,

  And Britons strut with courage.

  CLOTEN Come, there’s no more tribute to be paid. Our kingdom is stronger than it was at that time, and, as I said, there is no more such Caesars. Other of them may have crooked noses, but to owe such straight arms, none.

  CYMBELINE Son, let your mother end.

  CLOTEN We have yet many among us can grip as hard as Cassibelan. I do not say I am one, but I have a hand. Why tribute? Why should we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light; else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.

  CYMBELINE (to Lucius) You must know,

  Till the injurious Romans did extort

  This tribute from us we were free. Caesar’s ambition,

  Which swelled so much that it did almost stretch

  The sides o‘th’ world, against all colour here

  Did put the yoke upon ’s, which to shake off

  Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon

  Ourselves to be. We do say then to Caesar,

  Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which

  Ordained our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar

  Hath too much mangled, whose repair and franchise

  Shall by the power we hold be our good deed,

  Though Rome be therefore angry. Mulmutius made

  our laws,

  Who was the first of Britain which did put

  His brows within a golden crown and called

  Himself a king.

  LUCIUS

  I am sorry, Cymbeline,

  That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar—

  Caesar, that hath more kings his servants than

  Thyself domestic officers—thine enemy.

  Receive it from me, then: war and confusion

  In Caesar’s name pronounce I ’gainst thee. Look

  For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,

  I thank thee for myself.

  CYMBELINE

  Thou art welcome, Caius.

  Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent

  Much under him; of him I gathered honour,

  Which he to seek of me again perforce

  Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect

  That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for

  Their liberties are now in arms, a precedent

  Which not to read would show the Britons cold;

  So Caesar shall not find them.

  LUCIUS

  Let proof speak.

  CLOTEN His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two or longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there’s an end.

  LUCIUS So, sir.

  CYMBELINE

  I know your master’s pleasure, and he mine.

  All the remain is ‘Welcome’.

  ⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt

  3.2 Enter Pisanio, reading of a letter

  PISANIO

  How? Of adultery? Wherefore write you not

  What monster’s her accuser? Leonatus,

  O master, what a strange infection

  Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian,

  As poisonous tongued as handed, hath prevailed

  On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.

  She’s punished for her truth, and undergoes,

  More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults

  As would take in some virtue. O my master,

  Thy mind to hers is now as low as were

  Thy fortunes. How? That I should murder her,

  Upon the love and truth and vows which I

  Have made to thy command? I her? Her blood?

  If it be so to do good service, never

  Let me be counted serviceable. How look I,

  That I should seem to lack humanity

  So much as this fact comes to? (Reads) ‘Do’t. The letter

  That I have sent her, by her own command

  Shall give thee opportunity.’ O damned paper,

  Black as the ink that’s on thee! Senseless bauble,

  Art thou a fedary for this act, and look’st

  So virgin-like without?

  Enter Innogen

  Lo, here she comes.

  I am ignorant in what I am commanded.

  INNOGEN How now, Pisanio?

  PISANIO

  Madam, here is a letter from my lord.

  INNOGEN

  Who, thy lord that is my lord, Leonatus?

  O learned indeed were that astronomer

  That knew the stars as I his characters—

  He’d lay the future open. You good gods,

  Let what is here contained relish of love,

  Of my lord’s health, of his content—yet not

  That we two are asunder; let that grieve him.

  Some griefs are med’cinable; that is one of them,

  For it doth physic love—of his content

  All but in that. Good wax, thy leave. Blest be

  You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers

  And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;

  Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet

  You clasp young Cupid’s tables. Good news, gods!

  She opens and reads the letter

  ’Justice and your father’s wrath, should he take me in

  his dominion, could not be so cruel to me as you, O

  the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with

  your eyes. Take notice that I am in Cambria, at Milford

  Haven. What your own love will out of this advise you,

  follow. So he wishes you all happiness, that remains

  loyal to his vow, and your increasing in love,

  Leonatus Posthumus.’

  O for a horse with wings! Hear‘st thou, Pisanio?

  He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me

  How far ’tis thither. If one of mean affairs

  May plod it in a week, why may not I

  Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,

  Who long‘st like me to see thy lord, who long’st—

  O let me bate—but not like me—yet long‘st

  But in a fainter kind—O, not like me,

  For mine’s beyond beyond; say, and speak thick—

  Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,

  To th’ smothering of the sense—how far it is

  To this same blessèd Milford. And by th’ way

  Tell me how Wales was made so happy as

  T’inherit such a haven. But first of all,

  How we may steal from hence; and for the gap

  That we shall make in time from our hence-going

  Till our return, to excuse; but first, how get hence.

  Why should excuse be born or ere begot?

  We’ll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,

  How many score of miles may we well ride

  ’Twixt hour and hour?

  PISANIO

  One score ’twixt sun and sun,

  Madam, ’s enough for you, and too much too.

  INNOGEN

  Why, one that rode to ’s execution, man,

  Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers

  Where
horses have been nimbler than the sands

  That run i‘th’ clock’s behalf. But this is fool’ry.

  Go bid my woman feign a sickness, say

  She’ll home to her father; and provide me presently

  A riding-suit no costlier than would fit

  A franklin’s housewife.

  PISANIO

  Madam, you’re best consider.

  INNOGEN

  I see before me, man. Nor here, nor here,

  Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them

  That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee,

  Do as I bid thee. There’s no more to say:

  Accessible is none but Milford way.

  Exeunt

  3.3 Enter Belarius, followed by Guiderius and Arviragus, ⌈from a cave in the woods⌉

  BELARIUS

  A goodly day not to keep house with such

  Whose roof’s as low as ours. Stoop, boys; this gate

  Instructs you how t‘adore the heavens, and bows you

  To a morning’s holy office. The gates of monarchs

  Are arched so high that giants may jet through

  And keep their impious turbans on without

  Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!

  We house i’th’ rock, yet use thee not so hardly

  As prouder livers do.

  GUIDERIUS

  Hail, heaven!

  ARVIRAGUS

  Hail, heaven!

  BELARIUS

  Now for our mountain sport. Up to yon hill,

  Your legs are young; I’ll tread these flats. Consider,

  When you above perceive me like a crow,

  That it is place which lessens and sets off,

  And you may then revolve what tales I have told you

  Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war;

  That service is not service, so being done,

  But being so allowed. To apprehend thus

  Draws us a profit from all things we see,

  And often to our comfort shall we find

  The sharded beetle in a safer hold

  Than is the full-winged eagle. O, this life

  Is nobler than attending for a check,

  Richer than doing nothing for a bauble,

  Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk;

  Such gain the cap of him that makes ’em fine,

  Yet keeps his book uncrossed. No life to ours.

  GUIDERIUS

  Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledged,

  Have never winged from view o’th’ nest, nor know

  not

  What air’s from home. Haply this life is best,

  If quiet life be best; sweeter to you