POSTHUMUS Thou shalt be then freer than a jailer; no bolts for the dead.
JAILER (aside) 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, 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 jailers and gallowses! I speak against my present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in’t. Exeunt
5.6 ⌈Flourish. ⌉ Enter Cymbeline, Belarius, Guiderius, Arviragus, Pisanio, and lords
CYMBELINE (to Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus)
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 shamed gilded arms, whose naked breast
Stepped before targs of proof, cannot be found.
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 naught
But beggary and poor looks.
CYMBELINE
No tidings of him?
PISANIO
He hath been searched among the dead and living,
But no trace of him.
CYMBELINE
To my grief I am
The heir of his reward, which I will add
(To Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus)
To you, the liver, heart, and brain of Britain,
By whom I grant she lives. ’Tis now the time
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.
They kneel. He knights them
Arise, my knights o’th’ battle. I create you
Companions to our person, and will fit you
With dignities becoming your estates.
Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus rise.
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!
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 medicine life may be prolonged, yet death
Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?
CORNELIUS
With horror, madly dying, like her life,
Which being cruel to the world, concluded
Most cruel to herself. What she confessed
I will report, so please you. These her women
Can trip me if I err, who with wet cheeks
Were present when she finished.
CYMBELINE Prithee, say.
CORNELIUS
First, she confessed she never loved you, only
Affected greatness got by you, not you;
Married your royalty, was wife to your place,
Abhorred your person.
CYMBELINE
She alone knew this,
And but she spoke it dying, I would not
Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.
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,
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,
Should by the minute feed on life, and, ling‘ring,
By inches waste you. In which time she purposed
By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to
O’ercome you with her show; and in fine,
When she had fit you with her craft, to work
Her son into th’adoption of the crown;
But failing of her end by his strange absence,
Grew shameless-desperate, opened in despite
Of heaven and men her purposes, repented
The evils she hatched were not effected; so
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
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, Giacomo, Soothsayer, and other Roman prisoners, Posthumus behind, and Innogen dressed as a man, all guarded by Briton soldiers
Thou com’st not, Caius, now for tribute. That
The Britons have razed out, though with the loss
Of many a bold one; whose kinsmen have made suit
That their good souls may be appeased with slaughter
Of you, their captives, which ourself have granted.
So think of your estate.
LUCIUS
Consider, sir, the chance of war. The day
Was yours by accident. Had it gone with us,
We should not, when the blood was cool, have
threatened
Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods
Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives
May be called ransom, let it come. Sufficeth
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:He presents Innogen to Cymbeline my boy, a Briton born,
Let him be ransomed. Never master had
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,
Though he have served 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 looked thyself into my grace,
And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore,
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.
INNOGEN
I humbly thank your highness.
LUCIUS
I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad,
And yet I know thou wilt.
INNOGEN
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.
He leaves me, scorns me. Briefly die their joys
That place them on the truth of girls and boys.
Why stands he so perplexed?
CYMBELINE (to I
nnogen) 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, no
Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin, thy friend?
INNOGEN
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?
INNOGEN
I’ll tell you, sir, in private, if you please
To give me hearing.
CYMBELINE
Ay, with all my heart,
And lend my best attention. What’s thy name?
INNOGEN
Fidele, sir.
CYMBELINE Thou’rt my good youth, my page.
I’ll be thy master. Walk with me, speak freely.
Cymbeline and Innogen speak apart
BELARIUS (aside to Guiderius and Arviragus)
Is not this boy revived from death?
ARVIRAGUS
One sand another
Not more resembles that sweet rosy lad
Who died, and was Fidele. What think you?
GUIDERIUS The same dead thing alive.
BELARIUS
Peace, peace, see further. He eyes us not. Forbear.
Creatures may be alike. Were’t he, I am sure
He would have spoke to us.
GUIDERIUS
But we see him dead.
BELARIUS
Be silent; let’s see further.
PISANIO (aside)
It is my mistress.
Since she is living, let the time run on
To good or bad.
CYMBELINE (to Innogen) Come, stand thou by our side,
Make thy demand aloud. (To Giacomo) Sir, step you
forth.
Give answer to this boy, and do it freely,
Or, by our greatness and the grace of it,
Which is our honour, bitter torture shall
Winnow the truth from falsehood.
(To Innogen)
On, speak to him.
INNOGEN
My boon is that this gentleman may render
Of whom he had this ring.
POSTHUMUS (aside) What’s that to him?
CYMBELINE (to Giacomo)
That diamond upon your finger, say,
How came it yours?
GIACOMO
Thou’lt torture me to leave unspoken that
Which to be spoke would torture thee.
CYMBELINE
How, me?
GIACOMO
I am glad to be constrained to utter that
Torments me to conceal. By villainy
I got this ring; ‘twas Leonatus’ jewel,
Whom thou didst banish; and, which more may
grieve thee,
As it doth me, a nobler sir ne’er lived
’Twixt sky and ground. Wilt thou hear more, my lord?
CYMBELINE
All that belongs to this.
GIACOMO That paragon thy daughter,
For whom my heart drops blood, and my false spirits
Quail to remember-give me leave, I faint.
CYMBELINE
My daughter? What of her? Renew thy strength.
I had rather thou shouldst live while nature will
Than die ere I hear more. Strive, man, and speak.
GIACOMO
Upon a time-unhappy was the clock
That struck the hour-it was in Rome-accursed
The mansion where-‘twas at a feast-O, would
Our viands had been poisoned, or at least
Those which I heaved to head!—the good Posthumus—
What should I say?—he was too good to be
Where ill men were, and was the best of all
Amongst the rar’st of good ones-sitting sadly,
Hearing us praise our loves of Italy
For beauty that made barren the swelled boast
Of him that best could speak; for feature laming
The shrine of Venus or straight-pitched Minerva,
Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,
A shop of all the qualities that man
Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,
Fairness which strikes the eye—
CYMBELINE
I stand on fire.
Come to the matter.
GIACOMO
All too soon I shall,
Unless thou wouldst grieve quickly. This Posthumus,
Most like a noble lord in love and one
That had a royal lover, took his hint,
And not dispraising whom we praised—therein
He was as calm as virtue-he began
His mistress’ picture, which by his tongue being made,
And then a mind put in’t, either our brags
Were cracked of kitchen-trulls, or his description
Proved us unspeaking sots.
CYMBELINE
Nay, nay, to th’ purpose.
GIACOMO
Your daughter’s chastity-there it begins.
He spake of her as Dian had hot dreams
And she alone were cold, whereat I, wretch,
Made scruple of his praise, and wagered with him
Pieces of gold ‘gainst this which then he wore
Upon his honoured finger, to attain
In suit the place of ’s bed and win this ring
By hers and mine adultery. He, true knight,
No lesser of her honour confident
Than I did truly find her, stakes this ring—
And would so had it been a carbuncle
Of Phoebus’ wheel, and might so safely had it
Been all the worth of ’s car. Away to Britain
Post I in this design. Well may you, sir,
Remember me at court, where I was taught
Of your chaste daughter the wide difference
’Twixt amorous and villainous. Being thus quenched
Of hope, not longing, mine Italian brain
Gan in your duller Britain operate
Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent.
And, to be brief, my practice so prevailed
That I returned with simular proof enough
To make the noble Leonatus mad
By wounding his belief in her renown
With tokens thus and thus; averring notes
Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet—
O cunning, how I got it!—nay, some marks
Of secret on her person, that he could not
But think her bond of chastity quite cracked,
I having ta’en the forfeit. Whereupon—
Methinks I see him now—
POSTHUMUS (coming forward) Ay, so thou dost,
Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool,
Egregious murderer, thief, anything
That’s due to all the villains past, in being,
To come! O, give me cord, or knife, or poison,
Some upright justicer! Thou, King, send out
For torturers ingenious. It is I
That all th‘abhorrèd things o’th’ earth amend
By being worse than they. I am Posthumus,
That killed thy daughter—villain-like, I lie:
That caused a lesser villain than myself,
A sacrilegious thief, to do’t. The temple
Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself.
Spit and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set
The dogs o‘th’ street to bay me. Every villain
Be called Posthumus Leonatus, and
Be ‘villain’ less than ’twas! O Innogen!
My queen, my life, my wife, O Innogen,
Innogen, Innogen!
INNOGEN (approaching him) Peace, my lord. Hear, hear.
POSTHUMUS
Shall ’s have a play of this? Thou scornful page,
There lie thy pa
rt.
He strikes her down
PISANIO (coming forward) O gentlemen, help!
Mine and your mistress! O my lord Posthumus,
You ne’er killed Innogen till now. Help, help!
(To Innogen) Mine honoured lady.
CYMBELINE
Does the world go round?
POSTHUMUS
How comes these staggers on me?
PISANIO (to Innogen)
Wake, my mistress.
CYMBELINE
If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me
To death with mortal joy.
PISANIO (to Innogen) How fares my mistress?
INNOGEN O, get thee from my sight!
Thou gav’st me poison. Dangerous fellow, hence.
Breathe not where princes are.
CYMBELINE
The tune of Innogen.
PISANIO
Lady, the gods throw stones of sulphur on me if
That box I gave you was not thought by me
A precious thing. I had it from the Queen.
CYMBELINE
New matter still.
INNOGEN
It poisoned me.
CORNELIUS
O gods!
I left out one thing which the Queen confessed
(To Pisanio) Which must approve thee honest. ’If Pisanio
Have‘, said she, ‘given his mistress that confection
Which I gave him for cordial, she is served
As I would serve a rat.’
CYMBELINE What’s this, Cornelius?
CORNELIUS
The Queen, sir, very oft importuned me
To temper poisons for her, still pretending
The satisfaction of her knowledge only
In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs
Of no esteem. I, dreading that her purpose
Was of more danger, did compound for her
A certain stuff which, being ta‘en, would cease
The present power of life, but in short time
All offices of nature should again
Do their due functions. (To Innogen) Have you ta’en
of it?
INNOGEN
Most like I did, for I was dead.
BELARIUS (aside to Guiderius and Arviragus) My boys,
There was our error.
GUIDERIUS
This is sure Fidele.
INNOGEN (to Posthumus)
Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a lock, and now
Throw me again.
She throws her arms about his neck
POSTHUMUS
Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.
CYMBELINE (to Innogen) How now, my flesh, my child?
What, mak’st thou me a dullard in this act?
Wilt thou not speak to me?
INNOGEN (kneeling)
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 391
