That a king’s children should be so convey’d,
So slackly guarded, and the search so slow,
That could not trace them!
First Gentleman
Howsoe’er ’tis strange,
Or that the negligence may well be laugh’d at,
Yet is it true, sir.
Second Gentleman
I do well believe you.
First Gentleman
We must forbear: here comes the gentleman,
The queen, and princess.
Exeunt
Enter the Queen, Posthumus Leonatus, and Imogen
Queen
No, be assured you shall not find me, daughter,
After the slander of most stepmothers,
Evil-eyed unto you: you’re my prisoner, but
Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys
That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,
So soon as I can win the offended king,
I will be known your advocate: marry, yet
The fire of rage is in him, and ’twere good
You lean’d unto his sentence with what patience
Your wisdom may inform you.
Posthumus Leonatus
Please your highness,
I will from hence to-day.
Queen
You know the peril.
I’ll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying
The pangs of barr’d affections, though the king
Hath charged you should not speak together.
Exit
Imogen
O
Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant
Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,
I something fear my father’s wrath; but nothing —
Always reserved my holy duty — what
His rage can do on me: you must be gone;
And I shall here abide the hourly shot
Of angry eyes, not comforted to live,
But that there is this jewel in the world
That I may see again.
Posthumus Leonatus
My queen! my mistress!
O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause
To be suspected of more tenderness
Than doth become a man. I will remain
The loyal’st husband that did e’er plight troth:
My residence in Rome at one Philario’s,
Who to my father was a friend, to me
Known but by letter: thither write, my queen,
And with mine eyes I’ll drink the words you send,
Though ink be made of gall.
Re-enter Queen
Queen
Be brief, I pray you:
If the king come, I shall incur I know not
How much of his displeasure.
Aside
Yet I’ll move him
To walk this way: I never do him wrong,
But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;
Pays dear for my offences.
Exit
Posthumus Leonatus
Should we be taking leave
As long a term as yet we have to live,
The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu!
Imogen
Nay, stay a little:
Were you but riding forth to air yourself,
Such parting were too petty. Look here, love;
This diamond was my mother’s: take it, heart;
But keep it till you woo another wife,
When Imogen is dead.
Posthumus Leonatus
How, how! another?
You gentle gods, give me but this I have,
And sear up my embracements from a next
With bonds of death!
Putting on the ring
Remain, remain thou here
While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest,
As I my poor self did exchange for you,
To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles
I still win of you: for my sake wear this;
It is a manacle of love; I’ll place it
Upon this fairest prisoner.
Putting a bracelet upon her arm
Imogen
O the gods!
When shall we see again?
Enter Cymbeline and Lords
Posthumus Leonatus
Alack, the king!
Cymbeline
Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight!
If after this command thou fraught the court
With thy unworthiness, thou diest: away!
Thou’rt poison to my blood.
Posthumus Leonatus
The gods protect you!
And bless the good remainders of the court! I am gone.
Exit
Imogen
There cannot be a pinch in death
More sharp than this is.
Cymbeline
O disloyal thing,
That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap’st
A year’s age on me.
Imogen
I beseech you, sir,
Harm not yourself with your vexation
I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare
Subdues all pangs, all fears.
Cymbeline
Past grace? obedience?
Imogen
Past hope, and in despair; that way, past grace.
Cymbeline
That mightst have had the sole son of my queen!
Imogen
O blest, that I might not! I chose an eagle,
And did avoid a puttock.
Cymbeline
Thou took’st a beggar; wouldst have made my throne
A seat for baseness.
Imogen
No; I rather added
A lustre to it.
Cymbeline
O thou vile one!
Imogen
Sir,
It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus:
You bred him as my playfellow, and he is
A man worth any woman, overbuys me
Almost the sum he pays.
Cymbeline
What, art thou mad?
Imogen
Almost, sir: heaven restore me! Would I were
A neat-herd’s daughter, and my Leonatus
Our neighbour shepherd’s son!
Cymbeline
Thou foolish thing!
Re-enter Queen
They were again together: you have done
Not after our command. Away with her,
And pen her up.
Queen
Beseech your patience. Peace,
Dear lady daughter, peace! Sweet sovereign,
Leave us to ourselves; and make yourself some comfort
Out of your best advice.
Cymbeline
Nay, let her languish
A drop of blood a day; and, being aged,
Die of this folly!
Exeunt Cymbeline and Lords
Queen
Fie! you must give way.
Enter Pisanio
Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news?
Pisanio
My lord your son drew on my master.
Queen
Ha!
No harm, I trust, is done?
Pisanio
There might have been,
But that my master rather play’d than fought
And had no help of anger: they were parted
By gentlemen at hand.
Queen
I am very glad on’t.
Imogen
Your son’s my father’s friend; he takes his part.
To draw upon an exile! O brave sir!
I would they were in Afric both together;
Myself by with a needle, that I might prick
The goer-back. Why came you from your master?
Pisanio
On his command: he would not suffer me
To bring him to the haven; left these notes
<
br /> Of what commands I should be subject to,
When ’t pleased you to employ me.
Queen
This hath been
Your faithful servant: I dare lay mine honour
He will remain so.
Pisanio
I humbly thank your highness.
Queen
Pray, walk awhile.
Imogen
About some half-hour hence,
I pray you, speak with me: you shall at least
Go see my lord aboard: for this time leave me.
Exeunt
SCENE II. THE SAME. A PUBLIC PLACE.
Enter Cloten and two Lords
First Lord
Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice: where air comes out, air comes in: there’s none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.
Cloten
If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him?
Second Lord
[Aside] No, ’faith; not so much as his patience.
First Lord
Hurt him! his body’s a passable carcass, if he be not hurt: it is a thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt.
Second Lord
[Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o’ the backside the town.
Cloten
The villain would not stand me.
Second Lord
[Aside] No; but he fled forward still, toward your face.
First Lord
Stand you! You have land enough of your own: but he added to your having; gave you some ground.
Second Lord
[Aside] As many inches as you have oceans. Puppies!
Cloten
I would they had not come between us.
Second Lord
[Aside] So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground.
Cloten
And that she should love this fellow and refuse me!
Second Lord
[Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned.
First Lord
Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together: she’s a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit.
Second Lord
[Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her.
Cloten
Come, I’ll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt done!
Second Lord
[Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt.
Cloten
You’ll go with us?
First Lord
I’ll attend your lordship.
Cloten
Nay, come, let’s go together.
Second Lord
Well, my lord.
Exeunt
SCENE III. A ROOM IN CYMBELINE’S PALACE.
Enter Imogen and Pisanio
Imogen
I would thou grew’st unto the shores o’ the haven,
And question’dst every sail: if he should write
And not have it, ’twere a paper lost,
As offer’d mercy is. What was the last
That he spake to thee?
Pisanio
It was his queen, his queen!
Imogen
Then waved his handkerchief?
Pisanio
And kiss’d it, madam.
Imogen
Senseless Linen! happier therein than I!
And that was all?
Pisanio
No, madam; for so long
As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of ’s mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail’d on,
How swift his ship.
Imogen
Thou shouldst have made him
As little as a crow, or less, ere left
To after-eye him.
Pisanio
Madam, so I did.
Imogen
I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack’d them, but
To look upon him, till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle,
Nay, follow’d him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
Have turn’d mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,
When shall we hear from him?
Pisanio
Be assured, madam,
With his next vantage.
Imogen
I did not take my leave of him, but had
Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him
How I would think on him at certain hours
Such thoughts and such, or I could make him swear
The shes of Italy should not betray
Mine interest and his honour, or have charged him,
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
To encounter me with orisons, for then
I am in heaven for him; or ere I could
Give him that parting kiss which I had set
Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father
And like the tyrannous breathing of the north
Shakes all our buds from growing.
Enter a Lady
Lady
The queen, madam,
Desires your highness’ company.
Imogen
Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch’d.
I will attend the queen.
Pisanio
Madam, I shall.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. ROME. PHILARIO’S HOUSE.
Enter Philario, Iachimo, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard
Iachimo
Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain: he was then of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy as since he hath been allowed the name of; but I could then have looked on him without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side and I to peruse him by items.
Philario
You speak of him when he was less furnished than now he is with that which makes him both without and within.
Frenchman
I have seen him in France: we had very many there could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.
Iachimo
This matter of marrying his king’s daughter, wherein he must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I doubt not, a great deal from the matter.
Frenchman
And then his banishment.
Iachimo
Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar without less quality. But how comes it he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance?
Philario
His father and I were soldiers together; to whom I have been often bound for no less than my life. Here comes the Briton: let him be so entertained amongst you as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of his quality.
Enter Posthumus Leonatus
I beseech you all, be better known to this gentleman; whom I commend to you as a noble friend of mine: how worthy he is I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.
Frenchman
Sir, we have known together in Orleans.
Posthumus Leonatus
Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still.
Frenchman
Sir, you o’er-rate my poor kindness: I was glad I did atone my countryman and you; it had been pity you should have been put together with so mortal a purpose as then each bore, upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature.
Posthumus Leonatus
By your pardon, sir, I was then a young tr
aveller; rather shunned to go even with what I heard than in my every action to be guided by others’ experiences: but upon my mended judgment — if I offend not to say it is mended — my quarrel was not altogether slight.
Frenchman
’Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords, and by such two that would by all likelihood have confounded one the other, or have fallen both.
Iachimo
Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference?
Frenchman
Safely, I think: ’twas a contention in public, which may, without contradiction, suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last night, where each of us fell in praise of our country mistresses; this gentleman at that time vouching — and upon warrant of bloody affirmation — his to be more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant-qualified and less attemptable than any the rarest of our ladies in France.
Iachimo
That lady is not now living, or this gentleman’s opinion by this worn out.
Posthumus Leonatus
She holds her virtue still and I my mind.
Iachimo
You must not so far prefer her ’fore ours of Italy.
Posthumus Leonatus
Being so far provoked as I was in France, I would abate her nothing, though I profess myself her adorer, not her friend.
Iachimo
As fair and as good — a kind of hand-in-hand comparison — had been something too fair and too good for any lady in Britain. If she went before others I have seen, as that diamond of yours outlustres many I have beheld. I could not but believe she excelled many: but I have not seen the most precious diamond that is, nor you the lady.
Posthumus Leonatus
I praised her as I rated her: so do I my stone.
Iachimo
What do you esteem it at?
Posthumus Leonatus
More than the world enjoys.
Iachimo
Either your unparagoned mistress is dead, or she’s outprized by a trifle.
Posthumus Leonatus
You are mistaken: the one may be sold, or given, if there were wealth enough for the purchase, or merit for the gift: the other is not a thing for sale, and only the gift of the gods.
Iachimo
Which the gods have given you?
Posthumus Leonatus
Which, by their graces, I will keep.
Iachimo
You may wear her in title yours: but, you know, strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may be stolen too: so your brace of unprizable estimations; the one is but frail and the other casual; a cunning thief, or a that way accomplished courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last.
Posthumus Leonatus
Your Italy contains none so accomplished a courtier to convince the honour of my mistress, if, in the holding or loss of that, you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have store of thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring.
Philario
Let us leave here, gentlemen.
Posthumus Leonatus
Complete Plays, The Page 355
