Before the cave of Belarius.
[Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS,
GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN]
BELARIUS [To IMOGEN] You are not well:
remain here in the cave;
We’ll come to you after hunting.
ARVIRAGUS [To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here
Are we not brothers?
IMOGEN So man and man should be;
But clay and clay differs in dignity,
Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.
GUIDERIUS Go you to hunting; I’ll abide with him.
IMOGEN So sick I am not, yet I am not well;
But not so citizen a wanton as
To seem to die ere sick: so please you, leave me;
Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom
Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me
Cannot amend me; society is no comfort
To one not sociable: I am not very sick,
Since I can reason of it. Pray you, trust me here:
I’ll rob none but myself; and let me die,
Stealing so poorly.
ARVIRAGUS Brother, farewell.
IMOGEN I wish ye sport.
ARVIRAGUS You health. So please you, sir.
IMOGEN [Aside] These are kind creatures.
Gods, what lies I have heard!
Our courtiers say all’s savage but at court:
Experience, O, thou disprovest report!
The imperious seas breed monsters, for the dish
Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,
I’ll now taste of thy drug.
[Swallows some]
[Enter CLOTEN]
CLOTEN I cannot find those runagates; that villain
Hath mock’d me. I am faint.
[Exeunt BELARIUS
and ARVIRAGUS]
What slave art thou? Thou art a robber,
A law-breaker, a villain: yield thee, thief.
GUIDERIUS To who? to thee? What art thou?
Have not I
An arm as big as thine? a heart as big?
Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not
My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art,
Why I should yield to thee?
CLOTEN Thou villain base,
Know’st me not by my clothes?
GUIDERIUS Thou art some fool;
I am loath to beat thee.
CLOTEN Thou injurious thief,
Hear but my name, and tremble.
GUIDERIUS What’s thy name?
CLOTEN Cloten, thou villain.
GUIDERIUS Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,
I cannot tremble at it: were it Toad, or Adder, Spider,
‘Twould move me sooner.
CLOTEN To thy further fear,
Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
I am son to the queen.
GUIDERIUS I am sorry for ‘t; not seeming
So worthy as thy birth.
CLOTEN Art not afeard?
GUIDERIUS Those that I reverence those I fear, the wise:
At fools I laugh, not fear them.
CLOTEN Die the death:
[Exeunt, fighting]
Yield, rustic mountaineer.
[Re-enter BELARIUS
and ARVIRAGUS]
BELARIUS What hast thou done?
GUIDERIUS I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten’s head,
Son to the queen, after his own report;
Who call’d me traitor, mountaineer, and swore
With his own single hand he’ld take us in
Displace our heads where–thank the gods!–they grow,
And set them on Lud’s-town.
BELARIUS We are all undone.
GUIDERIUS Why, worthy father, what have we to lose,
But that he swore to take, our lives? The law
Protects not us: then why should we be tender
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,
Play judge and executioner all himself,
For we do fear the law? What company
Discover you abroad?
BELARIUS No single soul
Can we set eye on; but in all safe reason
He must have some attendants.
So on good ground we fear,
If we do fear this body hath a tail
More perilous than the head.
ARVIRAGUS Let ordinance
Come as the gods foresay it: howsoe’er,
My brother hath done well.
BELARIUS I had no mind
To hunt this day: the boy Fidele’s sickness
Did make my way long forth.
GUIDERIUS With his own sword,
Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta’en
His head from him: I’ll throw’t into the creek
And tell the fishes he’s the queen’s son, Cloten:
That’s all I reck.
[Exit]
BELARIUS I fear ’twill be revenged:
Would, Polydote, thou hadst not done’t! though valour
Becomes thee well enough.
ARVIRAGUS Would I had done’t
So the revenge alone pursued me!
BELARIUS Well, ’tis done:
We’ll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger
Where there’s no profit. I prithee, to our rock;
ARVIRAGUS Poor sick Fidele!
I’ll weringly to him: to gain his colour
I’ld let a parish of such Clotens’ blood,
And praise myself for charity.
[Exit]
BELARIUS O thou goddess,
Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon’st
In these two princely boys! ‘Tis wonder
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn’d, honour untaught,
Civility not seen from other, valour
That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
As if it had been sow’d.
[Re-enter GUIDERIUS]
GUIDERIUS Where’s my brother?
I have sent Cloten’s clotpoll down the stream,
In embassy to his mother: his body’s hostage
For his return.
[Solemn music]
BELARIUS My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion
Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!
GUIDERIUS Is he at home?
BELARIUS He went hence even now.
GUIDERIUS What does he mean?
since death of my dear’st mother
it did not speak before. All solemn things
Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
[Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN,
as dead, bearing her in his arms]
ARVIRAGUS The bird is dead
That we have made so much on. I had rather
Have skipp’d from sixteen years of age to sixty,
To have turn’d my leaping-time into a crutch,
Than have seen this.
BELARIUS O melancholy!
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might easiliest harbour in? How found you him?
ARVIRAGUS Stark, as you see:
Thus smiling, as some fly hid tickled slumber,
Not as death’s dart, being laugh’d at; his right cheek
Reposing on a cushion.
GUIDERIUS Where?
ARVIRAGUS O’ the floor;
His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept, and put
My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness
Answer’d my steps too loud.
GUIDERIUS Why, he but sleeps:
If he be gone, he’ll make his grave a bed;
ARVIRAGUS
[SONG]
GUIDERIUS Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
ARVIRAGUS Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
GUIDERIUS Fear no more the lightning flash,
ARVIRAGUS Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
GUIDERIUS Fear not slander, censure rash;
ARVIRAGUS Thou hast finish’d joy and moan:
GUIDERIUS |
| All lovers young, all lovers must
ARVIRAGUS | Consign to thee, and come to dust.
GUIDERIUS No exorciser harm thee!
ARVIRAGUS Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
GUIDERIUS Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
ARVIRAGUS Nothing ill come near thee!
GUIDERIUS |
| Quiet consummation have;
ARVIRAGUS | And renowned be thy grave!
[Re-enter BELARIUS, with the body of CLOTEN]
BELARIUS Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten
Is quite forgot. He was a queen’s son, boys;
And though he came our enemy, remember
He was paid for that: though mean and mighty, rotting
Together, have one dust, yet reverence,
That angel of the world, doth make distinction
Of place ‘tween high and low. Our foe was princely
And though you took his life, as being our foe,
Yet bury him as a prince.
GUIDERIUS Pray You, fetch him hither.
Thersites’ body is as good as Ajax’,
When neither are alive.
[Exeunt BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS]
IMOGEN [Awaking] Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven;
which is the way?–
I thank you.–By yond bush?–Pray, how far thither?
‘Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?–
I have gone all night. ‘Faith, I’ll lie down and sleep.
But, soft! no bedfellow!–O gods and goddesses!
[Seeing the body of CLOTEN]
These flowers are like the pleasures of the world;
This bloody man, the care on’t. I hope I dream;
For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,
And cook to honest creatures: but ’tis not so;
‘Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
Which the brain makes of fumes: our very eyes
Are sometimes like our judgments, blind. Good faith,
I tremble stiff with fear: but if there be
Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
As a wren’s eye, fear’d gods, a part of it!
The dream’s here still: even when I wake, it is
Without me, as within me; not imagined, felt.
A headless man! The garments of Posthumus!
I know the shape of’s leg: this is his hand;
His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh;
The brawns of Hercules: but his Jovial face
Murder in heaven?–How!–‘Tis gone. Pisanio,
All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,
And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,
Conspired with that irregulous devil, Cloten,
Hast here cut off my lord. To write and read
Be henceforth treacherous! Damn’d Pisanio
Hath with his forged letters,–damn’d Pisanio–
From this most bravest vessel of the world
Struck the main-top! O Posthumus! alas,
Where is thy head? where’s that? Ay me! where’s that?
Pisanio might have kill’d thee at the heart,
And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?
‘Tis he and Cloten: malice and lucre in them
Have laid this woe here. O, ’tis pregnant, pregnant!
The drug he gave me, which he said was precious
And cordial to me, have I not found it
Murderous to the senses? That confirms it home:
This is Pisanio’s deed, and Cloten’s: O!
Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,
That we the horrider may seem to those
Which chance to find us: O, my lord, my lord!
[Falls on the body]
[Enter LUCIUS, a Captain and other
Officers, and a Soothsayer]
CAIUS LUCIUS Now, sir,
What have you dream’d of late of this war’s purpose?
Soothsayer Last night the very gods show’d me a vision–
I fast and pray’d for their intelligence–thus:
I saw Jove’s bird, the Roman eagle, wing’d
From the spongy south to this part of the west,
There vanish’d in the sunbeams: which portends–
Unless my sins abuse my divination–
Success to the Roman host.
CAIUS LUCIUS Dream often so,
And never false. Let’s see the boy’s face.
Captain He’s alive, my lord.
CAIUS LUCIUS He’ll then instruct us of this body.
Young one, Inform us of thy fortunes, for it seems
They crave to be demanded. Who is this
Thou makest thy bloody pillow?
How came it? Who is it?
What art thou?
IMOGEN I am nothing: or if not,
Nothing to be were better. I may wander
From east to occident, cry out for service,
Try many, all good, serve truly, never
Find such another master.
CAIUS LUCIUS ‘Lack, good youth!
Thou movest no less with thy complaining than
Thy master in bleeding… Thy name?
IMOGEN Fidele, sir.
CAIUS LUCIUS Thou dost approve thyself the very same:
Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.
Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say
Thou shalt be so well master’d, but, be sure,
No less beloved.
IMOGEN I’ll follow, sir.
So please you entertain me.
CAIUS LUCIUS Ay, good youth!
And rather father thee than master thee.
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