And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send, Re-enter QUEEN. Queen. Be brief, I pray you: How much of his displeasure:-Yet I'll move him If the king come, I shall incur I know not To walk this way: I never do him wrong, But he does buy my injuries, to be friends; [Aside. [Exit. Post. Should we be taking leave As long a term as yet we have to live, Were you but riding forth to air yourself, Such parting were too petty. Look here, love; When Imogen is dead. Post. How! how! another ?— You gentle gods, give me but this I have, And sear up my embracements from a next With bonds of death!-Remain thou here [Putting on the ring. 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 Imo. O, the gods! [Putting a bracelet on her arm. Enter CYMBELINE and LORDS. When shall we see again? Post. Alack, the king! Cym. Thou basest thing, avoid! hence, from my sight! If, after this command, thou fraught* the court With thy unworthiness, thou diest: Away! Thou art poison to my blood. Post. The gods protect you! And bless the good remainders of the court! I am gone. Imo. There cannot be a pinch in death More sharp than this is. Cym. O disloyal thing, That shouldst repair my youth; thou heapest A year's age on me! Imo. I beseech you, Sir, Harm not yourself with your vexation; I Am senseless of your wrath; a touch more raret Subdues all pangs, all fears. Cym. Past grace? obedience? Imo. Past hope, and in despair; that way, past grace. *Fill. + A more exquisite feeling. [Exit. Cym. That mightst have had the sole son of my queen! And did avoid a puttock.* Cym. Thou took'st a beggar; wouldst have made my throne A seat for baseness. Imo. No; I rather added A lustre to it. Cym. O thou vile one! Imo. Sir, It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus: Cym. What!-art thou mad? Imo. Almost, Sir: Heaven restore me!-'Would I were A neat-herd's daughter! and my Leonatus Our neighbour shepherd's son ! Re-enter QUEEN. Cym. Thou foolish thing! They were again together: you have aone Queen. 'Beseech your patience:-Peace, Dear lady daughter, peace;-Sweet sovereign, [To the QUEEN. Leave us to ourselves; and make yourself some comfort Cym. Nay, let her languish A drop of blood a day; and, being aged, Die of this folly! Enter PISANIO. Queen. Fie!-you must give way: Here is your servant.-How now, Sir? What news? Pis. My lord your son drew on my master. Queen. Ha! No harm, I trust, is done? Pis. 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. Imo. 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? Pis. On his command: He would not suffer me To bring him to the haven: left these notes Of what commands I should be subject to, Queen. This hath been [Exit. Your faithful servant: I dare lay mine honour, Pis. I humbly thank your highness. Imo. About some half-hour hence, 1 pray you, speak with me: you shall, at least, Go see my lord aboard: for this time, leave me. SCENE III-A public place. Enter CLOTEN and two LORDS. [Exeunt. 1 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. Clo. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it-Have I hurt him? 2 Lord. No, faith; not so much as his patience. [Aside. 1 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. 2 Lord. His steel was in debt; it went o' the backside the town. [Aside. Clo. The villain would not stand me. 2 Lord. No; but he fled forward still, toward your face. [Aside. 1 Lord. Stand you! You had land enough of your own: but he added to your having; gave you some ground. 2 Lord. As many inches as you have oceans: Puppies! [Aside. Clo. I would, they had not come between us. 2 Lord. So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. [Aside. Clo. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me! 2 Lord. If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned. [Aside. 1 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.* 2 Lord. She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her. [Aside. Clo. Come, I'll to my chamber: 'Would there had been some hurt done! 2 Lord. I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt. 1 Lord. I'll attend your lordship. Clo. You'll go with us? Clo. Nay, come, let's go together. 2 Lord. Well, my lord. [Aside. [Excunt. SCENE IV-A Room in CYMBELINE'S Palace. Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO. Imo. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven, And question'dst every sail: if he should write, And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost *Anciently almost every sign had a motto, or some attempt at a witti cism underneath it. As offer'd mercy is.* What was the last Pis. "Twas, His queen, his queen! Imo. Then waved his handkerchief? Imo. Senseless linen! happier therein than I Pis. No, madam; for so long As he could make me with this eye or ear Imo. Thou shouldst have made him As little as a crow, or less, ere left To after-eye him. Pis. Madam, so I did. Imo. 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, Pis. Be assured, madam, With his next vantage.† Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him, Such thoughts, and such; or I could make him swear Mine interest, and his honour; or have charged him 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, Enter a LADY. Lady. The queen, madam, Desires your highness' company, Imo. Those things I bid you do, get them despatch'd. I will attend the queen. Pis. Madam, I shall. [Exeunt * "Twere as great a loss as that of a pardon transmitted to a criminal. † Opportunity. Meet me with reciprocal prayer. SCENE V-Rome. An Apartment in PHILARIO's House. Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a FRENCHMAN, a DUTCHMAN, and a SPANIARD. Iach. 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. Phi. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd than now he is, with that which makes + him both without and within. French. I have seen him in France; we had very many there, could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he. Iach. 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. I French. And then his banishment: Iach. 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 more quality. But how comes it, he is to sojourn with you? how creeps acquaintance? Phi. His father and I were soldiers together; to whom I have been often bound for no less than my life : Enter POSTHUMUS. - Here comes the Briton: Let him be so entertained amongst you, as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of quality. 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. French. Sir, we have known together in Orleans. Post. Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay, and yet pay still. French. 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 T of so slight and trivial a nature. Post. By your pardon, Sir, I was then a young traveller: 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. French. '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. * Increasing in fame. I. e. makes him over-estimated. ¶ Matter. + Forms him. Reconcile. |