The matter?

Should answer solemn accidents.

Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.

Is Cadwal mad?

Bel.

Look, here he comes,

And brings the dire occasion in his arms

Of what we blame him for.

Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN, as dead,
bearing her in his arms.

Arv.

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.

Gui.

O sweetest, fairest lily!
My brother wears thee not the one half so well
As when thou grew'st thyself.

Bel.
O melancholy !
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!
Jove knows what man thou mightst have made;
but I,

Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.

How found you him?

Arv.

Stark, as you see:

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,

Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right

cheek

193. toys, (for) trifles.

205. crare, skiff; Sympson's emendation for Ff care. The image ambiguously suggested in V. 204 is made explicit in 205, 206 Melancholy is a sluggish bark afloat upon an unfathom

200

210

able sea, where no soundings avail to guide to harbour.

211. Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at, not as if death's dart had struck him, since he laughed.

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.

Gui.

Why, he but sleeps:

If he be gone, he 'll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee.

With fairest flowers

Arv.
Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill,-O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
Without a monument !-bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are

none,

To winter-ground thy corse.

Gui.

220

Prithee, have done;

230

And do not play in wench-like words with that

Gui. By good Euriphile, our mother.

Arv.

Be't so:

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices

Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,

As once our mother; use like note and words

Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.

Gui. Cadwal,

I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee; 2.9 For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse

Than priests and fanes that lie.

· Arv.

We'll speak it, then.

Bel. 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.

Pray you, fetch him hither.

Gui.
Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',
When neither are alive.

Arv.

If you'll go fetch him,

We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.

[Exit Belarius.

Gui. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the

east;

My father hath a reason for 't.

Arv.

'Tis true.

Gui. Come on then, and remove him.

250

Arv.

So. Begin.

SONG.

Gul. 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.
Arv. 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.
Gui. Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Arv. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Gui. Fear not slander, censure rash;
Arv. Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
Both. All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
Gui. No exorciser harm thee!
Arv. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Gui. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Arv. Nothing ill come near thee!
Both. Quiet consummation have;

And renowned be thy grave!

Re-enter BELARIUS, with the body of CLOTEN. Gui. We have done our obsequies: come, lay him down.

262. Golden, glancing in the brilliance of youth.

271. thunder-stone, 'thunderbolt,' popularly connected with

meteoric stones.

275. Consign to thee, make

the same terms with thee.

260

270

280

276. No exorciser harm thee, i.e. by raising thy spirit. Το raise (not lay) spirits was the regular Elizabethan use of exorcise and its derivatives.

Bel. Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight,

more:

The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night
Are strewings fitt'st for graves. Upon their faces.
You were as flowers, now wither'd : even so
These herblets shall, which we upon you strew.
Come on, away: apart upon our knees.

The ground that gave them first has them again :
Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
[Exeunt Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus.
Imo. [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 judgements, blind.

faith,

I tremble still 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!

285. Upon their faces, i.e. strew the flowers. Strictly, this can only apply to Imogen; but the ceremony would be spontaneously adapted to the case of the headless man, while so to adapt the formula would have

Good

290

300

been perilously near the grotesque. That Shakespeare did not 'forget' Cloten's state is shown by the immediate sequel.

293. 'Ods pittikins! 'God's

pity.'