ACT I. SCENE I-Britain. The garden behind Cymbeline's palace. Enter Two Gentlemen. 1 Gentleman. His measure duly.' What's his name, and birth? You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods' So gain'd the sur-addition, Leonatus: No more obey the heavens, than our courtiers; He purpos'd to his wife's sole son (a widow, 2 Gent. That most desir'd the match: But not a courtier, And why so? 2 Gent. Too bad for bad report: And he that hath her, 2 Gent. (1) Inclination, natural disposition. And had, besides this gentleman in question, (Then old and fond of issue,) took such sorrow, (3) My praise, however extensive, is within his merit. 2 Gent. I honour him Even out of your report. 1 Gent. How long is this ago? 1 Gent. Some twenty years. (4) The father of Cymbeline. 2 Gent. That a king's children should be so convey'd ! So slackly guarded! And the search so slow, 1 Gent. Howsoe'r 'tis strange, Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at, Yet is it true, sir. 2 Gent. I do well believe you. 1 Gent. We must forbear: Here comes the queen, and princess. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The same. Enter the Queen, Posthumus, and Imogen. Queen. No, be assur'd, you shall not find me, daughter, After the slander of most step-mothers, That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus, I will be known your advocate: marry, yet You lean'd unto his sentence, with what patience Post. I will from hence to-day. Queen. Please your highness, You know the peril : I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying Imo. [Exit Queen. Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant Can tickle where she wounds!-My dearest husband, I something fear my father's wrath; but nothing (Always reserv'd my holy duty,) what His rage can do on me: You must be gone; Post. 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. To walk this way: I never do him wrong, Were you but riding forth to air yourself, Such parting were too petty. Look here, love; Post. How! how! another? Pis. There might have been, 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; I humbly thank your highness. [Exeunt. SCENE IV-A room in Cymbeline's palace. Imo. I would thou grew'st unto the shore's o'the And question'dst every sail: if he should write, Pis. Thou should'st have made him Pis. Madam, so I did. Imo. I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack'd them, but 1 Lord. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; To look upon him; till the diminution the violence of action hath made you reek as a sac-of space had pointed him sharp as my needle: rifice: Where air comes out, air comes in: there's Nay, follow'd him, till he had melted from none abroad so wholesome as that you vent. The smallness of a gnat to air; and then Clo. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it-Have turn'd mine eye, and wept.-But, good Pi Have I hurt him? 2 Lord. No, faith; not so much as his patience. sanio, [Aside. Pis. 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. With his next vantage.' Be assur'd, madam, Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had 2 Lord. His steel was in debt; it went o'the backside the town. Clo. The villain would not stand me. 2 Lord. No; but he fled forward still, your face. 1 Lord. Stand you! You have land your own: but he added to your having; some ground. toward Mine interest, and his honour; or have charg'd him, [Aside. At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, enough of To encounter me with orisons, for then gave you I am in heaven for him; or ere I could 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 II have seen small reflection of her wit.2 2 Lord. She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her. [Aside. (1) Her beauty and sense are not equal. (2) To understand the force of this idea, it should be remembered that anciently almost every sign had a motto, or some attempt at a witticism, underneath it. VOL. II. Give him that parting kiss, which I had set he was then of a crescent note; expected to prove Iach. You must not so far prefer her 'fore ours of so worthy, as since he hath been allowed the name Italy. of: but I could then have looked on him without the Post. Being so far provoked as I was in France, help of admiration; though the catalogue of his en- I would abate her nothing; though I profess mydowments had been tabled by his side, and I to self her adorer, not her friend. peruse him by items. lach. As fair, and as good (a kind of hand-inPhi. You speak of him when he was less furnish-hand comparison,) had been something too fair, and ed, than now he is, with that which makes him too good, for any lady in Britany. If she went beboth without and within. fore others I have seen, as that diamond of yours out-lustres 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. Post. I praised her, as I rated her: so do I my stone. French. I have seen him in France: we had very many there, could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he. lach. 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. French. And then his banishment : Iach. Ay, and the approbation of those, that weep this lamentable divorce, under her colours, are wonderfully to extend to 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. Jach. What do you esteem it at ? Post. 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. Jach. Which the gods have given you? Jach. You may wear her in title yours: but, you know, strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may be stolen too: so, of your brace of unprizeable estimations, the one is but frail, and the other casual; a cunning thief, or a that-wayaccomplished courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last. Here comes the Briton: Let him be so entertained amongst you, as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of his quality.-I beseech Post. Your Italy contains none so accomplished you all, be better known to this gentleman; whom a courtier, to convince the honour of my mistress; I commend to you, as a noble friend of mine: How if, in the holding or loss of that, you term her frail. worthy he is, I will leave to appear hereafter, rather I do nothing doubt, you have store of thieves; not. than story him in his own hearing. withstanding, I fear not my ring. 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 of so slight and trivial a nature. Phi. Let us leave here, gentlemen. Post. Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first. Iach. With five times so much conversation, I should get ground of your fair mistress; make her go back, even to the yielding; had I admittance, and opportunity to friend. Post. No, no. Post. By your pardon, sir, I was then a young Iach. I dare, thereon, pawn the moiety of my traveller; rather shunn'd to go even with what I estate to your ring; which, in my opinion, o'erheard, than in my every action to be guided by values it something: But I make my wager rather others' experiences: but, upon my mended judg. against your confidence, than her reputation: and, ment (if I offend not to say it is mended,) my quar-to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt rel 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. lach. Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference? French. 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, constantqualified, and less attemptible, than any the rarest of our ladies in France. Iach. That lady is not now living; or this gentleman's opinion, by this, worn out. Post. She holds her virtue stil!, and I my mind. against any lady in the world. Post. You are a great deal abused 10 in too bold a persuasion; and I doubt not you sustain what you're worthy of, by your attempt. Jach. What's that? Post. A repulse: Though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more; a punishment too. Phi. Gentlemen, enough of this: it came in too suddenly; let it die as it was born, and, I pray you, be better acquainted. Iach. 'Would I had put my estate, and my neighbour's, on the approbation of what I have spoke. Post. What lady would you choose to assail? Jach. Yours; whom in constancy, you think, stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring, that, commend me to the court where your lady is, with no more advantage than the opportunity of a second conference, and I will bring (8) Lover, I speak of her as a being I reverence, not as a beauty whom I enjoy. (9) Overcome. (10) Deceived. (11) Proof. from thence that honour of hers, which you imagine so reserved. Post. I will wage against your gold, gold to it: my ring I hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it. Iach. You are a friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting: But, I see, you have some religion in you, that you fear. Post. This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a graver purpose, I hope. Iach. I am the master of my speeches; and would undergo what's spoken, I swear. Post. Will you?-I shall but lend my diamond till your return:-Let there be covenants drawn between us: My mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking: I dare you to this match: here's my ring. Phi. I will have it no lay. I do suspect you, madam; [Aside. Hark thee, a word.[To Pisanio, Cor. [Aside.] I do not like her. She doth think, she has Iach. By the gods it is one:-If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours: so is your diamond too. If I come Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit, off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust! And will not trust one of her malice with in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold A drug of such damn'd nature; Those, she has, are yours:-provided, I have your commendation, Will stupify and dull the sense a while; for my more free entertainment. Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats, and dogs; Post. I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us:-only, thus far you shall an- Then afterward up higher; but there is swer. If you make your voyage upon her, and No danger in what show of death it makes, give me directly to understand you have prevailed, More than the locking up the spirits a time, I am no further your enemy, she is not worth our To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd debate if she remain unseduced (you not making With a most false effect; and I the truer, it appear otherwise,) for your ill opinion, and the So to be false with her. assault you have made to her chastity, you shall anQueen. No further service, doctor, swer me with your sword. Iach. Your hand; a covenant: We will have these things set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain; lest the bargain should catch cold, and starve: I will fetch my gold, and have our two wagers recorded. Post. Agreed. [Exe. Posthumus and Iachimo. us follow 'em. Pray, let [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-Britain. A room in Cymbeline's palace. Enter Queen, Ladies, and Cornelius. Queen. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers ; Make haste: Who has the note of them? Which are the movers of a languishing death; Queen. Until I send for thee. Cor. I humbly take my leave. [Exit. Queen. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think, in time She will not quench; and let instructions enter [The Queen drops a box: Pisanio takes it up. That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how stant knave; Not to be shak'd: the agent for his master; (3) i. e. Grow cool. (4) To change his abode. |