Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment
Is oft the cause of fear +: But see, thy brother.

Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN'S Head.

Gui. This Cloten was a fool; an empty purse,
There was no money in't: not Hercules

Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none:
Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne

My head, as I do his.

Bel.

What hast thou done?

Gui. 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'd take us in3,

Displace our heads, where (thank the gods!) they grow,
And set them on Lud's town.

Bel.

We are all undone.
Gui. 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?

Bel.

No single soul

Can we set eye on, but, in all safe reason,

He must have some attendants. Though his humour
Was nothing but mutation; ay, and that

From one bad thing to worse; not frenzy, not
Absolute madness could so far have rav'd,
To bring him here alone: Although, perhaps,
It may be heard at court, that such as we

66

†"the cure of fear :"-MALONE.

2 I am perfect, what :] I am well informed, what.

3

take us in,] i. e. conquer, or subdue us.

For we do fear the law? For is here used in the sense of because.

Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time

May make some stronger head: the which he hearing, (As it is like him,) might break out, and swear He'd fetch us in; yet is't not probable

To come alone, either he so undertaking,

Or they so suffering: then on good ground we fear,
If we do fear this body hath a tail

More perilous than the head.

Arv.

Let ordinance

Come as the gods foresay it: howsoe'er,
My brother hath done well.

I had no mind

Bel.
To hunt this day: the boy Fidele's sickness

Did make my way long forth.

With his own sword,

Gui
Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en
His head from him: I'll throw't into the creek
Behind our rock; and let it to the sea,

And tell the fishes, he's the queen's son, Cloten:
That's all I reck.

Bel.

I fear, 'twill be reveng'd:

[Exit.

'Would, Polydore, thou had'st not done't! though

valour

Becomes thee well enough.

Arv.

'Would I had done't,

So the revenge alone pursued me !—Polydore,

I love thee brotherly; but envy much,

Thou hast robb'd me of this deed: I would, revenges, That possible strength might meet, would seek us

through,

And put us to our answer.

Bel.

Well, 'tis done:

We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger

Where there's no profit. I pr'ythee, to our rock:
You and Fidele play the cooks: I'll stay

5 Did make my way long forth.] Fidele's sickness made my walk forth from the cave tedious.

Till hasty Polydore return, and bring him
To dinner presently.

Arv.

Poor sick Fidele!

I'll willingly to him: To gain his colour,
I'd let a parish of such Clotens blood,

And praise myself for charity.

Bel.
O thou goddess,
Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs, blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his sweet head: and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'st wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonderful,
That an invisible instínct 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! Yet still it's strange,
What Cloten's being here to us portends;

Or what his death will bring us.

Re-enter GUIDERIUS.

Gui.

[Exit.

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 Musick.

Bel.
My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion
Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!
Gui. Is he at home?

6

Bel.

He went hence even now.

Gui. What does he mean? since death of my dear'st

mother

To gain his colour,] i. e. to restore him to the bloom of health, to recall the colour of it into his cheeks.

It did not speak before. All solemn things
Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
Triumphs for nothing, and lamenting toys',

Is jollity for apes, and grief for boys.

Is Cadwal mad?

Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, bearing IMOGEN as dead, in his

Bel.

Arms.

Look, here he comes,

And brings the dire occasion in his arms,

Of what we blame him for!

The bird is dead,

Arv.
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

8

Might easiliest harbour in ?—Thou blessed thing!
Jove knows what man thou might'st 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 Reposing on a cushion.

Gui.

Arv.

Where?

O'the floor;

His arms thus leagu'd: I thought, he slept; and put

7

frolicks.

lamenting toys,] Toys formerly signified freaks, or

what coast thy sluggish crare —] A crare is a small trading vessel, called in the Latin of the middle ages, crayera. 9 Stark,] i. e. stiff.

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 azur'd hare-bell, 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 corse3.

Gui.
Pr'ythee, have done;
And do not play in wench-like words with that
Which is so serious. Let us bury him,

And not protract with admiration what

Is now due debt.-To the grave.

Arv.

Say, where shall's lay him?

Gui. By good Euriphile, our mother.
Arv.

Be't so:

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices

1

clouted brogues] are shoes strengthened with clout or hob-nails. In some parts of England, thin plates of iron called clouts, are likewise fixed to the shoes of ploughmen and other rusticks. Brog is the Irish word for a kind of shoe peculiar to that kingdom.

2 The ruddock is the red-breast, and is so called by Chaucer and Spenser.

3 To winter-ground thy corse.] To winter-ground a plant, is to protect it from the inclemency of the winter-season, by straw, dung, &c. laid over it. This precaution is commonly taken in respect of tender trees or flowers, such as Arviragus, who loved Fidele, represents her to be.