ARVIRAGUS Or I, whate’er it be,
What pain it cost, what danger. God’s!
BELARIUS Hark, boys.
Whispering
IMOGEN Great men,
That had a court no bigger than this cave,
That did attend themselves and had the virtue
Which their own conscience seal’d them–laying by
That nothing-gift of differing multitudes–
Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods!
I’d change my sex to be companion with them,
Since Leonatus’s false.
BELARIUS It shall be so.
Boys, we’ll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in:
Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp’d,
We’ll mannerly demand thee of thy story,
So far as thou wilt speak it.
GUIDERIUS Pray, draw near.
ARVIRAGUS The night to the owl and morn to the lark
less welcome.
IMOGEN Thanks, sir.
ARVIRAGUS I pray, draw near.
Exeunt
Scene 7
Rome. A public place.
Enter two Senators and Tribunes
First Senator This is the tenor of the emperor’s writ:
That since the common men are now in action
‘Gainst the Pannonians and Dalmatians,
And that the legions now in Gallia are
Full weak to undertake our wars against
The fall’n-off Britons, that we do incite
The gentry to this business. He creates
Lucius preconsul: and to you the tribunes,
For this immediate levy, he commends
His absolute commission. Long live Caesar!
First Tribune Is Lucius general of the forces?
Second Senator Ay.
First Tribune Remaining now in Gallia?
First Senator With those legions
Which I have spoke of, whereunto your levy
Must be supplyant: the words of your commission
Will tie you to the numbers and the time
Of their dispatch.
First Tribune We will discharge our duty.
Exeunt
Act 4
Scene 1
Wales: near the cave of Belarius.
Enter CLOTEN
CLOTEN I am near to the place where they should meet, if
Pisanio have mapped it truly. How fit his garments
serve me! Why should his mistress, who was made by
him that made the tailor, not be fit too? the
rather–saving reverence of the word–for ’tis said
a woman’s fitness comes by fits. Therein I must
play the workman. I dare speak it to myself–for it
is not vain-glory for a man and his glass to confer
in his own chamber–I mean, the lines of my body are
as well drawn as his; no less young, more strong,
not beneath him in fortunes, beyond him in the
advantage of the time, above him in birth, alike
conversant in general services, and more remarkable
in single oppositions: yet this imperceiverant
thing loves him in my despite. What mortality is!
Posthumus, thy head, which now is growing upon thy
shoulders, shall within this hour be off; thy
mistress enforced; thy garments cut to pieces before
thy face: and all this done, spurn her home to her
father; who may haply be a little angry for my so
rough usage; but my mother, having power of his
testiness, shall turn all into my commendations. My
horse is tied up safe: out, sword, and to a sore
purpose! Fortune, put them into my hand! This is
the very description of their meeting-place; and
the fellow dares not deceive me.
Exit
Scene 2
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.
GUIDERIUS I love thee; I have spoke it
How much the quantity, the weight as much,
As I do love my father.
BELARIUS What! how! how!
ARVIRAGUS If it be sin to say so, I yoke me
In my good brother’s fault: I know not why
I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love’s reason’s without reason: the bier at door,
And a demand who is’t shall die, I’d say
‘My father, not this youth.’
BELARIUS[Aside]
O noble strain!
O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!
Cowards father cowards and base things sire base:
Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.
I’m not their father; yet who this should be,
Doth miracle itself, loved before me.
‘Tis the ninth hour o’ the morn.
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
GUIDERIUS I could not stir him:
He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.
ARVIRAGUS Thus did he answer me: yet said, hereafter
I might know more.
BELARIUS To the field, to the field!
We’ll leave you for this time: go in and rest.
ARVIRAGUS We’ll not be long away.
BELARIUS Pray, be not sick,
For you must be our housewife.
IMOGEN Well or ill,
I am bound to you.
BELARIUS And shalt be ever.
Exit IMOGEN, to the cave
This youth, how’er distress’d, appears he hath had
Good ancestors.
ARVIRAGUS How angel-like he sings!
GUIDERIUS But his neat cookery! he cut our roots
In characters,
And sauced our broths, as Juno had been sick
And he her dieter.
ARVIRAGUS Nobly he yokes
A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh
Was that it was, for not being such a smile;
The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly
From so divine a temple, to commix
With winds that sailors rail at.
GUIDERIUS I do note
That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
Mingle their spurs together.
ARVIRAGUS Grow, patience!
And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
His perishing root with the increasing vine!
BELARIUS It is great morning. Come, away!–
Who’s there?
Enter CLOTEN
CLOTEN I cannot find those runagates; that villain
Hath mock’d me. I am faint.
BELARIUS ‘Those runagates!’
Means he not us? I partly know him: ’tis
Cloten, the son o’ the queen. I fear some ambush.
I saw him not these many years, and yet
I know ’tis he. We are held as outlaws: hence!
GUIDERIUS He is but one: you and my brother search
What companies are near: pray you, away;
Let me alone with him.
Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS
CLOTEN Soft! What are you
That fly me thus? some villain mountaineers?
I have heard of such. What slave art thou?
GUIDERIUS A thing
More slavish did I ne’er than answering
A slave without a knock.
CLOTEN 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 No, nor thy tailor, rascal,
Who is thy grandfather: he made those clothes,
Which, as it seems, make thee.
CLOTEN Thou precious varlet,
My tailor made them not.
GUIDERIUS Hence, then, and thank
The man that gave them thee. 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:
When I have slain thee with my proper hand,
I’ll follow those that even now fled hence,
And on the gates of Lud’s-town set your heads:
Yield, rustic mountaineer.
Exeunt, fighting
Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS
BELARIUS No companies abroad?
ARVIRAGUS None in the world: you did mistake him, sure.
BELARIUS I cannot tell: long is it since I saw him,
But time hath nothing blurr’d those lines of favour
Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,