[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]
| |
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| [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, And burst of speaking, were as his: I am absolute 'Twas very Cloten. ARVIRAGUS
| In this place we left them:
| I wish my brother make good time with him, You say he is so fell. BELARIUS
| Being scarce made up,
| I mean, to man, he had not apprehension 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]
| GUIDERIUS
| 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. BELARIUS
| What hast thou done?
| GUIDERIUS
| 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'ld take us in Displace our heads where--thank the gods!--they grow, And set them on Lud's-town. BELARIUS
| We are all undone.
| GUIDERIUS
| 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? BELARIUS
| 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 raved To bring him here alone; although perhaps It may be heard at court that such as we 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'ld 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. ARVIRAGUS
| Let ordinance
| Come as the gods foresay it: howsoe'er, My brother hath done well. BELARIUS
| I had no mind
| To hunt this day: the boy Fidele's sickness Did make my way long forth. GUIDERIUS
| With his own sword,
| 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. [Exit]
| BELARIUS
| I fear 'twill be revenged:
| Would, Polydote, thou hadst not done't! though valour Becomes thee well enough. ARVIRAGUS
| 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. BELARIUS
| Well, 'tis done:
| We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger Where there's no profit. I prithee, to our rock; You and Fidele play the cooks: I'll stay Till hasty Polydote return, and bring him To dinner presently. ARVIRAGUS
| Poor sick Fidele!
| I'll weringly to him: to gain his colour I'ld let a parish of such Clotens' blood, And praise myself for charity. [Exit]
| BELARIUS
| 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 enchafed, as the rudest wind, That by the top doth take the mountain pine, And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonder That an invisible instinct 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]
| GUIDERIUS
| 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 music]
| BELARIUS
| My ingenious instrument!
| Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark! GUIDERIUS
| Is he at home?
| BELARIUS
| He went hence even now.
| GUIDERIUS
| What does he mean? since death of my dear'st mother
| 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? BELARIUS
| Look, here he comes,
| And brings the dire occasion in his arms Of what we blame him for. |