Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first.
Iachimo
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.
Posthumus Leonatus
No, no.
Iachimo
I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to your ring; which, in my opinion, o’ervalues it something: but I make my wager rather against your confidence than her reputation: and, to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it against any lady in the world.
Posthumus Leonatus
You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion; and I doubt not you sustain what you’re worthy of by your attempt.
Iachimo
What’s that?
Posthumus Leonatus
A repulse: though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more; a punishment too.
Philario
Gentlemen, enough of this: it came in too suddenly; let it die as it was born, and, I pray you, be better acquainted.
Iachimo
Would I had put my estate and my neighbour’s on the approbation of what I have spoke!
Posthumus Leonatus
What lady would you choose to assail?
Iachimo
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 from thence that honour of hers which you imagine so reserved.
Posthumus Leonatus
I will wage against your gold, gold to it: my ring
I hold dear as my finger; ’tis part of it.
Iachimo
You are afraid, 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.
Posthumus Leonatus
This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a graver purpose, I hope.
Iachimo
I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo what’s spoken, I swear.
Posthumus Leonatus
Will you? I shall but lend my diamond till your return: let there be covenants drawn between’s: my mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking: I dare you to this match: here’s my ring.
Philario
I will have it no lay.
Iachimo
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 off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours: provided I have your commendation for my more free entertainment.
Posthumus Leonatus
I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us. Only, thus far you shall answer: if you make your voyage upon her and give me directly to understand you have prevailed, I am no further your enemy; she is not worth our debate: if she remain unseduced, you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill opinion and the assault you have made to her chastity you shall answer me with your sword.
Iachimo
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.
Posthumus Leonatus
Agreed.
Exeunt Posthumus Leonatus and Iachimo
Frenchman
Will this hold, think you?
Philario
Signior Iachimo will not from it.
Pray, let us follow ’em.
Exeunt
SCENE V. 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?
First Lady
I, madam.
Queen
Dispatch.
Exeunt Ladies
Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?
Cornelius
Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are, madam:
Presenting a small box
But I beseech your grace, without offence,—
My conscience bids me ask — wherefore you have
Commanded of me those most poisonous compounds,
Which are the movers of a languishing death;
But though slow, deadly?
Queen
I wonder, doctor,
Thou ask’st me such a question. Have I not been
Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn’d me how
To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,—
Unless thou think’st me devilish — is’t not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other conclusions? I will try the forces
Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging, but none human,
To try the vigour of them and apply
Allayments to their act, and by them gather
Their several virtues and effects.
Cornelius
Your highness
Shall from this practise but make hard your heart:
Besides, the seeing these effects will be
Both noisome and infectious.
Queen
O, content thee.
Enter Pisanio
Aside
Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
Will I first work: he’s for his master,
An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio!
Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
Take your own way.
Cornelius
[Aside] I do suspect you, madam;
But you shall do no harm.
Queen
[To Pisanio] Hark thee, a word.
Cornelius
[Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has
Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit,
And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has
Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile;
Which first, perchance, she’ll prove on cats and dogs,
Then afterward up higher: but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking-up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d
With a most false effect; and I the truer,
So to be false with her.
Queen
No further service, doctor,
Until I send for thee.
Cornelius
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
Where folly now possesses? Do thou work:
When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
I’ll tell thee on the instant thou art then
As great as is thy master, greater, for
His fortunes all lie speechless and his name
Is at last gasp: return he cannot, nor
Continue where he is: to shift his being
Is to exchange one misery with another,
And every day that comes comes to decay
A day’s work in him. What shalt thou expect,
To be depender on a thing that leans,
Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends,
So much as but to prop him?
The Queen drops the box: Pisanio takes it up
T
hou takest up
Thou know’st not what; but take it for thy labour:
It is a thing I made, which hath the king
Five times redeem’d from death: I do not know
What is more cordial. Nay, I prethee, take it;
It is an earnest of a further good
That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
The case stands with her; do’t as from thyself.
Think what a chance thou changest on, but think
Thou hast thy mistress still, to boot, my son,
Who shall take notice of thee: I’ll move the king
To any shape of thy preferment such
As thou’lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
That set thee on to this desert, am bound
To load thy merit richly. Call my women:
Think on my words.
Exit Pisanio
A sly and constant knave,
Not to be shaked; the agent for his master
And the remembrancer of her to hold
The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
Of liegers for her sweet, and which she after,
Except she bend her humour, shall be assured
To taste of too.
Re-enter Pisanio and Ladies
So, so: well done, well done:
The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
Think on my words.
Exeunt Queen and Ladies
Pisanio
And shall do:
But when to my good lord I prove untrue,
I’ll choke myself: there’s all I’ll do for you.
Exit
SCENE VI. THE SAME. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE PALACE.
Enter Imogen
Imogen
A father cruel, and a step-dame false;
A foolish suitor to a wedded lady,
That hath her husband banish’d;— O, that husband!
My supreme crown of grief! and those repeated
Vexations of it! Had I been thief-stol’n,
As my two brothers, happy! but most miserable
Is the desire that’s glorious: blest be those,
How mean soe’er, that have their honest wills,
Which seasons comfort. Who may this be? Fie!
Enter Pisanio and Iachimo
Pisanio
Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome,
Comes from my lord with letters.
Iachimo
Change you, madam?
The worthy Leonatus is in safety
And greets your highness dearly.
Presents a letter
Imogen
Thanks, good sir:
You’re kindly welcome.
Iachimo
[Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich!
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird, and I
Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend!
Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!
Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight;
Rather directly fly.
Imogen
[Reads] ‘He is one of the noblest note, to whose kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him accordingly, as you value your trust — Leonatus.’
So far I read aloud:
But even the very middle of my heart
Is warm’d by the rest, and takes it thankfully.
You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I
Have words to bid you, and shall find it so
In all that I can do.
Iachimo
Thanks, fairest lady.
What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes
To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop
Of sea and land, which can distinguish ’twixt
The fiery orbs above and the twinn’d stones
Upon the number’d beach? and can we not
Partition make with spectacles so precious
’Twixt fair and foul?
Imogen
What makes your admiration?
Iachimo
It cannot be i’ the eye, for apes and monkeys
’Twixt two such shes would chatter this way and
Contemn with mows the other; nor i’ the judgment,
For idiots in this case of favour would
Be wisely definite; nor i’ the appetite;
Sluttery to such neat excellence opposed
Should make desire vomit emptiness,
Not so allured to feed.
Imogen
What is the matter, trow?
Iachimo
The cloyed will,
That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub
Both fill’d and running, ravening first the lamb
Longs after for the garbage.
Imogen
What, dear sir,
Thus raps you? Are you well?
Iachimo
Thanks, madam; well.
To Pisanio
Beseech you, sir, desire
My man’s abode where I did leave him: he
Is strange and peevish.
Pisanio
I was going, sir,
To give him welcome.
Exit
Imogen
Continues well my lord? His health, beseech you?
Iachimo
Well, madam.
Imogen
Is he disposed to mirth? I hope he is.
Iachimo
Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there
So merry and so gamesome: he is call’d
The Briton reveller.
Imogen
When he was here,
He did incline to sadness, and oft-times
Not knowing why.
Iachimo
I never saw him sad.
There is a Frenchman his companion, one
An eminent monsieur, that, it seems, much loves
A Gallian girl at home; he furnaces
The thick sighs from him, whiles the jolly Briton —
Your lord, I mean — laughs from’s free lungs, cries ‘O,
Can my sides hold, to think that man, who knows
By history, report, or his own proof,
What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose
But must be, will his free hours languish for
Assured bondage?’
Imogen
Will my lord say so?
Iachimo
Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter:
It is a recreation to be by
And hear him mock the Frenchman. But, heavens know,
Some men are much to blame.
Imogen
Not he, I hope.
Iachimo
Not he: but yet heaven’s bounty towards him might
Be used more thankfully. In himself, ’tis much;
In you, which I account his beyond all talents,
Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound
To pity too.
Imogen
What do you pity, sir?
Iachimo
Two creatures heartily.
Imogen
Am I one, sir?
You look on me: what wreck discern you in me
Deserves your pity?
Iachimo
Lamentable! What,
To hide me from the radiant sun and solace
I’ the dungeon by a snuff?
Imogen
I pray you, sir,
Deliver with more openness your answers
To my demands. Why do you pity me?
Iachimo
That others do —
I was about to say — enjoy your — But
It is an office of the gods to venge it,
Not mine to speak on ’t.
Imogen
You do seem to know
Something of me, or what concerns me: pray yo
u,—
Since doubling things go ill often hurts more
Than to be sure they do; for certainties
Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing,
The remedy then born — discover to me
What both you spur and stop.
Iachimo
Had I this cheek
To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
Whose every touch, would force the feeler’s soul
To the oath of loyalty; this object, which
Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here; should I, damn’d then,
Slaver with lips as common as the stairs
That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood — falsehood, as
With labour; then by-peeping in an eye
Base and unlustrous as the smoky light
That’s fed with stinking tallow; it were fit
That all the plagues of hell should at one time
Encounter such revolt.
Imogen
My lord, I fear,
Has forgot Britain.
Iachimo
And himself. Not I,
Inclined to this intelligence, pronounce
The beggary of his change; but ’tis your graces
That from pay mutest conscience to my tongue
Charms this report out.
Imogen
Let me hear no more.
Iachimo
O dearest soul! your cause doth strike my heart
With pity, that doth make me sick. A lady
So fair, and fasten’d to an empery,
Would make the great’st king double,— to be partner’d
With tomboys hired with that self-exhibition
Which your own coffers yield! with diseased ventures
That play with all infirmities for gold
Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil’d stuff
As well might poison poison! Be revenged;
Or she that bore you was no queen, and you
Recoil from your great stock.
Imogen
Revenged!
How should I be revenged? If this be true,—
As I have such a heart that both mine ears
Must not in haste abuse — if it be true,
How should I be revenged?
Iachimo
Should he make me
Live, like Diana’s priest, betwixt cold sheets,
Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,
In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.
I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,
More noble than that runagate to your bed,
And will continue fast to your affection,
Still close as sure.
Imogen
What, ho, Pisanio!
Iachimo
Let me my service tender on your lips.
Imogen
Away! I do condemn mine ears that have
So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,
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