Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord!
Thou art one o’ the false ones. Now I think on thee,
My hunger’s gone; but even before, I was
At point to sink for food. But what is this?
Here is a path to’t: ’tis some savage hold:
I were best not to call; I dare not call: yet famine,
Ere clean it o’erthrow nature, makes it valiant,
Plenty and peace breeds cowards: hardness ever
Of hardiness is mother. Ho! who’s here?
If any thing that’s civil, speak; if savage,
Take or lend. Ho! No answer? Then I’ll enter.
Best draw my sword: and if mine enemy
But fear the sword like me, he’ll scarcely look on’t.
Such a foe, good heavens!
Exit, to the cave
Enter Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus
Belarius
You, Polydote, have proved best woodman and
Are master of the feast: Cadwal and I
Will play the cook and servant; ’tis our match:
The sweat of industry would dry and die,
But for the end it works to. Come; our stomachs
Will make what’s homely savoury: weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard. Now peace be here,
Poor house, that keep’st thyself!
Guiderius
I am thoroughly weary.
Arviragus
I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite.
Guiderius
There is cold meat i’ the cave; we’ll browse on that,
Whilst what we have kill’d be cook’d.
Belarius
[Looking into the cave]
Stay; come not in.
But that it eats our victuals, I should think
Here were a fairy.
Guiderius
What’s the matter, sir?
Belarius
By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,
An earthly paragon! Behold divineness
No elder than a boy!
Re-enter Imogen
Imogen
Good masters, harm me not:
Before I enter’d here, I call’d; and thought
To have begg’d or bought what I have took: good troth,
I have stol’n nought, nor would not, though I had found
Gold strew’d i’ the floor. Here’s money for my meat:
I would have left it on the board so soon
As I had made my meal, and parted
With prayers for the provider.
Guiderius
Money, youth?
Arviragus
All gold and silver rather turn to dirt!
As ’tis no better reckon’d, but of those
Who worship dirty gods.
Imogen
I see you’re angry:
Know, if you kill me for my fault, I should
Have died had I not made it.
Belarius
Whither bound?
Imogen
To Milford-Haven.
Belarius
What’s your name?
Imogen
Fidele, sir. I have a kinsman who
Is bound for Italy; he embark’d at Milford;
To whom being going, almost spent with hunger,
I am fall’n in this offence.
Belarius
Prithee, fair youth,
Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds
By this rude place we live in. Well encounter’d!
’Tis almost night: you shall have better cheer
Ere you depart: and thanks to stay and eat it.
Boys, bid him welcome.
Guiderius
Were you a woman, youth,
I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty,
I bid for you as I’d buy.
Arviragus
I’ll make’t my comfort
He is a man; I’ll love him as my brother:
And such a welcome as I’d give to him
After long absence, such is yours: most welcome!
Be sprightly, for you fall ’mongst friends.
Imogen
’Mongst friends,
If brothers.
Aside
Would it had been so, that they
Had been my father’s sons! then had my prize
Been less, and so more equal ballasting
To thee, Posthumus.
Belarius
He wrings at some distress.
Guiderius
Would I could free’t!
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 VII. 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 IV
SCENE I. 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 enf
orced; 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 II. 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,
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
Complete Plays, The Page 361