Complete Plays, The (450 page)

Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?

Caius Lucius

When Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet
Lives in men’s eyes and will to ears and tongues
Be theme and hearing ever, was in this Britain
And conquer’d it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,—
Famous in Caesar’s praises, no whit less
Than in his feats deserving it — for him
And his succession granted Rome a tribute,
Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately
Is left untender’d.

Queen

And, to kill the marvel,
Shall be so ever.

Cloten

There be many Caesars,
Ere such another Julius. Britain is
A world by itself; and we will nothing pay
For wearing our own noses.

Queen

That opportunity
Which then they had to take from ’s, to resume
We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,
The kings your ancestors, together with
The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
As Neptune’s park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,
With sands that will not bear your enemies’ boats,
But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest
Caesar made here; but made not here his brag
Of ‘Came’ and ‘saw’ and ‘overcame’ with shame —
That first that ever touch’d him — he was carried
From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping —
Poor ignorant baubles!— upon our terrible seas,
Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, crack’d
As easily ’gainst our rocks: for joy whereof
The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point —
O giglot fortune!— to master Caesar’s sword,
Made Lud’s town with rejoicing fires bright
And Britons strut with courage.

Cloten

Come, there’s no more tribute to be paid: our kingdom is stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no moe such Caesars: other of them may have crook’d noses, but to owe such straight arms, none.

Cymbeline

Son, let your mother end.

Cloten

We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan: I do not say I am one; but I have a hand. Why tribute? why should we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light; else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.

Cymbeline

You must know,
Till the injurious Romans did extort
This tribute from us, we were free:
Caesar’s ambition,
Which swell’d so much that it did almost stretch
The sides o’ the world, against all colour here
Did put the yoke upon ’s; which to shake off
Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon
Ourselves to be.

Cloten

Lords

We do.

Cymbeline

Say, then, to Caesar,
Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which
Ordain’d our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar
Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise
Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,
Though Rome be therefore angry: Mulmutius made our laws,
Who was the first of Britain which did put
His brows within a golden crown and call’d
Himself a king.

Caius Lucius

 
I am sorry, Cymbeline,
That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar —
Caesar, that hath more kings his servants than
Thyself domestic officers — thine enemy:
Receive it from me, then: war and confusion
In Caesar’s name pronounce I ’gainst thee: look
For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,
I thank thee for myself.

Cymbeline

Thou art welcome, Caius.
Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent
Much under him; of him I gather’d honour;
Which he to seek of me again, perforce,
Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect
That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for
Their liberties are now in arms; a precedent
Which not to read would show the Britons cold:
So Caesar shall not find them.

Caius Lucius

Let proof speak.

Cloten

His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two, or longer: if you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there’s an end.

Caius Lucius

So, sir.

Cymbeline

I know your master’s pleasure and he mine:
All the remain is ‘Welcome!’

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. A
NOTHER
ROOM
IN
THE
PALACE
.

Enter Pisanio, with a letter

Pisanio

How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not
What monster’s her accuser? Leonatus,
O master! what a strange infection
Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian,
As poisonous-tongued as handed, hath prevail’d
On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal! No:
She’s punish’d for her truth, and undergoes,
More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults
As would take in some virtue. O my master!
Thy mind to her is now as low as were
Thy fortunes. How! that I should murder her?
Upon the love and truth and vows which I
Have made to thy command? I, her? her blood?
If it be so to do good service, never
Let me be counted serviceable. How look I,
That I should seem to lack humanity
So much as this fact comes to?

Reading

‘Do’t: the letter
That I have sent her, by her own command
Shall give thee opportunity.’ O damn’d paper!
Black as the ink that’s on thee! Senseless bauble,
Art thou a feodary for this act, and look’st
So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes.
I am ignorant in what I am commanded.

Enter Imogen

Imogen

How now, Pisanio!

Pisanio

Madam, here is a letter from my lord.

Imogen

Who? thy lord? that is my lord, Leonatus!
O, learn’d indeed were that astronomer
That knew the stars as I his characters;
He’ld lay the future open. You good gods,
Let what is here contain’d relish of love,
Of my lord’s health, of his content, yet not
That we two are asunder; let that grieve him:
Some griefs are med’cinable; that is one of them,
For it doth physic love: of his content,
All but in that! Good wax, thy leave. Blest be
You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers
And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike:
Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet
You clasp young Cupid’s tables. Good news, gods!

Reads

‘Justice, and your father’s wrath, should he take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, as you, O the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I am in Cambria, at Milford-Haven: what your own love will out of this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness, that remains loyal to his vow, and your, increasing in love, Leonatus Posthumus.’

O, for a horse with wings! Hear’st thou, Pisanio?
He is at Milford-Haven: read, and tell me
How far ’tis thither. If one of mean affairs
May plod it in a week, why may not I
Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,—
Who long’st, like me, to see thy lord; who long’st,—
Let me bate,— but not like me — yet long’st,
But in a fainter kind:— O, not like me;
For mine’s beyond beyond — say, and speak thick;
Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,
To the smothering of the sense — how far it is
To this same blessed Milford: and by the way
Tell me how Wales was made so happy as
To inherit such a haven: but first of all,
How we may steal from hence, and for the gap
That we shall make in time, from our hence-going
And our return, to excuse: but first, how get hence:
Why should excuse be born or e’er begot?
We’ll talk of that hereafter. Prithee, speak,
How many score of miles may we well ride
’Twixt hour and hour?

Pisanio

One score ’twixt sun and sun,
Madam, ’s enough for you:

Aside

and too much too.

Imogen

Why, one that rode to’s execution, man,
Could never go so slow: I have heard of riding wagers,
Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
That run i’ the clock’s behalf. But this is foolery:
Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say
She’ll home to her father: and provide me presently
A riding-suit, no costlier than would fit
A franklin’s housewife.

Pisanio

Madam, you’re best consider.

Imogen

I see before me, man: nor here, nor here,
Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them,
That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee;
Do as I bid thee: there’s no more to say,
Accessible is none but Milford way.

Exeunt

S
CENE
III. W
ALES
:
A
MOUNTAINOUS
COUNTRY
WITH
A
CAVE
.

Enter, from the cave, Belarius; Guiderius, and Arviragus following

Belarius

A goodly day not to keep house, with such
Whose roof’s as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate
Instructs you how to adore the heavens and bows you
To a morning’s holy office: the gates of monarchs
Are arch’d so high that giants may jet through
And keep their impious turbans on, without
Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!
We house i’ the rock, yet use thee not so hardly
As prouder livers do.

Guiderius

Hail, heaven!

Arviragus

Hail, heaven!

Belarius

Now for our mountain sport: up to yond hill;
Your legs are young; I’ll tread these flats. Consider,
When you above perceive me like a crow,
That it is place which lessens and sets off;
And you may then revolve what tales I have told you
Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war:
This service is not service, so being done,
But being so allow’d: to apprehend thus,
Draws us a profit from all things we see;
And often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-wing’d eagle. O, this life
Is nobler than attending for a cheque,
Richer than doing nothing for a bauble,
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
Such gain the cap of him that makes ’em fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross’d: no life to ours.

Guiderius

Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged,
Have never wing’d from view o’ the nest, nor know not
What air’s from home. Haply this life is best,
If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With your stiff age: but unto us it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.

Arviragus

 
What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
We are beastly, subtle as the fox for prey,
Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat;
Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
We make a quire, as doth the prison’d bird,
And sing our bondage freely.

Belarius

How you speak!
Did you but know the city’s usuries
And felt them knowingly; the art o’ the court
As hard to leave as keep; whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slippery that
The fear’s as bad as falling; the toil o’ the war,
A pain that only seems to seek out danger
I’ the name of fame and honour; which dies i’ the search,
And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph
As record of fair act; nay, many times,
Doth ill deserve by doing well; what’s worse,
Must court’sy at the censure:— O boys, this story
The world may read in me: my body’s mark’d
With Roman swords, and my report was once
First with the best of note: Cymbeline loved me,
And when a soldier was the theme, my name
Was not far off: then was I as a tree
Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,
A storm or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.

Guiderius

Uncertain favour!

Belarius

My fault being nothing — as I have told you oft —
But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail’d
Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline
I was confederate with the Romans: so
Follow’d my banishment, and this twenty years
This rock and these demesnes have been my world;
Where I have lived at honest freedom, paid
More pious debts to heaven than in all
The fore-end of my time. But up to the mountains!
This is not hunters’ language: he that strikes
The venison first shall be the lord o’ the feast;
To him the other two shall minister;
And we will fear no poison, which attends
In place of greater state. I’ll meet you in the valleys.

Exeunt Guiderius and Arviragus

How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
These boys know little they are sons to the king;
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine; and though train’d up thus meanly
I’ the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
In simple and low things to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
The king his father call’d Guiderius,— Jove!
When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell
The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
Into my story: say ‘Thus, mine enemy fell,
And thus I set my foot on ’s neck;’ even then
The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
Strains his young nerves and puts himself in posture
That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,
Once Arviragus, in as like a figure,
Strikes life into my speech and shows much more
His own conceiving.— Hark, the game is roused!
O Cymbeline! heaven and my conscience knows
Thou didst unjustly banish me: whereon,
At three and two years old, I stole these babes;
Thinking to bar thee of succession, as
Thou reft’st me of my lands. Euriphile,
Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother,
And every day do honour to her grave:
Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call’d,
They take for natural father. The game is up.