The arden shakespeare co.., p.114
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 114
Experience, O, thou disprov’st report!
Th’emperious seas breed monsters; for the dish
35
Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish:
I am sick still, heart-sick; Pisanio,
I’ll now taste of thy drug.
GUIDERIUS I could not stir him:
He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.
40
ARVIRAGUS Thus did he answer me: yet said, hereafter
I might know more.
BELARIUS To th’ field, to th’ 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,
45
I am bound to you.
BELARIUS And shalt be ever.
Exit Imogen, to the cave.
This youth, howe’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,
50
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
55
With winds that sailors rail at.
GUIDERIUS I do note
That grief and patience, rooted in them both,
Mingle their spurs together.
ARVIRAGUS Grow, patience!
And let the stinking-elder, grief, untwine
His perishing root, with the increasing vine!
60
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’th’ queen. I fear some ambush:
65
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
70
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.
75
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,
80
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,
85
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,
90
’Twould move me sooner.
CLOTEN To thy further fear,
Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
I am son to th’ 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:
95
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.
100
Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS.
BELARIUS No company’s 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,
105
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
110
Of roaring terrors: for defect of judgement
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:
115
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,
120
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
125
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
130
Can we set eye on; but in all safe reason
He must have some attendants. Though his honour
Was nothing but mutation, ay, and that
From one bad thing to worse, not frenzy, not
Absolute madness could so far have rav’d,
135
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
140
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
145
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
150
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 reveng’d:
Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done’t: though
valour
155
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
160
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 Polydore return, and bring him
165
To dinner presently.
ARVIRAGUS Poor sick Fidele!
I’ll willingly 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; thou thyself thou blazon’st
170
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 enchaf’d) as the rud’st wind
That by the top doth take the mountain pine
175
And make him stoop to th’ 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
180
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
185
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
190
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?
Re-enter ARVIRAGUS with IMOGEN, dead, bearing her in his arms.
BELARIUS Look, here he comes,
195
And brings the dire occasion in his arms
Of what we blame him for!
ARVIRAGUS The bird is dead
That we have made so much on. I had rather
Have skipp’d from sixteen years of age to sixty:
To have turn’d my leaping time into a crutch,
200
Than have seen this.
GUIDERIUS O sweetest, fairest lily:
My brother wears thee not the one half so well
As when thou grew’st thyself.
BELARIUS O melancholy,
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom, find
The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish care
205
Might’st easil’est harbour in? Thou blessed thing,
Jove knows what man thou mightst have made: but I,
Thou diedst a most rare boy, of melancholy.
