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 arched 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 allowed: 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-winged eagle. O, this life

Is nobler than attending for a check,

Richer than doing nothing for a bauble,

Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:

Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,

Yet keeps his book uncrossed: no life to ours.

Guiderius

Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged,

Have never winged 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 or 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 choir, as doth the prisoned 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 curtsy at the censure: — O boys, this story

The world may read in me: my body's marked

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 prevailed

Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline

I was confederate with the Romans: so

Followed 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 trained 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 called 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 called,

They take for natural father. The game is up. Exit.