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, sir, 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'ld 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 breeds monsters, for the dish

Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.

I am sick still; heartsick. 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 huswife.

Imogen

Well or ill,

I am bound to you.

Belarius

And shalt be ever. Exit Imogen, to the cave.

This youth, how e'er distressed, 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 them 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 mocked 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 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 blurred 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 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 knocked 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 called me traitor, mountaineer, and swore

With his own single hand he'ld take us in,

Displace our heads where — thanks ye 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

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

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 revenged:

Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done't! though valour

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 robbed me of this deed: I would revenges,

That possible strength might meet, would seek us through

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

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

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 enchafed, as the rudest wind,

That by the top doth take the mountain pine,

And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonder

That an invisible instinct should frame them

To royalty unlearned, honour untaught,

Civility not seen from other, valour

That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop

As if it had been sowed. 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

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

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?

Belarius

Look, here he comes,

And brings the dire occasion in his arms

Of what we blame him for. Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN, as dead, bearing her in his arms.

Arviragus

The bird is dead

That we have made so much on. I had rather

Have skipped from sixteen years of age to sixty,

To have turned my leaping time into a crutch,

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 crare

Might easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!

Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,

Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.

How found you him?

Arviragus

Stark, as you see:

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,

Not as death's dart, being laughed at; his right cheek

Reposing on a cushion.

Guiderius

Where?

Arviragus

O' the floor;

His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept, and put

My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness

Answered my steps too loud.

Guiderius

Why, he but sleeps:

If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;

With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,

And worms will not come to thee.

Arviragus

With fairest flowers

Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,

I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack

The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor

The azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,

outsweetened not thy breath; the ruddock would,

With charitable bill, ( O bill, sore shaming

Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie

Without a monument!) bring thee all this;

Yea, and furred moss besides, when flowers are none,

To winter-ground thy corse.

Guiderius

Prithee, have done;

And do not play in wench-like words with that

Which is so serious. Let us bury him,

And not protract with admiration what

Is now due debt. To the grave!

Arviragus

Say, where shall's lay him?

Guiderius

By good Euriphile, our mother.

Arviragus

Be't so:

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices

Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,

As once to our mother; use like note and words,

Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.

Guiderius

Cadwal,

I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee;

For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse

Than priests and fanes that lie.

Arviragus

We'll speak it, then.

Belarius

Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten

Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;

And though he came our enemy, remember

He was paid for that: though mean and mighty, rotting

Together, have one dust, yet reverence,

That angel of the world, doth make distinction

Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely;

And though you took his life, as being our foe,

Yet bury him as a prince.

Guiderius

Pray you, fetch him hither.

Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',

When neither are alive.

Arviragus

If you'll go fetch him,

We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin. Exit Belarius.

Guiderius

Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;

My father hath a reason for't.

Arviragus

'Tis true.

Guiderius

Come on then, and remove him.

Arviragus

So. Begin, SONG.

Guiderius

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,

Nor the furious winter's rages;

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Arviragus

Fear no more the frown o' the great;

Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;

Care no more to clothe and eat;

To thee the reed is as the oak:

The sceptre, learning, physic, must

All follow this, and come to dust.

Guiderius

Fear no more the lightning-flash,

Arviragus

Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;

Guiderius

Fear not slander, censure rash;

Arviragus

Thou hast finished joy and moan:

Both

Guiderius

No exorciser harm thee!

Arviragus

Nor no witchcraft charm thee!

Guiderius

Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

Arviragus

Nothing ill come near thee!

Both

Guiderius

We have done our obsequies: come, lay him down.

Belarius

Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight, more:

The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night

Are strewings fitt'st for graves. Upon their faces.

You were as flowers, now withered: even so

These herblets shall, which we upon you strew.

Come on, away: apart upon our knees.

The ground that gave them first has them again:

Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain. Exeunt Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus.

Imogen

Awaking

Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven; which is the way? —

I thank you. — By yond bush? — Pray, how far thither?

'Od's pittikins! can it be six mile yet? —

I have gone all night. 'Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.

But, soft! no bedfellow! — O gods and goddesses! Seeing the body of Cloten.

These flowers are like the pleasures of the world;

This bloody man, the care on't. I hope I dream;

For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,

And cook to honest creatures: but 'tis not so;

'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,

Which the brain makes of fumes: our very eyes

Are sometimes like our judgements, blind. Good faith,

I tremble still with fear: but if there be

Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity

As a wren's eye, feared gods, a part of it!

The dream's here still: even when I wake, it is

Without me, as within me; not imagined, felt.

A headless man! The garments of Posthumus!

I know the shape of's leg: this is his hand;

His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh;

The brawns of Hercules: but his Jovial face —

Murder in heaven? — How? — 'Tis gone. Pisanio,

All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,

And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,

Conspired with that irregulous devil, Cloten,

Hath here cut off my lord. To write and read

Be henceforth treacherous! Damned Pisanio

Hath with his forged letters, — damned Pisanio —

From this most bravest vessel of the world

Struck the main-top! O Posthumus! alas,

Where is thy head? where's that? Ay me! where's that?

Pisanio might have killed thee at the heart,

And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?

'Tis he and Cloten: malice and lucre in them

Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!

The drug he gave me, which he said was precious

And cordial to me, have I not found it

Murderous to the senses? That confirms it home:

This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten's: O!

Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,

That we the horrider may seem to those

Which chance to find us: O, my lord, my lord! Falls on the body.Enter Lucius, a Captain and other Officers, and a Soothsayer.

Roman Captain

To them the legions garrisoned in Gallia,

After your will, have crossed the sea, attending

You here at Milford-Haven with your ships:

They are here in readiness.

Lucius

But what from Rome?

Roman Captain

The senate hath stirred up the confiners

And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,

That promise noble service: and they come

Under the conduct of bold Iachimo,

Syenna's brother.

Lucius

When expect you them?

Roman Captain

With the next benefit o' the wind.

Lucius

This forwardness

Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers

Be mustered; bid the captains look to't. Now, sir,

What have you dreamed of late of this war's purpose?

Soothsayer

Last night the very gods showed me a vision —

I fast and prayed for their intelligence — thus:

I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, winged

From the spongy south to this part of the west,

There vanished in the sunbeams: which portends —

Unless my sins abuse my divination —

Success to the Roman host.

Lucius

Dream often so,

And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here

Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime

It was a worthy building. How! a page!

Or dead, or sleeping on him? But dead rather;

For nature doth abhor to make his bed

With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.

Let's see the boy's face.

Roman Captain

He's alive, my lord.

Lucius

He'll then instruct us of this body. Young one,

Inform us of thy fortunes, for it seems

They crave to be demanded. Who is this

Thou makest thy bloody pillow? Or who was he

That, otherwise than noble nature did,

Hath altered that good picture? What's thy interest

In this sad wrack? How came't? Who is't?

What art thou?

Imogen

I am nothing: or if not,

Nothing to be were better. This was my master,

A very valiant Briton and a good,

That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!

There is no more such masters: I may wander

From east to occident, cry out for service,

Try many, all good, serve truly, never

Find such another master.

Lucius

'Lack, good youth!

Thou movest no less with thy complaining than

Thy master in bleeding: say his name, good friend.

Imogen

Richard du Champ. Aside If I do

lie and do

No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope

They'll pardon it. — Say you, sir?

Lucius

Thy name?

Imogen

Fidele, sir.

Lucius

Thou dost approve thyself the very same:

Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.

Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say

Thou shalt be so well mastered, but, be sure,

No less beloved. The Roman emperor's letters,

Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner

Than thine own worth prefer thee: go with me.

Imogen

I'll follow, sir. But first, and't please the gods,

I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep

As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when

With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strewed his grave.

And on it said a century of prayers,

Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh;

And leaving so his service, follow you,

So please you entertain me.

Lucius

Ay, good youth;

And rather father thee than master thee.

My friends,

The boy hath taught us manly duties: let us

Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can,

And make him with our pikes and partisans

A grave: come, arm him. Boy, he's preferred

By thee to us, and he shall be interred

As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes:

Some falls are means the happier to arise. Exeunt.