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‘th’ court,
As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slipp’ry that
The fear’s as bad as falling; the toil o‘th’ war,
A pain that only seems to seek out danger
I’th’ name of fame and honour, which dies i‘th’ search
And hath as oft a sland’rous 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 th’ mountains!
This is not hunter’s language. He that strikes
The venison first shall be the lord o’th’ 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 th’ King,
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine, and though trained up
thus meanly
I‘th’ 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.
⌈A hunting-horn sounds⌉
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.
⌈A hunting-horn sounds⌉
The game is up.
Exit
3.4 Enter Pisanio, and Innogen in a riding-suit
INNOGEN
Thou told‘st me when we came from horse the place
Was near at hand. Ne’er longed my mother so
To see me first as I have now. Pisanio, man,
Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind
That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that
sigh
From th’inward of thee? One but painted thus
Would be interpreted a thing perplexed
Beyond self-explication. Put thyself
Into a haviour of less fear, ere wildness
Vanquish my staider senses. What’s the matter?
Pisanio gives her a letter
Why tender‘st thou that paper to me with
A look untender? If’t be summer news,
Smile to’t before; if winterly, thou need’st
But keep that count’nance still. My husband’s hand?
That drug-damned Italy hath out-craftied him,
And he’s at some hard point. Speak, man. Thy tongue
May take off some extremity which to read
Would be even mortal to me.
PISANIO
Please you read,
And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing