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