Th’imperious seas breeds monsters; for the dish
Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
I am sick still, heart-sick. Pisanio,
I’ll now taste of thy drug.
⌈She swallows the drug.⌉ The men speak apart
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 th’ field, to th’ field!
(To Innogen) We’ll leave you for this time. Go in and rest.
ARVIRAGUS (to Innogen)
We’ll not be long away.
BELARIUS (to Innogen)
Pray be not sick,
For you must be our housewife.
INNOGEN Well or ill,
I am bound to you.
Exit
BELARIUS And shalt be ever.
This youth, howe’er distressed, appears hath had
Good ancestors.
ARVIRAGUS How angel-like he sings!
GUIDERIUS But his neat cookery!
⌈BELARIUS⌉
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 him both,
Mingle their spurs together.
ARVIRAGUS
Grow patience,
And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
His perishing root with the increasing vine.
RELARIUS
It is great morning. Come away. Who’s there?
Enter Cloten in Posthumus’ suit
CLOTEN
I cannot find those runagates. That villain
Hath mocked me. I am faint.
BELARIUS (aside to Arviragus and Guiderius)
‘Those runagates’?
Means he not us? I partly know him; ‘tis
Cloten, the son o’th’ 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 (aside to Arviragus and Belarius)
He is but one. You and my brother search
What companies are near. Pray you, away.
Let me alone with him.
Exeunt Arviragus and Belarius
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.
GUlDERIUS
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 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.
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.
Fight and exeunt
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.
Enter Guiderius with Cloten’s head
But see, thy brother.
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’d 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