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