Iach. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot To entreat your grace but in a small request, And yet of moment too, for it concerns Your lord; myself, and other noble friends, Are partners in the business.

Imo.

Pray, what is't?

Iach. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord, (The best feather of our wing,1) have mingled sums, To buy a present for the emperor;

Which I, the factor for the rest, have done

2

In France. 'Tis plate, of rare device; and jewels,
Of rich and exquisite form; their values great;
And I am something curious, being strange,
To have them in safe stowage. May it please you
To take them in protection?

Imo.

Willingly;
And pawn mine honor for their safety. Since
My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them
In my bedchamber.

Iach.

They are in a trunk,

Attended by my men. I will make bold
To send them to you, only for this night;

I must aboard to-morrow.

Imo.

O, no, no.

Iach. Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word,

By lengthening my return. From Gallia

I crossed the seas on purpose, and on promise

To see your grace.

Imo.

I thank you for your pains;

But not away to-morrow?

Iach.
O, I must, madam;
Therefore, I shall beseech you, if you please
To greet your lord with writing, do't to-night.
I have outstood my time; which is material
To the tender of our present.

1

"You are so great you would faine march in fielde,
That world should judge you feathers of one wing."
Churchyard's Warning to Wanderers, 1593.

See note 4, p. 237, ante.

Imo.

I will write.

Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept, yielded you. You are very welcome.

And truly yielded you.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. Court before Cymbeline's Palace.

Enter CLOTEN and two Lords.

Clo. Was there ever man had such luck! when I kissed the jack upon an upcast,' to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't. And then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my pleasure. 1 Lord. What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your bowl.

2 Lord. If his wit had been like him that broke it, it would have ran all out. [Aside. Clo. When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths. Ha?

2 Lord. No, my lord; nor [Aside] crop the ears of them.

Clo. Whoreson dog!-I give him satisfaction? 'Would he had been one of my rank!

[Aside.

2 Lord. To have smelt like a fool." Clo. I am not more vexed at any thing in the earth,— A pox on't! I had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me, because of the queen, my mother. Every jack-slave hath his belly full of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody can match.

1 He is describing his fate at bowls. The jack is the small bowl at which the others are aimed; he who is nearest to it wins. "To kiss the jack" is a state of great advantage. The expression is of frequent occurrence in the old comedies. The jack is also called the mistress. 2 The same quibble has occurred in As You Like It.

2 Lord. You are a cock and capon too; and you crow, cock, with your comb on.1

Clo. Sayest thou?

[Aside.

1 Lord. It is not fit your lordship should undertake every companion that you give offence to.

2

Clo. No, I know that; but it is fit I should commit offence to my inferiors.

2 Lord. Ay, it is fit for your lordship only.

Clo. Why, so I say.

1 Lord. Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court to-night?

Clo. A stranger! and I not know on't?

2 Lord. He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it

not.

[Aside. 1 Lord. There's an Italian come; and, 'tis thought, one of Leonatus' friends.

Clo. Leonatus! a banished rascal; and he's another, whatsoever he be. Who told you of this stranger? 1 Lord. One of your lordship's pages.

Clo. Is it fit I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation in't?

1 Lord. You cannot derogate, my lord. Clo. Not easily, I think.

therefore your [Aside. What I have Come, go.

2 Lord. You are a fool granted; issues, being foolish, do not derogate. Clo. Come, I'll go see this Italian. lost to-day at bowls, I'll win to-night of him. 2 Lord. I'll attend your lordship.

[Exeunt CLOTEN and first Lord. That such a crafty devil as is his mother Should yield the world this ass! a woman that Bears all down with her brain; and this her son Cannot take two from twenty for his heart, And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess, Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st! Betwixt a father by thy step-dame governed;

1 That is, in other words, you are a coxcomb.

2 The use of companion was the same as of fellow now. It was a word of contempt.

A mother hourly coining plots; a wooer
More hateful than the foul expulsion is
Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act

Of the divorce he'd make! The Heavens hold firm
The walls of thy dear honor; keep unshaked
That temple, thy fair mind; that thou mayst stand,
To enjoy thy banished lord, and this great land!

[Exit.

SCENE II. A Bedchamber; in one part of it a

trunk.

IMOGEN reading in her bed; a Lady attending.

Imo. Who's there? my woman Helen?

Lady.

Imo. What hour is it?

Please you, madam.

Lady.

Almost midnight, madam.

Imo. I have read three hours, then; mine eyes are

weak.

Fold down the leaf where I have left. To bed;
Take not away the taper; leave it burning;
And if thou canst awake by four o' the clock,

I pr'ythee, call me. Sleep hath seized me wholly.

To your protection I commend me, gods!
From fairies, and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye!

[Exit Lady.

[Sleeps. IACHIMO, from the trunk.

Iach. The crickets sing, and man's o'erlabored sense

Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus

Did softly press the rushes,' ere he wakened.

The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea,

How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! Fresh lily!
And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
But kiss; one kiss!-Rubies unparagoned,
How dearly they do't!-'Tis her breathing that

1 It was anciently the custom to strew chambers with rushes.

Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' the taper
Bows toward her; and would underpeep her lids,
To see the inclosed lights, now canopied

Under these windows; white and azure, laced
With blue of heaven's own tinct.'-But my design?
To note the chamber.-I will write all down;-
Such, and such, pictures ;-there the window ;-such
The adornment of her bed;-the arras, figures,
Why, such, and such;-and the contents o'the story,—
Ay, but some natural notes about her body,
Above ten thousand meaner movables
Would testify to enrich mine inventory.
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying!-Come off, come off;-
[Taking off her bracelet.

As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!
'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To the madding of her lord. On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowslip. Here's a voucher,
Stronger than ever law could make: this secret
Will force him think I have picked the lock, and ta'en
The treasure of her honor. No more.-To what end?
Why should I write this down, that's riveted,
Screwed to my memory? She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus; 2 here the leaf's turned down,
Where Philomel gave up.-I have enough;

To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift, swift, you dragons of the night! 3-that dawning

1 Warburton wished to read:

66

White with azure laced,

The blue of heaven's own tinct."

But there is no necessity for change. By azure our ancestors understood not a dark blue, but a light glaucous color, a tinct or effusion of a blue color.

2 Tereus and Progne is the second tale in A Petite Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, 4to. 1576. The story is related in Ovid, Metam. 1. vi. ; and by Gower in his Confessio Amantis, b. v. fol. 113, b.

3 The task of drawing the chariot of Night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness.