Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

Nor when she purposes return. 'Beseech your highness, Hold me your loyal servant.

1 Lord.

Good my liege,
The day that she was missing, he was here;

I dare be bound he's true, and shall perform
All parts of his subjection loyally.

For Cloten,

There wants no diligence in seeking him,
And will,' no doubt, be found.

Cym. The time's troublesome;

We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy

[TO PISANIO.

Does yet depend.o
1 Lord.
So please your majesty,
The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,
Are landed on your coast; with a supply
Of Roman gentlemen, by the senate sent.

Cym. Now for the counsel of my son and queen!— I am amazed with matter.3

1 Lord.

4

Good my liege,

Your preparation can affront no less

Than what you hear of: come more, for more you're

ready.

The want is, but to put those powers in motion,
That long to move.

Сут.
I thank you.
And meet the time, as it seeks us.
What can from Italy annoy us; but
We grieve at chances here.-Away.

Let's withdraw;
We fear not

[Exeunt.

Pis. I heard no letter 5 from my master, since I wrote him Imogen was slain. 'Tis strange. Nor hear I from my mistress, who did promise To yield me often tidings. Neither know I

1 This omission of the personal pronoun was by no means uncommon in Shakspeare's age.

2 "My suspicion is yet undetermined." We now say, the cause is depending.

3 i. e. confounded by a variety of business.

4 "Your forces are able to face such an army as we hear the enemy will bring against us."

5 Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, "I've had no letter." But perhaps "no letter” is here used to signify "no tidings," not a syllable of reply.

What is betid to Cloten; but remain

Perplexed in all. The Heavens still must work :
Wherein I am false, I am honest; not true, to be true.
These present wars shall find I love my country,
Even to the note1 o' the king, or I'll fall in them.
All other doubts, by time let them be cleared;
Fortune brings in some boats, that are not steered.

SCENE IV. Before the Cave.

[Exit.

Enter BELARIUS, Guiderius, and ARVIRAGUS. Gui. The noise is round about us.

Bel.

Let us from it.

Arv. What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it

From action and adventure?

Gui.

Nay, what hope

Have we in hiding us? This way, the Romans

Must, or for Britons slay us; or receive us
For barbarous and unnatural revolts,2
During their use, and slay us after.

Bel.

Sons,

We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us.

To the king's party there's no going; newness

Of Cloten's death (we being not known, not mustered Among the bands) may drive us to a render3

Where we have lived; and so extort from us

That which we've done, whose answer would be death, Drawn on with torture.

Gui.

This is, sir, a doubt,

In such a time, nothing becoming you,

Nor satisfying us.

Arv.

It is not likely,

That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,

1 "I will so distinguish myself, the king shall remark my valor."

2 i. e. revolters.

3 "An account of our place of abode." Render is used in a similar sense in a future scene of this play :

"My boon is, that this gentleman may render

Of whom he had this ring."

Behold their quartered fires,1 have both their eyes
And ears so cloyed importantly as now,

That they will waste their time upon our note,
To know from whence we are.

Bel.

O, I am known

Of many in the army; many years,

Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him
From my remembrance. And, besides, the king
Hath not deserved my service, nor your loves;
Who find in my exile the want of breeding,
The certainty of this hard life; 2 ay, hopeless
To have the courtesy your cradle promised,
But to be still hot summer's tanlings, and
The shrinking slaves of winter.

Than be so,

Gui.
Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to the army.
I and my brother are not known; yourself,
So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,
Cannot be questioned.

Arv.

By this sun that shines,

I'll thither. What thing is it, that I never
Did see man die? scarce ever looked on blood,

But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison?
Never bestrid a horse, save one, that had

A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel
Nor iron on his heel? I am ashamed

To look upon the holy sun, to have

The benefit of his blessed beams, remaining
So long a poor unknown.

Gui.

If you will bless me, sir,
I'll take the better care;

By Heavens, I'll go ! and give me leave,

but if you will not,

The hazard therefore due fall on me, by
The hands of Romans!

Arv.

So say I; amen.

Bel. No reason I, since on your lives you set So slight a valuation, should reserve

1 i. e. the fires in the respective quarters of the Roman army. 2 That is, "the certain consequence of this hard life."

My cracked one to more care.

Have with you, boys;

If in your country wars you chance to die,

That is my bed too, lads, and there I'll lie.

Lead, lead.-The time seems long; their blood thinks

scorn,

Till it fly out, and show them princes born.

[Aside.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. A Field between the British and Roman Camps.

Enter POSTHUMUS, with a bloody handkerchief.1

Post. Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wished Thou shouldst be colored thus. You married ones, If each of you would take this course, how many Must murder wives much better than themselves, For wrying but a little ?-O Pisanio!

2

Every good servant does not all commands:

No bond, but to do just ones.-Gods! if you
Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never
Had lived to put on3 this: so had you saved

3

The noble Imogen to repent; and struck

Me, wretch, more worth your vengeance. But, alack,
You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love
To have them fall no more: you some permit

To second ills with ills, each elder worse; 4

1 The bloody token of Imogen's death, which Pisanio, in the foregoing act, determined to send.

2 This uncommon verb is used by Stanyhurst in the third book of the translation of Virgil:

[blocks in formation]

And in Sidney's Arcadia, lib. i. ed. 1633, p. 67:"That from the right line of virtue are wryed to these crooked shifts."

3 To put on, is to incite, instigate.

4 The last deed is certainly not the oldest; but Shakspeare calls the deed of an elder man an elder deed.

[blocks in formation]

And make them dread it to the doer's shrift.1

But Imogen is your own. Do your best wills,
And make me blessed to obey!-I am brought hither
Among the Italian gentry, and to fight

Against my lady's kingdom. 'Tis enough
That, Britain, I have killed

thy mistress; peace!
I'll give no wound to thee. Therefore, good Heavens,
Hear patiently my purpose. I'll disrobe me
Of these Italian weeds, and suit myself
As does a Briton peasant. So I'll fight
Against the part I come with; so I'll die
For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life
Is, every breath, a death; and thus, unknown,
Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril
Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men know
More valor in me, than my habits show.
Gods put the strength o' the Leonati in me!
To shame the guise o' the world, I will begin
The fashion, less without, and more within.

SCENE II. The same.

[Exit.

Enter, at one side, LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman Army; at the other side, the British Army; LEONATUS POSTHUMUS following it, like a poor soldier. They march over, and go out. Alarums. Then enter again, in skirmish, IACHIMO and POSTHUMUS: he vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO, and then leaves him. Iach. The heaviness and guilt within my bosom Takes off my manhood. I have belied a lady,

1 The old copy reads:

"And make them dread it to the doer's thrift."

Which the commentators have in vain tormented themselves to give a meaning to. Mason endeavored to give the sense of repentance to thrift; but his explanation better suits the passage as it now stands:Is :-"Some you snatch hence for little faults; others you suffer to heap ills on ills, and afterwards make them dread having done so, to the eternal welfare of the doers." Shrift is confession and repentance. The typographical error would easily arise in old printing,

« VorigeDoorgaan »