Cymbeline (5 page)

QUEEN
    No, be assured you shall not find me, daughter,

After the slander
⁸⁰
of most stepmothers,

Evil-eyed unto you. You’re my prisoner, but

Your jailer shall deliver you the keys

That lock up your
restraint.
⁸³
For you, Posthumus,

So soon as I can
win
⁸⁴
th’offended king,

I will be known your advocate:
marry
⁸⁵
, yet

The fire of rage is in him, and ’twere good

You
leaned unto
his sentence,
with what patience
⁸⁷

Your wisdom may inform you.

POSTHUMUS
    
Please
⁸⁹
your highness,

I will
from hence
⁹⁰
today.

QUEEN
    You know the
peril.
⁹¹

I’ll
fetch a turn
about the garden,
pitying
⁹²

The
pangs of barred affections
⁹³
, though the king

Hath
charged
⁹⁴
you should not speak together.

INNOGEN
    O
dissembling
⁹⁵
courtesy! How fine this tyrant

Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,

I something fear my father’s wrath, but nothing —

Always
reserved my holy duty
⁹⁸
— what

His rage can do on me. You must be gone,

And I shall here abide the
hourly shot
¹⁰⁰

Of angry eyes: not comforted to live,

But that there is this jewel in the world

That I may see again.

POSTHUMUS
    My queen, my mistress:

O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause

To be suspected of
more tenderness
¹⁰⁶

Than doth become a man. I will remain

The loyal’st husband that did e’er
plight troth.
¹⁰⁸

My residence in Rome, at one Philario’s,

Who to my father was a friend, to me

Known but by letter:
thither
¹¹¹
write, my queen,

And with mine eyes I’ll drink the words you send,

Though ink be made of
gall.
¹¹³

QUEEN
    Be brief, I pray you:

If the king come, I shall incur I know not

How much of his displeasure.—Yet I’ll move him

To walk this way: I never do him wrong,

But he does
buy
¹¹⁸
my injuries to be friends:

Pays dear for my offences.

POSTHUMUS
    Should we be taking leave

As long a
term
¹²¹
as yet we have to live,

The
loathness
¹²²
to depart would grow. Adieu.

INNOGEN
    Nay, stay a little:

Were you but riding forth to air yourself,

Such parting were too
petty.
¹²⁵
Look here, love,

This diamond was my mother’s; take it, heart,

But keep it till you woo another wife,

When Innogen is dead.

POSTHUMUS
    How, how? Another?

You gentle gods, give me but this I have,

And
cere
¹³¹
up my embracements from a next

With bonds of death. Remain, remain thou here

While
sense
¹³³
can keep it on: and sweetest, fairest,

As I my poor self did exchange for you
¹³⁴

To your so infinite loss, so in our
trifles
¹³⁵

I still win of you. For my sake wear this,

It is a manacle of love. I’ll place it

Upon this
fairest prisoner.
¹³⁸

INNOGEN
    O, the gods!

When shall we
see
¹⁴⁰
again?

POSTHUMUS
    
Alack
¹⁴¹
, the king!

CYMBELINE
    Thou
basest
thing,
avoid hence
¹⁴²
, from my sight:

If after this command thou
fraught
¹⁴³
the court

With thy unworthiness, thou diest. Away,

Thou’rt poison to my blood.

POSTHUMUS
    The gods protect you,

And bless the
good remainders
¹⁴⁷
of the court:

I am gone.

INNOGEN
    There cannot be a
pinch
¹⁴⁹
in death

More sharp than this is.

CYMBELINE
    O disloyal thing,

That shouldst
repair
¹⁵²
my youth, thou heap’st

A year’s age on me.

INNOGEN
    I beseech you, sir,

Harm not yourself with your vexation,

I am
senseless of
your wrath; a
touch more rare
¹⁵⁶

Subdues all pangs, all fears.

CYMBELINE
    Past grace? Obedience?

INNOGEN
    Past hope and in despair: that way
past grace.
¹⁵⁹

CYMBELINE
    That mightst have had the sole son of my queen.

INNOGEN
    O, blest that I might not: I chose an eagle,

And did avoid a
puttock.
¹⁶²

CYMBELINE
    Thou took’st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne

A seat for baseness.

INNOGEN
    No, I rather added a lustre to it.

CYMBELINE
    O thou vile one!

INNOGEN
    Sir,

It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus:

You bred him as my playfellow, and he is

A man worth any woman:
overbuys me
¹⁷⁰

Almost the sum he pays.

CYMBELINE
    What? Art thou mad?

INNOGEN
    Almost, sir: heaven restore me! Would I were

A
neatherd’s
¹⁷⁴
daughter, and my Leonatus

Our neighbour shepherd’s son.

CYMBELINE
    Thou foolish thing!—

They were again together: you have done

Not
after
¹⁷⁸
our command.— Away with her,

And pen her up.

QUEEN
    
Beseech
¹⁸⁰
your patience: peace,

Dear lady daughter, peace. Sweet sovereign,

Leave us to ourselves, and make yourself some comfort

Out of your
best advice.
¹⁸³

CYMBELINE
    Nay, let her
languish
¹⁸⁴

A
drop of blood a day
¹⁸⁴
, and being aged,

Die of this folly.

QUEEN
    
Fie, you must give way.
¹⁸⁷

Here is your servant.—How now, sir? What news?

PISANIO
    My lord your son
drew
¹⁸⁹
on my master.

QUEEN
    Ha?

No harm I trust is done?

PISANIO
    There might have been,

But that my master rather played than fought,

And had
no help of anger
¹⁹⁴
: they were parted

By gentlemen at hand.

QUEEN
    I am very glad on’t.

INNOGEN
    Your son’s my father’s friend, he
takes his part
¹⁹⁷

To draw upon an exile.—O brave sir!—

I would they were in
Afric
¹⁹⁹
both together,

Myself by with a needle, that I might prick

The
goer-back.
²⁰¹
—Why came you from your master?

PISANIO
    On his command: he would not
suffer
²⁰²
me

To bring him to the
haven
²⁰³
: left these notes

Of what commands I should be subject to,

When’t pleased you to employ me.

QUEEN
    This hath been

Your faithful servant: I dare
lay
²⁰⁷
mine honour

He will remain so.

PISANIO
    I humbly thank your highness.

QUEEN
    Pray walk awhile.

INNOGEN
    About some half hour hence, pray you

speak with me.

You shall, at least, go see my lord aboard.

For this time leave me.

FIRST LORD
    Sir, I would advise you to
shift a shirt
; the
violence
¹

of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice:
where air comes
²

out, air comes in: there’s none
abroad
³
so wholesome as that

you vent.

CLOTEN
    If my shirt were bloody,
then to
⁵
shift it. Have I hurt

him?

SECOND LORD
    No, faith:
not so much as
⁷
his patience.

FIRST LORD
    Hurt him? His body’s a
passable carcass
⁸
if he be not

hurt. It is a thoroughfare for steel if it be not hurt.

SECOND LORD
    
His steel was in debt, it went o’th’backside
¹⁰

the town.

CLOTEN
    The villain would not
stand me.
¹²

SECOND LORD
    No, but he fled forward still, toward your

face.

FIRST LORD
    Stand you? You have land enough of your own: but

he added to your having, gave you some ground.

SECOND LORD
    
As many inches as you have oceans.
Puppies!
¹⁷

CLOTEN
    I would they had not come between us.

SECOND LORD
    So would I,
till you had measured how long
¹⁹

a fool you were upon the ground.

CLOTEN
    And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me!

SECOND LORD
    If it be a sin to make a true
election
²²
, she is

damned.

FIRST LORD
    Sir, as I told you always: her beauty and her brain

go not together.
She’s a good sign
²⁵
, but I have seen small

reflection
of her
wit.
²⁶

SECOND LORD
    She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection

should hurt her.

CLOTEN
    Come, I’ll to my chamber:
would there had
²⁹
been

some hurt done.

SECOND LORD
    I wish not so, unless it had been the fall of

an
ass
³²
, which is no great hurt.

CLOTEN
    You’ll go with us?

FIRST LORD
    I’ll attend your lordship.

CLOTEN
    Nay, come, let’s go together.

SECOND LORD
    
Well
³⁶
, my lord.

INNOGEN
    I would thou
grew’st unto
¹
the shores o’th’haven,

And questioned’st every sail
²
: if he should write,

And I not have it, ’twere a paper lost,

As
offered mercy
⁴
is. What was the last

That he
spake
⁵
to thee?

PISANIO
    It was his queen, his queen.

INNOGEN
    Then waved his handkerchief?

PISANIO
    And kissed it, madam.

INNOGEN
    
Senseless
⁹
linen, happier therein than I:

And that was all?

PISANIO
    No, madam: for so long

As he could
make me
¹²
with this eye, or ear,

Distinguish him from others, he did
keep
¹³

The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,

Still waving,
as
the
fits and stirs of’s mind
¹⁵

Could best express how
slow his soul sailed on
¹⁶
,

How swift his ship.

INNOGEN
    
Thou shouldst have made him
¹⁸

As little as a crow, or less,
ere left
¹⁹

To
after-eye
²⁰
him.

PISANIO
    Madam, so I did.

INNOGEN
    I would have broke mine
eyestrings
²²
, cracked them, but

To look upon him, till the
diminution
²³

Of space had
pointed
²⁴
him sharp as my needle:

Nay, followed him, till he had melted from

The smallness of a gnat to air: and then

Have turned mine eye, and wept. But, good Pisanio,

When shall we hear from him?

PISANIO
    Be assured, madam,

With his next vantage.
³⁰

INNOGEN
    I did not take my leave of him, but had

Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him

How I would think on him at certain hours,

Such thoughts and such: or I could make him swear

The
shes
³⁵
of Italy should not betray

Mine
interest
³⁶
and his honour: or have charged him,

At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight
³⁷
,

T’encounter me with
orisons
³⁸
, for then

I am in heaven for him: or ere I could

Give him that parting kiss, which I had set

Betwixt two
charming
⁴¹
words, comes in my father,

And like the tyrannous breathing of the
north
⁴²
,

Shakes all our buds from growing.