Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN BELARIUS [To IMOGEN] You are not well: remain here in the cave;We'll come to you after hunting. ARVIRAGUS [To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here Are we not brothers? IMOGEN So man and man should be;But clay and clay differs in dignity, Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick. GUIDERIUS Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him. IMOGEN So sick I am not, yet I am not well;But not so citizen a wanton as To seem to die ere sick: so please you, leave me;Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me Cannot amend me; society is no comfort To one not sociable: I am not very sick, Since I can reason of it. Pray you, trust me here:
I'll rob none but myself; and let me die, Stealing so poorly. GUIDERIUS I love thee; I have spoke it How much the quantity, the weight as much, As I do love my father. BELARIUS What! how! how! ARVIRAGUS If it be sin to say so, I yoke me In my good brother's fault: I know not why I love this youth; and I have heard you say, Love's reason's without reason: the bier at door, And a demand who is't shall die, I'd say 'My father, not this youth.' BELARIUS [Aside] O noble strain!
O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!
Cowards father cowards and base things sire base:
Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.
I'm not their father; yet who this should be, Doth miracle itself, loved before me.
'Tis the ninth hour o' the morn. ARVIRAGUS Brother, farewell. IMOGEN I wish ye sport. ARVIRAGUS You health. So please you, sir. IMOGEN [Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies I have heard!
Our courtiers say all's savage but at court:
Experience, O, thou disprovest report!
The imperious seas breed monsters, for the dish Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio, I'll now taste of thy drug.
Swallows some 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 the field, to the field!
We'll leave you for this time: go in and rest. ARVIRAGUS We'll not be long away. BELARIUS Pray, be not sick, For you must be our housewife. IMOGEN Well or ill, I am bound to you. BELARIUS And shalt be ever.
Exit IMOGEN, to the cave This youth, how'er distress'd, appears he hath had Good ancestors. ARVIRAGUS How angel-like he sings! GUIDERIUS But his neat cookery! 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! BELARIUS It is great morning. Come, away!--Who's there?
Enter CLOTEN CLOTEN I cannot find those runagates; that villain Hath mock'd me. I am faint. BELARIUS 'Those runagates!'
Means he not us? I partly know him: 'tis Cloten, the son o' the 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 He is but one: you and my brother search What companies are near: pray you, away;Let me alone with him.
Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS 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 IAn 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. GUIDERIUS 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 the 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.
Exeunt, fighting Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS BELARIUS No companies 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 blurr'd 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 the effect of judgment Is oft the cause of fear. But, see, thy brother.
Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN'S head GUIDERIUS This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;There was no money in't: not Hercules Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none:
