Cymbeline (18 page)

We’ll
slip you for a season
, but our
jealousy
²⁵

Does yet depend.
²⁶

FIRST LORD
    So please your majesty,

The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,

Are landed on your coast with a supply

Of Roman
gentlemen
³⁰
by the senate sent.

CYMBELINE
    
Now for
³¹
the counsel of my son and queen!

I am
amazed with matter.
³²

FIRST LORD
    Good my liege,

Your preparation can
affront
³⁴
no less

Than what you hear of.
Come more
³⁵
, for more you’re ready:

The want is but
³⁶
to put those powers in motion

That long to move.

CYMBELINE
    I thank you: let’s withdraw

And meet the time as it seeks us. We fear not

What can from Italy
annoy
⁴⁰
us, but

We grieve at
chances
⁴¹
here. Away.

PISANIO
    I heard
no letter
⁴²
from my master since

I wrote him Innogen was slain. ’Tis strange:

Nor hear I from my mistress, who did promise

To yield me often tidings. Neither know I

What
is betid
⁴⁶
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
⁴⁹
I love my country,

Even to the note o’th’king
, or I’ll
fall
⁵⁰
in them.

All other doubts, by time let them be cleared:

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
⁵²

GUIDERIUS
    The
noise
¹
is round about us.

BELARIUS
    Let us from it.

ARVIRAGUS
    What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to
lock it
³

From action and adventure?

GUIDERIUS
    Nay, what hope

Have we in hiding us?
This way
⁶
the Romans

Must
or for
Britons slay us or
receive us
⁷

For barbarous and unnatural revolts

During their use, and slay us after.

BELARIUS
    Sons,

We’ll higher to the mountains, there
secure us.
¹¹

To the king’s party there’s no going: newness

Of Cloten’s death — we being
not known, not
mustered
¹³

Among the bands — may
drive us to a render
¹⁴

Where we have lived, and so
extort from’s
¹⁵
that

Which we have done, whose
answer
¹⁶
would be death

Drawn on with
¹⁷
torture.

GUIDERIUS
    This is, sir, a doubt

In such a time nothing becoming you,

Nor satisfying us.

ARVIRAGUS
    It is not likely

That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,

Behold their
quartered fires
²³
, have both their eyes

And ears so
cloyed importantly
²⁴
as now,

That they will waste their time
upon our note
²⁵
,

To know from whence we are.

BELARIUS
    O, I am known

Of
²⁸
many in the army: many years,

Though Cloten
then
but young, you see, not
wore
²⁹
him

From my
remembrance.
³⁰
And besides, the king

Hath not deserved my service nor your loves,

Who find in my exile the
want of breeding
³²
,

The
certainty
of this hard life,
aye hopeless
³³

To have the
courtesy
your
cradle
³⁴
promised,

But to be
still
hot summer’s
tanlings
³⁵
and

The
shrinking
slaves
of
winter.
³⁶

GUIDERIUS
    Than be so,

Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to th’army:

I and my brother are not known; yourself

So
out of thought
, and
thereto so o’ergrown
⁴⁰
,

Cannot be
questioned.
⁴¹

ARVIRAGUS
    By this sun that shines,

I’ll thither: what
thing is’t
⁴³
that I never

Did see man die, scarce ever looked on blood

But that of coward hares,
hot
goats and
venison!
⁴⁵

Never bestrid a horse, save one that had

A rider like myself, who ne’er wore
rowel
⁴⁷

Nor
iron
⁴⁸
on his heel! I am ashamed

To look upon the holy sun, to have

The benefit of his blest beams, remaining

So long a poor unknown.

GUIDERIUS
    By heavens, I’ll go:

If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave,

I’ll take the better
care
⁵⁴
: but if you will not,

The
hazard therefore due
⁵⁵
fall on me by

The hands of Romans.

ARVIRAGUS
    So say I, amen.

BELARIUS
    No reason I, since of your lives you set

So slight a valuation, should reserve

My
cracked
⁶⁰
one to more care. Have with you, boys!

If in your
country
⁶¹
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
⁶³

   scorn

Till it fly out and show them princes born.

POSTHUMUS
    Yea,
bloody cloth
¹
, I’ll keep thee: for I wished

Thou shouldst be coloured thus. You married ones,

If each of you should take this
course
³
, how many

Must murder wives much better than themselves

For
wrying
⁵
but a little? O Pisanio,

Every good servant
does not
⁶
all commands:

No bond but
⁷
to do just ones. Gods, if you

Should have
⁸
ta’en vengeance on my faults, I never

Had lived to
put on this
⁹
: so had you saved

The noble Innogen to
repent
¹⁰
, and struck

Me, wretch, more
worth
¹¹
your vengeance. But alack,

You snatch some hence for little faults; that’s love,

To have them
fall
¹³
no more: you some permit

To
second
ills with ills, each
elder
¹⁴
worse,

And
make them dread it
, to the doer’s
thrift.
¹⁵

But Innogen is your own: do your best wills,

And make me blest to obey. I am brought hither

Among th’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
²³
myself

As does a Briton peasant: so I’ll fight

Against the
part
²⁵
I come with: so I’ll die

For thee, O Innogen, even for whom my life

Is every breath a death: and thus, unknown,

Pitied
²⁸
nor hated, to the face of peril

Myself I’ll dedicate. Let me make men know

More valour in me than my
habits
³⁰
show.

Gods, put the strength o’th’Leonati in me!

To shame the
guise
³²
o’th’world, I will begin

The fashion,
less without and more within.
³³

IACHIMO
    The heaviness and guilt within my
bosom
¹

Takes
off
my manhood: I have
belied
²
a lady,

The princess of this country, and the air
on’t
³

Revengingly enfeebles me;
or could
this
carl
⁴
,

A
very drudge of nature’s
⁵
, have subdued me

In my
profession?
⁶
Knighthoods and honours, borne

As I wear mine, are titles
but of scorn.
⁷

If that thy gentry, Britain,
go before
⁸

This lout as he exceeds our lords, the
odds
⁹

Is that we scarce are men and you are gods.

BELARIUS
    Stand, stand, we have th’advantage of the ground.

The lane is guarded: nothing
routs
¹²
us but

The villainy of our fears.

GUIDERIUS
 
and
ARVIRAGUS
    Stand, stand and fight.

LUCIUS
    Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself:

For friends kill friends, and the disorder’s such

As
war were
hoodwinked.
¹⁷

IACHIMO
    ’Tis their fresh supplies.

LUCIUS
    It is a day turned strangely:
or betimes
¹⁹

Let’s reinforce, or fly.

LORD
    Cam’st thou from where they made the stand?

POSTHUMUS
    I did.

Though you, it seems, come from the
fliers.
³

LORD
    I did.

POSTHUMUS
    No blame be to you, sir, for all was lost,

But
⁶
that the heavens fought: the king himself

Of his
wings
⁷
destitute, the army broken,

And
but
⁸
the backs of Britons seen, all flying

Through a
strait
lane: the enemy
full-hearted
⁹
,

Lolling the tongue
¹⁰
with slaught’ring, having work

More plentiful than tools to do’t, struck down

Some
mortally
, some slightly
touched
¹²
, some falling

Merely through fear, that the strait pass was
dammed
¹³

With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living

To die with
lengthened
¹⁵
shame.

LORD
    Where was this lane?

POSTHUMUS
    Close by the battle, ditched and walled with turf,

Which gave advantage to an
ancient
¹⁸
soldier,

An honest one, I warrant,
who deserved
¹⁹

So long a breeding as his white beard came to

In doing this for’s country. Athwart the lane,

He, with two
striplings
— lads more like to
run
²²

The country base than to commit such slaughter,

With faces fit for
masks
²⁴
, or rather fairer

Than those for preservation cased, or shame —

Made good
²⁶
the passage, cried to those that fled,

‘Our Britain’s
harts
²⁷
die flying, not our men:

To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards.
²⁸
Stand,

Or we are Romans, and will give you
that
²⁹

Like beasts
which you shun
beastly
³⁰
, and may save

But to look back in
frown
³¹
: stand, stand.’ These three,

Three thousand confident, in act as many
³²
—

For three performers are the
file
³³
when all

The rest do nothing — with this word ‘Stand, stand’,

Accommodated
by the place, more
charming
³⁵

With their own nobleness, which could have turned

A
distaff
to a lance,
gilded pale looks
³⁷
;

Part
³⁸
shame, part spirit renewed, that some, turned coward

But by example
³⁹
— O, a sin in war,

Damned in the first beginners! —
’gan to look
⁴⁰

The way that they did, and to
grin
like
lions
⁴¹

Upon the pikes o’th’hunters. Then began

A
stop i’th’chaser
; a
retire
:
anon
⁴³

A rout, confusion thick: forthwith they fly

Chickens the way which
they stooped eagles
:
slaves
⁴⁵
,

The strides they victors made: and now our cowards,

Like fragments in hard voyages, became
⁴⁷

The life o’th’need:
having found the back door open
⁴⁸

Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound!

Some slain before, some dying
,
some their friends
⁵⁰

O’erborne i’th’former wave, ten chased by one,

Are now each one the slaughter-man of twenty:

Those that would die
or ere resist
are grown
⁵³

The
mortal bugs
o’th’field.
⁵⁴

LORD
    This was strange chance:

A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys.

POSTHUMUS
    Nay, do not
wonder at it
⁵⁷
: you are made

Rather to wonder at the things you hear

Than to
work any.
Will you rhyme
upon’t
⁵⁹
,

And
vent
it
for a mock’ry?
⁶⁰
Here is one:

‘Two boys, an old man —
twice a boy
⁶¹
— a lane,

Preserved the Britons, was the Romans’
bane.
⁶²
’

LORD
    Nay, be not angry, sir.

POSTHUMUS
    
’Lack, to what end?
⁶⁴

Who dares not
stand
⁶⁵
his foe, I’ll be his friend:

For if he’ll do as he is
made
⁶⁶
to do,

I know he’ll quickly
fly my friendship
⁶⁷
too.

You have put me into rhyme.

LORD
    Farewell, you’re angry.