Of what commands I should be subject to,

When 't pleas'd you to employ me.
QUEEN.
This hath been
Your faithful servant: I dare lay mine honour

He will remain so.

PIS.

I humbly thank your Highness.

QUEEN. Pray, walk a while.
IMO.

About some half-hour hence,

I pray you, speak with me: you shall at least
Go see my Lord aboard: for this time leave me.

[exeunt.

SCENE II. The Same. A Public Place.

Enter CLOTEN and two Lords.

FIRST LORD. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out, air comes in: there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.

CLO. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him?

SEC. LORD [aside.] No, 'faith; not so much as his patience.

FIRST LORD. Hurt him! his body's a passable carcass, if he be not hurt: it is a throughfare for steel, if it be not hurt.

II

SEC. LORD [aside.] His steel was in debt; it went o' the backside the town.

CLO. The villain would not stand me.

SEC. LORD [aside.] 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.

SEC. LORD [aside.] As many inches as you have oceans.
Puppies!

CLO. I would they had not come between us.

SEC. LORD [aside.] So would I, till you had measur'd
how long a fool you were upon the ground.
CLO. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me!

ACT I

Sc. I

ACT I SEC. LORD [aside.] If it be a sin to make a true election,

FIRST LORD. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together; she's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit.

30

SEC. LORD [aside.] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her.

CLO. Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt done!

SEC. LORD [aside.] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt.

CLO. You'll go with us?

FIRST LORD. I'll attend your Lordship.

CLO. Nay, come, let's go together.

SEC. LORD. Well, my Lord.

[exeunt.

SCENE III. The Same. A Room in CYMBELINE's Palace.

Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO.

IMO. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven,
And question'dst every sail: if he should write,
And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost,

As offer'd mercy is. What was the last

That he spake to thee?

PIS.

It was, His Queen, his Queen!

And kiss'd it, Madam.

IMO. Then wav'd his handkerchief?
PIS.

IMO. Senseless linen! happier therein than I!
And that was all?

PIS.
No, Madam; for so long
As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of's mind
Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,
How swift his ship.

IMO.

Thou should'st have made him

As little as a crow, or less, ere left

To after-eye him.

ΤΟ

IMO. I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack'd them, but

To look upon him; till the diminution

Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, follow'd him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then
Have turn'd mine eye, and wept.
When shall we hear from him?

PIS.

With his next vantage.

But, good Pisanio,

Be assur'd, Madam,

Iмo. 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 of Italy should not betray

20

Mine interest and his honour; or have charg'd him, 30
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,

To encounter me with orisons, for then

I am in Heaven for him; or ere I could

Give him that parting kiss which I had set

Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the North,
Shakes all our buds from growing.

ACT I

Sc. III

LADY.

Enter a Lady.

The Queen, Madam,

Desires your Highness' company.

IMO. Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch'd.

I will attend the Queen.

PIS.

Madam, I shall.

[exeunt.

SCENE IV. Rome. PHILARIO'S House.

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard.

IACH. Believe it, Sir, I have seen him in Britain: he was then of a crescent note; expected to prove so worthy as since he hath been allow'd the name of: but I could

ነ

ACT I
Sc. IV

then have look'd on him without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side, and I to peruse him by items.

PHI. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd than now he is with that which makes him both without and within.

II

FRENCH. I have seen him in France: we had very many there could behold the Sun with as firm eyes as he. IACH. This matter of marrying his King's daughter (wherein he must be weigh'd rather by her value than his own) words him, I doubt not, a great deal from the matter.1

FRENCH. And then his banishment

IACH. Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar without less quality. But how comes it he is to sojourn with you? how creeps acquaintance?

2

22

PHI. His father and I were soldiers together; to whom I have been often bound for no less than my life. Here comes the Briton: let him be so entertain’d amongst you as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of his quality.

Enter POSTHUMUS.

I beseech you all, be better known to this gentleman; whom I commend to you as a noble friend of mine: how worthy he is I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.

31

FRENCH. Sir, we have known together in Orleans.
POST. Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies,
which I will be ever to pay, and yet pay still.
FRENCH. Sir, you o'er-rate my poor kindness. I was
glad I did atone my countryman and you: it had been
pity you should have been put together with so mortal
a purpose as then each bore, upon importance of so
slight and trivial a nature.

39

Post. By your pardon, Sir, I was then a young traveller ; rather shunn'd to go even with what I heard3 than in

2 of so little quality.

1 i.e. gives him more importance than he deserves.
216 3 i.e. avoided conforming with the opinions of others.

my every action to be guided by others' experiences: but, upon my mended judgment (if I offend not to say it is mended) my quarrel was not altogether slight. FRENCH. 'Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords; and by such two that would, by all likelihood, have confounded one the other, or have fallen both. 47 IACH. Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference? FRENCH. Safely, I think: 'twas a contention in public, which may, without contradiction, suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last night, where each of us fell in praise of our country mistresses; this gentleman at that time vouching (and upon warrant of bloody affirmation) his to be more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant - qualified, and less attemptable, than any the rarest of our ladies in France.

IACH. That lady is not now living; or this gentleman's opinion, by this, worn out.

60

POST. She holds her virtue still, and I my mind.
IACH. You must not so far prefer her 'fore our's of Italy.
POST. Being so far provok'd as I was in France, I would
abate her nothing; though I profess myself her adorer,
not her friend.1

IACH. As fair and as good (a kind of hand-in-hand com-
parison) had been something too fair and too good for
any lady in Britain. If she went before others I have
seen, as that diamond of your's outlustres many I have
beheld, I could not but believe she excell'd many; but
I have not seen the most precious diamond that is,
nor you the lady.

POST. I prais'd her as I rated her; so do I my stone.
IACH. What do you esteem it at?

POST. More than the world enjoys.

71

IACH. Either your unparagon'd mistress is dead, or she's outpriz'd by a trifle.

POST. You are mistaken: the one may be sold or given, if there were wealth enough for the purchase or merit for the gift; the other is not a thing for sale, and only the gift of the Gods.

IACH. Which the Gods have given you?

80

ACT I

Sc. IV

1 i.e. her worshipper, not her lover.