William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

Dear lady daughter, peace!- Sweet sovereign,

Leave us to ourselves, and make yourself some comfort

Out of your best advice.

CYMBELINE. Nay, let her languish

A drop of blood a day and, being aged,

Die of this folly. Exit, with LORDS

Enter PISANIO

QUEEN. Fie! you must give way.

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

PISANIO. My lord your son drew on my master.

QUEEN. Ha!

No harm, I trust, is done?

PISANIO. There might have been,

But that my master rather play'd than fought,

And had no help of anger; they were parted

By gentlemen at hand.

QUEEN. I am very glad on't.

IMOGEN. Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part

To draw upon an exile! O brave sir!

I would they were in Afric both together;

Myself by with a needle, that I might prick

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

PISANIO. On his command. He would not suffer me

To bring him to the haven; left these notes

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.

PISANIO. I humbly thank your Highness.

QUEEN. Pray walk awhile.

IMOGEN. About some half-hour hence,

Pray you speak with me. You shall at least

Go see my lord aboard. For this time leave me. Exeunt

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.

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

SECOND 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.

SECOND LORD. [Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o' th' back

side the town.

CLOTEN. The villain would not stand me.

SECOND 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.

SECOND LORD. [Aside] As many inches as you have oceans.

Puppies!

CLOTEN. I would they had not come between us.

SECOND LORD. [Aside] So would I, till you had measur'd how long a

fool you were upon the ground.

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

SECOND LORD. [Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is

damn'd.

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.

SECOND LORD. [Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection

should hurt her.

CLOTEN. Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt

done!

SECOND LORD. [Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of

an ass, 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, my lord. Exeunt

Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO

IMOGEN. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' th' haven,

And questioned'st 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?

PISANIO. It was: his queen, his queen!

IMOGEN. Then wav'd his handkerchief?

PISANIO. And kiss'd it, madam.

IMOGEN. Senseless linen, happier therein than I!

And that was all?

PISANIO. No, madam; for so long

As he could make me with his eye, or care

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.

IMOGEN. Thou shouldst have made him

As little as a crow, or less, ere left

To after-eye him.

PISANIO. Madam, so I did.

IMOGEN. I would have broke mine eyestrings, crack'd them but

To look upon him, till the diminution

Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;

Nay, followed him till he had melted from

The smallness of a gnat to air, and then

Have turn'd mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,

When shall we hear from him?

PISANIO. Be assur'd, madam,

With his next vantage.

IMOGEN. 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

Mine interest and his honour; or have charg'd him,

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

T' 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.

Enter a LADY

LADY. The Queen, madam,

Desires your Highness' company.

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

I will attend the Queen.

PISANIO. Madam, I shall. Exeunt

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a FRENCHMAN, a DUTCHMAN, and a SPANIARD

IACHIMO. 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 allowed the name of. But I could 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.

PHILARIO. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd than now he

is with that which makes him both without and within.

FRENCHMAN. I have seen him in France; we had very many there could

behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.

IACHIMO. This matter of marrying his king's daughter, wherein he

must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I

doubt not, a great deal from the matter.

FRENCHMAN. And then his banishment.

IACHIMO. 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?

PHILARIO. His father and I were soldiers together, to whom I have

been often bound for no less than my life.

Enter POSTHUMUS

Here comes the Briton. Let him be so entertained amongst you as suits with gentlemen of your knowing to a stranger of his quality. 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. FRENCHMAN. Sir, we have known together in Orleans. POSTHUMUS. Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still. FRENCHMAN. Sir, you o'errate 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. POSTHUMUS. By your pardon, sir. I was then a young traveller; rather shunn'd to go even with what I heard than in 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. FRENCHMAN. 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 fall'n both. IACHIMO. Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference? FRENCHMAN. 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. IACHIMO. That lady is not now living, or this gentleman's opinion, by this, worn out. POSTHUMUS. She holds her virtue still, and I my mind. IACHIMO. You must not so far prefer her fore ours of Italy. POSTHUMUS. Being so far provok'd as I was in France, I would abate her nothing, though I profess myself her adorer, not her friend. IACHIMO. As fair and as good- a kind of hand-in-hand comparison- 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 yours outlustres many I have beheld, I could not but believe she excelled many; but I have not seen the most precious diamond that is, nor you the lady. POSTHUMUS. I prais'd her as I rated her. So do I my stone. IACHIMO. What do you esteem it at? POSTHUMUS. More than the world enjoys. IACHIMO. Either your unparagon'd mistress is dead, or she's outpriz'd by a trifle. POSTHUMUS. 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. IACHIMO. Which the gods have given you? POSTHUMUS. Which by their graces I will keep. IACHIMO. You may wear her in title yours; but you know strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may be stol'n too. So your brace of unprizable estimations, the one is but frail and the other casual; a cunning thief, or a that-way-accomplish'd courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last. POSTHUMUS. Your Italy contains none so accomplish'd a courtier to convince the honour of my mistress, if in the holding or loss of that you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have store of thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring. PHILARIO. Let us leave here, gentlemen. POSTHUMUS. Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first. IACHIMO. With five times so much conversation I should get ground of your fair mistress; make her go back even to the yielding, had I admittance and opportunity to friend. POSTHUMUS. No, no. IACHIMO. I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to your ring, which, in my opinion, o'ervalues it something. But I make my wager rather against your confidence than her reputation; and, to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it against any lady in the world. POSTHUMUS. You are a great deal abus'd in too bold a persuasion, and I doubt not you sustain what y'are worthy of by your attempt. IACHIMO. What's that? POSTHUMUS. A repulse; though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more- a punishment too. PHILARIO. Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly; let it die as it was born, and I pray you be better acquainted. IACHIMO. Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's on th' approbation of what I have spoke! POSTHUMUS. What lady would you choose to assail? IACHIMO. Yours, whom in constancy you think stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring that, commend me to the court where your lady is, with no more advantage than the opportunity of a second conference, and I will bring from thence that honour of hers which you imagine so reserv'd. POSTHUMUS. I will wage against your gold, gold to it. My ring I hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it. IACHIMO. You are a friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting. But I see you have some religion in you, that you fear. POSTHUMUS. This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a graver purpose, I hope. IACHIMO. I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo what's spoken, I swear. POSTHUMUS. Will you? I Shall but lend my diamond till your return. Let there be covenants drawn between's. My mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking. I dare you to this match: here's my ring. PHILARIO. I will have it no lay. IACHIMO. By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too. If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours- provided I have your commendation for my more free entertainment. POSTHUMUS. I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us. Only, thus far you shall answer: if you make your voyage upon her, and give me directly to understand you have prevail'd, I am no further your enemy- she is not worth our debate; if she remain unseduc'd, you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill opinion and th' assault you have made to her chastity you shall answer me with your sword. IACHIMO. Your hand- a covenant! We will have these things set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain, lest the bargain should catch cold and starve. I will fetch my gold and have our two wagers recorded. POSTHUMUS. Agreed. Exeunt POSTHUMUS and IACHIMO FRENCHMAN. Will this hold, think you? PHILARIO. Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray let us follow 'em. Exeunt