Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs, blowing below the violet,

Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchafed, as the rud'st wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonderful,
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearned; honor untaught;
Civility not seen from other; valor,

That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
As if it had been sowed! Yet still it's strange
What Cloten's being here to us portends;
Or what his death will bring us.

Gui.

Re-enter GUIDERIUS.

Where's my brother?

I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,
In embassy to his mother; his body's hostage
For his return.

[Solemn music.

Bel.
My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds! but what occasion
Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!

Gui. Is he at home?

Bel.

Gui. What does he dear'st mother

He went hence even now.

mean? Since death of my

It did not speak before. All solemn things
Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
Triumphs for nothing, and lamenting toys,1
Is jollity for apes, and grief for boys.

Is Cadwal mad?

Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, bearing IMOGEN, as dead, in his

Bel.

arms.

Look, here he comes,

And brings the dire occasion in his arms,

Of what we blame him for!

1 Toys are trifles.

Arv.
The bird is dead,
That we have made so much on. I had rather
Have skipped from sixteen years of age to sixty,
To have turned my leaping time into a crutch,
Than have seen this.

Gui.
O sweetest, fairest lily!
My brother wears thee not the one half so well,
As when thou grew'st thyself.

Bel.

O melancholy!
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find

The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare 1
Might easiliest harbor in?-Thou blessed thing!
Jove knows what man thou might'st have made?
but I,2

Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy !—

Stark, as you see.

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
Not as death's dart, being laughed at; his right cheek
Reposing on a cushion.

Gui.

Arv.

4

Where?

O' the floor;

His arms thus leagued. I thought he slept; and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answered my steps too loud.

Gui.

Why, he but sleeps.

If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee.

Arv.

With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

1 A crare was a small vessel of burden, sometimes spelled craer, crayer, and even craye. The old copy reads, erroneously, " - thy sluggish care." The emendation was suggested by Sympson in a note on The Captain of Beaumont and Fletcher.

2 We should most probably read, "but ah!" Ay is always printed ah! in the first folio, and other books of the time. Hence, perhaps, I, which was used for the affirmative particle ay, crept into the text.

3 Stark means entirely cold and stiff.

4" Clouted brogues" are coarse wooden shoes, strengthened with clout or hob-nails. In some parts of England thin plates of iron, called clouts, are fixed to the shoes of rustics.

I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,

1

Out-sweetened not thy breath. The ruddock 1 would
With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!) bring thee all this;

Yea, and furred moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground 2 thy corse.

Gui.

Pr'ythee, have done;

And do not play in wench-like words with that
Which is so serious. Let us bury him,

And not protract with admiration what

Is now due debt.-To the grave.

Arv.

Say, where shall's lay him?

Gui. By good Euriphile, our mother.
Arv.

Be't so.

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices

Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground
As once our mother; use like note, and words,
Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.

Gui. Cadwal,

I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee;
For notes of sorrow, out of tune, are worse

Than priests and fanes that lie.

Arv.

We'll speak it then.

Bel. Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten

Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;

And, though he came our enemy, remember,

He was paid for that. Though mean and mighty, rotting

1 The ruddock is the redbreast.

2 To winter-ground appears to mean to dress or decorate thy corse with "furred moss," for a winter covering.

3 So in King Lear :

66

Where the greater malady is fixed,
The lesser is scarce felt."

4 i. e. punished.

Together, have one dust; yet reverence

(That angel of the world) doth make distinction. Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely; And though you took his life, as being our foe,

Yet bury him as a prince.

Pray you, fetch him hither.

Gui.
Thersites' body is as good as Ajax,

When neither are alive.

If you'll go fetch him,

Arv.
We'll say our song the whilst.-Brother, begin.

[Exit BELARIUS. Gui. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the

east;

My father hath a reason for't.

'Tis true.

Arv.
Gui. Come on, then, and remove him.

Arv.

SONG.

So,-begin.

Gui. Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.

Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Arv. Fear no more the frown o' the great;

Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;

Care no more to clothe, and eat;

To thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic must
All follow this, and come to dust.1

Gui. Fear no more the lightning-flash.
Arv. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;

1 The Poet's sentiment seems to have been this:-All human excellence is equally subject to the stroke of death: neither the power of kings, nor the science of scholars, nor the art of those whose immediate study is the prolongation of life, can protect them from the final destiny of man.

Gui. Fear not slander, censure rash ;
Arv. Thou hast finished joy and moan.
Both. All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee,' and come to dust

Gui. No exorciser 2 harm thee!
Arv. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Gui. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Arv. Nothing ill come near thee!
Both. Quiet consummation have ;
And renowned be thy grave!

Re-enter BELARIUS, with the body of CLOTEN. Gui. We have done our obsequies; come, lay him down.

Bel. Here's a few flowers, but about midnight, more; The herbs, that have on them cold dew o'the night, Are strewings fitt'st for graves.-Upon their faces: You were as flowers, now withered; even so These herb'lets shall, which we upon you strow.Come on, away; apart upon our knees. The ground, that gave them first, has them again; Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain. [Exeunt BEL., GUI., and ARV. Imo. [Awaking.] Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven; which is the way?

I thank you. By yon bush ?-Pray, how far thither? 'Ods pitikins! Can it be six miles yet?

3

I have gone all night.-'Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.
But, soft! no bedfellow ;-O gods and goddesses!
[Seeing the body.
These flowers are like the pleasures of the world;
This bloody man, the care on't.-I hope I dream;
For, so, I thought I was a cave-keeper,

1 To "consign to thee" is to "seal the same contract with thee; " i. e. add their names to thine upon the register of death.

2 It has already been observed, that exorciser anciently signified a per

son who could raise spirits, not one who lays them.

3 This diminutive adjuration is derived from God's pity, by the addition of kin. In this manner we have also 'Od's bodikins.