What is betid 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 I love my country,
Even to the note1 o' the king, or I'll fall in them.
All other doubts, by time let them be cleared;
Fortune brings in some boats, that are not steered.
[Exit.

SCENE IV. Before the Cave.

Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS. Gui. The noise is round about us.

Bel.

Let us from it.

Arv. What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it

From action and adventure?

Gui.

Nay, what hope

Have we in hiding us? This way, the Romans

Must, or for Britons slay us; or receive us
For barbarous and unnatural revolts,2
During their use, and slay us after.

Bel.

Sons,

We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us.

To the king's party there's no going; newness

Of Cloten's death (we being not known, not mustered Among the bands) may drive us to a render3

Where we have lived; and so extort from us

That which we've done, whose answer would be death, Drawn on with torture.

That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,

1 "I will so distinguish myself, the king shall remark my valor."

2 i. e. revolters.

3 "An account of our place of abode." Render is used in a similar sense in a future scene of this play :

"My boon is, that this gentleman may render

Of whom he had this ring."

Behold their quartered fires,1 have both their eyes
And ears so cloyed importantly as now,

That they will waste their time upon our note,
To know from whence we are.

Bel.

O, I am known

Of many in the army; many years,

Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him
From my remembrance. And, besides, the king
Hath not deserved my service, nor your loves;
Who find in my exile the want of breeding,
The certainty of this hard life; 2 ay, hopeless
To have the courtesy your cradle promised,
But to be still hot summer's tanlings, and
The shrinking slaves of winter.

Than be so,

Gui.
Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to the army.
I and my brother are not known; yourself,
So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,
Cannot be questioned.

Arv.

By this sun that shines,

I'll thither. What thing is it, that I never

Did see man die? scarce ever looked on blood,
But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison?
Never bestrid a horse, save one, that had

A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel
Nor iron on his heel? I am ashamed
To look upon the holy sun, to have

The benefit of his blessed beams, remaining
So long a poor unknown.

If

Gui.

By Heavens, I'll go !

you will bless me, sir, and give me leave, I'll take the better care; but if you will not, The hazard therefore due fall on me, by

The hands of Romans!

Arv.

So say I; amen.

Bel. No reason I, since on your lives you set So slight a valuation, should reserve

1 i. e. the fires in the respective quarters of the Roman army. 2 That is, "the certain consequence of this hard life."

My cracked one to more care.

Have with you, boys;

If in your country 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

scorn,

Till it fly out, and show them princes born.

[Aside.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. A Field between the British and Roman Camps.

Enter POSTHUMUS, with a bloody handkerchief."

Post. Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wished
Thou shouldst be colored thus. You married ones,
If each of you would take this course, how many
Must murder wives much better than themselves,
For wrying but a little?-O Pisanio!

Every good servant does not all commands:
No bond, but to do just ones.-Gods! if you
Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never
Had lived to put on this: so had you saved

3

The noble Imogen to repent; and struck

Me, wretch, more worth your vengeance. But, alack,
You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love
To have them fall no more: you some permit

To second ills with ills, each elder worse; 4

1 The bloody token of Imogen's death, which Pisanio, in the foregoing act, determined to send.

2 This uncommon verb is used by Stanyhurst in the third book of the translation of Virgil:

And in Sidney's Arcadia, lib. i. ed. 1633, p. 67:--"That from the right line of virtue are wryed to these crooked shifts."

3 To put on, is to incite, instigate.

4 The last deed is certainly not the oldest; but Shakspeare calls the deed of an elder man an elder deed.

And make them dread it to the doer's shrift.1

But Imogen is your own. Do your best wills,
And make me blessed to obey!-I am brought hither
Among the 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 myself
As does a Briton peasant. So I'll fight
Against the part I come with; so I'll die
For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life
Is, every breath, a death; and thus, unknown,
Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril
Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men know
More valor in me, than my habits show.
Gods put the strength o'the Leonati in me!
To shame the guise o' the world, I will begin
The fashion, less without, and more within.

[Exit.

SCENE II. The same.

Enter, at one side, LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman Army; at the other side, the British Army; LEONATUS POSTHUMUS following it, like a poor soldier. They march over, and go out. Alarums. Then enter again, in skirmish, IACHIMO and POSTHUMUS: he vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO, and then leaves him.

Jach. The heaviness and guilt within my bosom Takes off my manhood. I have belied a lady,

1 The old copy reads:

"And make them dread it to the doer's thrift." Which the commentators have in vain tormented themselves to give a meaning to. Mason endeavored to give the sense of repentance to thrift; but his explanation better suits the passage as it now stands :-"Some you snatch hence for little faults; others you suffer to heap ills on ills, and afterwards make them dread having done so, to the eternal welfare of the doers." Shrift is confession and repentance. The typographical error would easily arise in old printing.

The princess of this country, and the air on't
Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carl,'
A very drudge of nature's, have subdued me,
In my profession? Knighthoods and honors, borne
As I wear mine, are titles but of scorn.

If that thy gentry, Britain, go before

This lout, as he exceeds our lords, the odds

Is, that we scarce are men, and you are gods. [Exit.

The battle continues; the Britons fly; CYMBELINE is taken: then enter, to his rescue, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS.

Bel. Stand, stand! We have the advantage of the ground;

The lane is guarded; nothing routs us but
The villany of our fears.

Gui. Arv.

Stand, stand, and fight!

Enter POSTHUMUS, and seconds the Britons: They rescue CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and IMOGEN.

Luc. Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself; For friends kill friends, and the disorder's such As war were hoodwinked.

Iach.

'Tis their fresh supplies.

[Exeunt.

Luc. It is a day turned strangely; or betimes Let's reinforce, or fly.

SCENE III. Another Part of the Field.

Enter POSTHUMUS and a British Lord.

Lord. Cam'st thou from where they made the stand? Post.

Though you, it seems, come from the fliers.

I did;

Carl, or churl, is a clown or countryman, and is used by our old writers

in opposition to a gentleman.