Nor when she purposes return. 'Beseech your highness, Hold me your loyal servant. 1 Lord. Good my liege, I dare be bound he's true, and shall perform For Cloten, There wants no diligence in seeking him, Cym. The time's troublesome; We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy [TO PISANIO. Does yet depend.o Cym. Now for the counsel of my son and queen!— I am amazed with matter.3 1 Lord. 4 Good my liege, Your preparation can affront no less Than what you hear of: come more, for more you're ready. The want is, but to put those powers in motion, Сут. Let's withdraw; [Exeunt. Pis. I heard no letter 5 from my master, since I wrote him Imogen was slain. 'Tis strange. Nor hear I from my mistress, who did promise To yield me often tidings. Neither know I 1 This omission of the personal pronoun was by no means uncommon in Shakspeare's age. 2 "My suspicion is yet undetermined." We now say, the cause is depending. 3 i. e. confounded by a variety of business. 4 "Your forces are able to face such an army as we hear the enemy will bring against us." 5 Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, "I've had no letter." But perhaps "no letter” is here used to signify "no tidings," not a syllable of reply. What is betid to Cloten; but remain Perplexed in all. The Heavens still must work : SCENE IV. Before the Cave. [Exit. 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 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. Gui. This is, sir, a doubt, In such a time, nothing becoming you, Nor satisfying us. Arv. It is not likely, 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 That they will waste their time upon our note, Bel. O, I am known Of many in the army; many years, Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him Than be so, Gui. Arv. By this sun that shines, I'll thither. What thing is it, that I never But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison? A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel To look upon the holy sun, to have The benefit of his blessed beams, remaining Gui. If you will bless me, sir, By Heavens, I'll go ! and give me leave, but if you will not, The hazard therefore due fall on me, by 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.1 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! 2 Every good servant does not all commands: No bond, but to do just ones.-Gods! if you 3 The noble Imogen to repent; and struck Me, wretch, more worth your vengeance. But, alack, 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, Against my lady's kingdom. 'Tis enough thy mistress; peace! SCENE II. The same. [Exit. 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. Iach. 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:Is :-"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, |