Cymbeline | Page 5

I dare lay mine honour?He will remain so.
PISANIO.?I humbly thank your Highness.
QUEEN.?Pray, walk a while.
IMOGEN.?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.
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' the backside 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.]
SCENE III.
A room in CYMBELINE'S palace.
[Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO.]
IMOGEN.?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?
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 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.
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 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. But, good Pisanio,?When shall we hear from him?
PISANIO.?Be assured, 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,?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.
[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.]
SCENE IV.
Rome. PHILARIO'S house.
[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 judgement, 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