Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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CYMBELINE

OUR first reference to Cymbeline is a note by the astrologer Simon Forman that he saw the play, probably not long before his death on 8 September 1611. He refers to the heroine as ‘Innogen’, and this name occurs in the sources; the form ‘Imogen’, found only in the Folio, appears to be a misprint. The play’s courtly tone, and the masque-like quality of, particularly, the episode (5.5.186.1-2) in which Jupiter ‘descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an eagle’ and ‘throws a thunderbolt’, suggests that as Shakespeare wrote he may have had in mind the audiences and the stage equipment of the Blackfriars theatre, which his company used from the autumn of 1609; and stylistic evidence places the play in about 1610-11. It was first printed in the 1623 Folio, as the last of the tragedies. In fact it is a tragicomedy, or a romance, telling a complex and implausible tale of events which cause the deaths of certain subsidiary characters (Cloten, and the Queen) and bring major characters (including the heroine, Innogen) close to death, but which are miraculously resolved in the reunions and reconciliations of the closing scene.

Shakespeare’s plot reflects a wide range of reading. He took his title and setting from the name and reign of the legendary British king Cymbeline, or Cunobelinus, said to have reigned from 33 BC till shortly after the birth of Christ. Cymbeline is no chronicle history, but Shakespeare derived some ideas, and many of his characters’ names, from accounts of early British history in Holinshed’s Chronicles and elsewhere. Drawing partially, it seems, on an old play, The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune (acted 1582, printed 1589), he gives Cymbeline a daughter, Innogen, and a wicked second Queen with a loutish, vicious son, Cloten, whom she wishes to see on the throne in her husband’s place. Cymbeline, disapproving of his daughter’s marriage to ‘a poor but worthy gentleman’, Posthumus Leonatus, banishes him. The strand of plot showing the outcome of a wager that Posthumus, in Rome, lays on his wife’s chastity is indebted, directly or indirectly, to Boccaccio’s Decameron. Another old play, Sir Clyomon and Clamydes (printed in 1599), may have suggested the bizarre scene (4.2) in which Innogen mistakes Cloten’s headless body for that of Posthumus; and IIolinshed’s Ilistory of Scotland supplied the episode in which Cymbeline’s two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus, helped only by the old man (Belarius) who has brought them up in the wilds of Wales, defeat the entire Roman army.

The tone of Cymbeline has puzzled commentators. Its prose and verse style is frequently ornate, sometimes grotesque. Its characterization often seems deliberately artificial. Extremes are violently juxtaposed, most daringly when Innogen, supposed dead, is laid beside Cloten’s headless body: the beauty of the verse in which she is mourned, and of the flowers strewn over the bodies, contrasts with the hideous spectacle of the headless corpse; her waking speech is one of Shakespeare’s most thrillingly difficult challenges to his performers. The appearance of Jupiter lifts the action to a new level of even greater implausibility, preparing us for the extraordinary series of revelations by which the play advances to its impossibly happy ending. Cymbeline has been valued mostly for its portrayal of Innogen, ideal of womanhood to, especially, Victorian readers and theatre-goers. The play as a whole is a fantasy, an experimental exercise in virtuosity.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

CYMBELINE, King of Britain

Princess INNOGEN, his daughter, later disguised as a man named Fidele

QUEEN, Cymbeline’s wife, Innogen’s stepmother

Lord CLOTEN, her son

BELARIUS, a banished lord, calling himself Morgan

CORNELIUS, a physician

HELEN, a lady attending on Innogen

Two LORDS attending on Cloten

Two GENTLEMEN

Two British CAPTAINS

Two JAILERS

POSTHUMUS Leonatus, a poor gentleman, Innogen’s husband

PISANIO, his servant

FILARIO, a friend of Posthumus

Caius LUCIUS, ambassador from Rome, later General of the Roman forces

Two Roman SENATORS

Roman TRIBUNES

A Roman CAPTAIN

Philharmonus, a SOOTHSAYER

JUPITER

Ghost of SICILIUS Leonatus, father of Posthumus

Ghost of the MOTHER of Posthumus

Ghosts of the BROTHERS of Posthumus

Lords attending on Cymbeline, ladies attending on the Queen, musicians attending on Cloten, messengers, soldiers

Cymbeline, King of Britain

1.1 Enter two Gentlemen

FIRST GENTLEMAN

You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods

No more obey the heavens than our courtiers

Still seem as does the King.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

But what’s the matter?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

His daughter, and the heir of ’s kingdom, whom

He purposed to his wife’s sole son—a widow

That late he married—hath referred herself

Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She’s wedded,

Her husband banished, she imprisoned. All

Is outward sorrow, though I think the King

Be touched at very heart.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

None but the King?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

He that hath lost her, too. So is the Queen,

That most desired the match. But not a courtier—

Although they wear their faces to the bent

Of the King’s looks—hath a heart that is not

Glad of the thing they scowl at.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

And why so?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

He that hath missed the Princess is a thing

Too bad for bad report, and he that hath her—

I mean that married her—alack, good man,

And therefore banished!—is a creature such

As, to seek through the regions of the earth

For one his like, there would be something failing

In him that should compare. I do not think

So fair an outward and such stuff within

Endows a man but he.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

You speak him far.

FIRST GENTLEMAN

I do extend him, sir, within himself;

Crush him together rather than unfold

His measure duly.

SECOND GENTLEMAN What’s his name and birth?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

I cannot delve him to the root. His father

Was called Sicilius, who did join his honour

Against the Romans with Cassibelan

But had his titles by Tenantius, whom

He served with glory and admired success,

So gained the sur-addition ‘Leonatus’;

And had, besides this gentleman in question,

Two other sons who in the wars o‘th’ time

Died with their swords in hand; for which their father,

Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow

That he quit being, and his gentle lady,

Big of this gentleman, our theme, deceased

As he was born. The King, he takes the babe

To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus,

Breeds him, and makes him of his bedchamber;

Puts to him all the learnings that his time

Could make him the receiver of, which he took

As we do air, fast as ’twas ministered,

And in ’s spring became a harvest; lived in court—

Which rare it is to do—most praised, most loved;

A sample to the youngest, to th’ more mature

A glass that feated them, and to the graver

A child that guided dotards. To his mistress,

For whom he now is banished, her own price

Proclaims how she esteemed him and his virtue.

By her election may be truly read

What kind of man he is.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

I honour him

Even out of your report. But pray you tell me,

Is she sole child to th’ King?

FIRST GENTLEMAN His only child.

He had two sons—if this be worth your hearing,

Mark it: the eld‘st of them at three years old,

I’th’ swathing clothes the other, from their nursery

Were stol’n, and to this hour no guess in knowledge

Which way they went.

SECOND GENTLEMAN How long is this ago?

FIRST GENTLEMAN Some twenty years.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

That a king’s children should be so conveyed,

So slackly guarded, and the search so slow

That could not trace them!

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Howsoe‘er ’tis strange,

Or that the negligence may well be laughed at,

Yet is it true, sir.

SECOND GENTLEMAN I do well believe you.

Enter the Queen, Posthumus, and Innogen

FIRST GENTLEMAN

We must forbear. Here comes the gentleman,

The Queen and Princess.

Exeunt the two Gentlemen

QUEEN

No, be assured you shall not find me, daughter,

After the slander of most stepmothers,

Evil-eyed unto you. You’re my prisoner, but

Your jailer shall deliver you the keys

That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,

So soon as I can win th‘offended King

I will be known your advocate. Marry, yet

The fire of rage is in him, and ’twere good

You leaned unto his sentence with what patience

Your wisdom may inform you.

POSTHUMUS

Please your highness,

I will from hence today.

QUEEN

You know the peril.

I’ll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying

The pangs of barred affections, though the King

Hath charged you should not speak together. Exit

INNOGEN

O dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant

Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,

I something fear my father’s wrath, but nothing—

Always reserved my holy duty—what

His rage can do on me. You must be gone,

And I shall here abide the hourly shot

Of angry eyes, not comforted to live

But that there is this jewel in the world

That I may see again.

POSTHUMUS

My queen, my mistress!

O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause

To be suspected of more tenderness

Than doth become a man. I will remain

The loyal‘st husband that did e’er plight troth;

My residence in Rome at one Filario’s,

Who to my father was a friend, to me

Known but by letter; thither write, my queen,

And with mine eyes I’ll drink the words you send

Though ink be made of gall.

Enter Queen

QUEEN

Be brief, I pray you.

If the King come, I shall incur I know not

How much of his displeasure. (Aside) Yet I’ll move him

To walk this way. I never do him wrong

But he does buy my injuries, to be friends,

Pays dear for my offences. Exit

POSTHUMUS

Should we be taking leave

As long a term as yet we have to live,

The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu.

INNOGEN Nay, stay a little.

Were you but riding forth to air yourself

Such parting were too petty. Look here, love:

This diamond was my mother’s. Take it, heart;

She gives him a ring

But keep it till you woo another wife

When Innogen is dead.

POSTHUMUS

How, how? Another?

You gentle gods, give me but this I have,

And cere up my embracements from a next

With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here

He puts on the ring

While sense can keep it on; and, sweetest, fairest,

As I my poor self did exchange for you

To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles

I still win of you. For my sake wear this.

He gives her a bracelet

It is a manacle of love. I’ll place it

Upon this fairest prisoner.

INNOGEN O the gods!

When shall we see again?

Enter Cymbeline and lords

POSTHUMUS

Alack, the King!

CYMBELINE

Thou basest thing, avoid hence, from my sight!

If after this command thou fraught the court

With thy unworthiness, thou diest. Away.

Thou’rt poison to my blood.

POSTHUMUS

The gods protect you,

And bless the good remainders of the court!

I am gone.

Exit

INNOGEN

There cannot be a pinch in death

More sharp than this is.

CYMBELINE

O disloyal thing,

That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap’st

A year’s age on me.

INNOGEN

I beseech you, sir,

Harm not yourself with your vexation.

I am senseless of your wrath. A touch more rare

Subdues all pangs, all fears.

CYMBELINE

Past grace, obedience-

INNOGEN

Past hope and in despair: that way past grace.

CYMBELINE

That mightst have had the sole son of my queen!

INNOGEN

O blessed that I might not! I chose an eagle

And did avoid a puttock.

CYMBELINE

Thou took’st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne

A seat for baseness.

INNOGEN

No, I rather added

A lustre to it.

CYMBELINE

O thou vile one!

INNOGEN

Sir,

It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus.

You bred him as my playfellow, and he is

A man worth any woman, over-buys me

Almost the sum he pays.

CYMBELINE

What, art thou mad?

INNOGEN

Almost, sir. Heaven restore me! Would I were

A neatherd’s daughter, and my Leonatus

Our neighbour shepherd’s son.

Enter Queen

CYMBELINE

Thou foolish thing.

(To Queen) They were again together; you have done

Not after our command. (To lords) Away with her,

And pen her up.

QUEEN

Beseech your patience, peace,

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

QUEEN

Fie, you must give way.

Enter Pisanio

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 played than fought,

And had no help of anger. They were parted

By gentlemen at hand.

QUEEN

I am very glad on’t.

INNOGEN

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. (To Pisanio) 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 pleased 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 a while.

⌈Exit⌉

INNOGEN

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 severally

1.2 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 thoroughfare for steel if he be not hurt.

SECOND LORD (aside) His steel was in debt—it went o’th’ 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 measured 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 damned.

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 (to Second Lord) 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

1.3 Enter Innogen and Pisanio

INNOGEN

I would thou grew‘st unto the shores o’th’ haven

And questionedst every sail. If he should write

And I not have it, ’twere a paper lost

As offered mercy is. What was the last

That he spake to thee?

PISANIO

It was his queen, his queen.

INNOGEN

Then waved his handkerchief?

PISANIO

And kissed it, madam.

INNOGEN

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 sailed on,

How swift his ship.

INNOGEN

Thou shouldst have made him

As little as a crow, or less, ere left

To after-eye him.

PISANIO

Madam, so I did.

INNOGEN

I would have broke mine eye-strings, cracked 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 turned mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,

When shall we hear from him?

PISANIO Be assured, madam,

With his next vantage.

INNOGEN

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 charged 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.

INNOGEN (to Pisanio)

Those things I bid you do, get them dispatched.

I will attend the Queen.

PISANIO

Madam, I shall.

Exeunt Innogen and Lady at one door, Pisanio at another

1.4 ⌈A table brought out, with a banquet upon it.⌉ Enter Filario, Giacomo, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard

GIACOMO 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 looked 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.

FILARIO You speak of him when he was less furnished 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.

GIACOMO 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.

GIACOMO 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?

FILARIO 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 (to Posthumus) Sir, we have known together in Orléans.

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’er-rate 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 shunned to go even with what I heard than in my every action to be guided by others’ experiences; but upon my mended judgement—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 fallen both.

GIACOMO 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.

GIACOMO 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.

GIACOMO You must not so far prefer her fore ours of Italy.

POSTHUMUS Being so far provoked as I was in France I would abate her nothing, though I profess myself her adorer, not her friend.

GIACOMO 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 praised her as I rated her; so do I my stone.

GIACOMO What do you esteem it at?

POSTHUMUS More than the world enjoys.

GIACOMO Either your unparagoned mistress is dead, or she’s outprized by a trifle.

POSTHUMUS You are mistaken. The one may be sold or given, or 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.

GIACOMO Which the gods have given you?

POSTHUMUS Which, by their graces, I will keep.

GIACOMO You may wear her in title yours; but, you know, strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may be stolen too; so your brace of unprizable estimations, the one is but frail, and the other casual. A cunning thief or a that-way accomplished courtier would hazard the winning both of first and last.

POSTHUMUS Your Italy contains none so accomplished 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.

FILARIO Let us leave here, gentlemen.

POSTHUMUS Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signor, I thank him, makes no stranger of me. We are familiar at first.

GIACOMO 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.

GIACOMO 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. in

POSTHUMUS You are a great deal abused in too bold a persuasion, and I doubt not you sustain what you’re worthy of by your attempt.

GIACOMO What’s that?

POSTHUMUS A repulse; though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more—a punishment, too.

FILARIO Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly. Let it die as it was born; and, I pray you, be better acquainted.

GIACOMO 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?

GIACOMO 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 reserved.

POSTHUMUS I will wage against your gold, gold to it; my ring I hold dear as my finger, ’tis part of it.

GIACOMO 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.

GIACOMO 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.

FILARIO I will have it no lay.

GIACOMO By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed 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 prevailed, I am no further your enemy; she is not worth our debate. If she remain unseduced, 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.

GIACOMO Your hand, a covenant. We will 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.

⌈Exit with Giacomo⌉

FRENCHMAN Will this hold, think you?

FILARIO Signor Giacomo will not from it. Pray let us follow ’em.

Exeunt. ⌈Table is removed⌉