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

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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2.4 Enter Posthumus and Filario

POSTHUMUS

Fear it not, sir. I would I were so sure

To win the King as I am bold her honour

Will remain hers.

FILARIO

What means do you make to him?

POSTHUMUS

Not any; but abide the change of time,

Quake in the present winter’s state, and wish

That warmer days would come. In these seared hopes

I barely gratify your love; they failing,

I must die much your debtor.

FILARIO

Your very goodness and your company

O‘erpays all I can do. By this, your king

Hath heard of great Augustus. Caius Lucius

Will do ’s commission throughly. And I think

He’ll grant the tribute, send th’arrearages,

Ere look upon our Romans, whose remembrance

Is yet fresh in their grief.

POSTHUMUS

I do believe,

Statist though I am none, nor like to be,

That this will prove a war, and you shall hear

The legions now in Gallia sooner landed

In our not-fearing Britain than have tidings

Of any penny tribute paid. Our countrymen

Are men more ordered than when Julius Caesar

Smiled at their lack of skill but found their courage

Worthy his frowning at. Their discipline,

Now wing-led with their courage, will make known

To their approvers they are people such

That mend upon the world.

Enter Giacomo

FILARIO

See, Giacomo.

POSTHUMUS (to Giacomo)

The swiftest harts have posted you by land,

And winds of all the corners kissed your sails

To make your vessel nimble.

FILARIO (to Giacomo)

Welcome, sir.

POSTHUMUS (to Giacomo)

I hope the briefness of your answer made

The speediness of your return.

GIACOMO

Your lady is

One of the fair’st that I have looked upon—

POSTHUMUS

And therewithal the best, or let her beauty

Look through a casement to allure false hearts,

And be false with them.

GIACOMO

Here are letters for you.

POSTHUMUS

Their tenor good, I trust.

GIACOMO

’Tis very like.

Posthumus reads the letters

⌈FILARIO⌉

Was Caius Lucius in the Briton court

When you were there?

GIACOMO

He was expected then,

But not approached.

POSTHUMUS

All is well yet.

Sparkles this stone as it was wont, or is’t not

Too dull for your good wearing?

GIACOMO

If I had lost it

I should have lost the worth of it in gold.

I’ll make a journey twice as far t’enjoy

A second night of such sweet shortness which

Was mine in Britain; for the ring is won.

POSTHUMOUS

The stone’s too hard to come by.

GIACOMO

Not a whit,

Your lady being so easy.

POSTHUMUS

Make not, sir,

Your loss your sport. I hope you know that we

Must not continue friends.

GIACOMO

Good sir, we must,

If you keep covenant. Had I not brought

The knowledge of your mistress home I grant

We were to question farther, but I now

Profess myself the winner of her honour,

Together with your ring, and not the wronger

Of her or you, having proceeded but

By both your wills.

POSTHUMUS

If you can make’t apparent

That you have tasted her in bed, my hand

And ring is yours. If not, the foul opinion

You had of her pure honour gains or loses

Your sword or mine, or masterless leaves both

To who shall find them.

GIACOMO

Sir, my circumstances,

Being so near the truth as I will make them,

Must first induce you to believe; whose strength

I will confirm with oath, which I doubt not

You’ll give me leave to spare when you shall find

You need it not.

POSTHUMUS

Proceed.

GIACOMO

First, her bedchamber—

Where I confess I slept not, but profess

Had that was well worth watching—it was hanged

With tapestry of silk and silver; the story

Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman,

And Cydnus swelled above the banks, or for

The press of boats or pride: a piece of work

So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive

In workmanship and value; which I wondered

Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,

Such the true life on’t was.

POSTHUMUS

This is true,

And this you might have heard of here, by me

Or by some other.

GIACOMO

More particulars

Must justify my knowledge.

POSTHUMUS

So they must,

Or do your honour injury.

GIACOMO

The chimney

Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece

Chaste Dian bathing. Never saw I figures

So likely to report themselves; the cutter

Was as another nature; dumb, outwent her,

Motion and breath left out.

POSTHUMUS

This is a thing

Which you might from relation likewise reap,

Being, as it is, much spoke of.

GIACOMO

The roof o’th’ chamber

With golden cherubins is fretted. Her andirons—

I had forgot them—were two winking Cupids

Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely

Depending on their brands.

POSTHUMUS

This is her honour!

Let it be granted you have seen all this—and praise

Be given to your remembrance—the description

Of what is in her chamber nothing saves

The wager you have laid.

GIACOMO

Then, if you can

Be pale, I beg but leave to air this jewel. See!

He shows the bracelet

And now ’tis up again; it must be married

To that your diamond. I’ll keep them.

POSTHUMUS

Jove!

Once more let me behold it. Is it that

Which I left with her?

GIACOMO

Sir, I thank her, that.

She stripped it from her arm. I see her yet.

Her pretty action did outsell her gift,

And yet enriched it too. She gave it me,

And said she prized it once.

POSTHUMUS

Maybe she plucked it off

To send it me.

GIACOMO

She writes so to you, doth she?

POSTHUMUS

O, no, no, no—’tis true! Here, take this too.

He gives Giacomo his ring

It is a basilisk unto mine eye,

Kills me to look on’t. Let there be no honour

Where there is beauty, truth where semblance, love

Where there’s another man. The vows of women

Of no more bondage be to where they are made

Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing!

O, above measure false!

PILASIO

Have patience, sir,

And take your ring again; ’tis not yet won.

It may be probable she lost it, or

Who knows if one her woman, being corrupted,

Hath stol’n it from her?

POSTHUMUS

Very true,

And so I hope he came by’t. Back my ring.

He takes his ring again

Render to me some corporal sign about her

More evident than this; for this was stol’n.

GIACOMO

By Jupiter, I had it from her arm.

POSTHUMUS

Hark you, he swears, by Jupiter he swears.

‘Tis true, nay, keep the ring, ’tis true. I am sure

She would not lose it. Her attendants are

All sworn and honourable. They induced to steal it?

And by a stranger? No, he hath enjoyed her.

The cognizance of her incontinency

Is this. She hath bought the name of whore thus

dearly.

He gives Giacomo his ring

There, take thy hire, and all the fiends of hell

Divide themselves between you!

FILARIO

Sir, be patient.

This is not strong enough to be believed

Of one persuaded well of.

POSTHUMUS

Never talk on’t.

She hath been colted by him.

GIACOMO

If you seek

For further satisfying, under her breast—

Worthy the pressing—lies a mole, right proud

Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,

I kissed it, and it gave me present hunger

To feed again, though full. You do remember

This stain upon her?

POSTHUMUS

Ay, and it doth confirm

Another stain as big as hell can hold,

Were there no more but it.

GIACOMO

Will you hear more?

POSTHUMUS

Spare your arithmetic, never count the turns.

Once, and a million!

GIACOMO

I’ll be sworn.

POSTHUMUS

No swearing.

If you will swear you have not done‘t, you lie,

And I will kill thee if thou dost deny

Thou’st made me cuckold.

GlACOMO

I’ll deny nothing.

POSTHUMUS

O that I had her here to tear her limb-meal!

I will go there and do’t i’th’ court, before

Her father. I’ll do something.

Exit

FILARIO

Quite besides

The government of patience! You have won.

Let’s follow and pervert the present wrath

He hath against himself.

GIACOMO

With all my heart.

Exeunt

2.5 Enter Posthumus

POSTHUMUS

Is there no way for men to be, but women

Must be half-workers? We are bastards all,

And that most venerable man which I

Did call my father was I know not where

When I was stamped. Some coiner with his tools

Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seemed

The Dian of that time: so doth my wife

The nonpareil of this. O vengeance, vengeance!

Me of my lawful pleasure she restrained,

And prayed me oft forbearance; did it with

A pudency so rosy the sweet view on’t

Might well have warmed old Saturn; that I thought

her

As chaste as unsunned snow. O all the devils!

This yellow Giacomo in an hour—was’t not?—

Or less—at first? Perchance he spoke not, but

Like a full-acorned boar, a German one,

Cried ‘O!’ and mounted; found no opposition

But what he looked for should oppose and she

Should from encounter guard. Could I find out

The woman’s part in me—for there’s no motion

That tends to vice in man but I affirm

It is the woman’s part; be it lying, note it,

The woman’s; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;

Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;

Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,

Nice longing, slanders, mutability,

All faults that man can name, nay, that hell knows,

Why, hers in part or all, but rather all—

For even to vice

They are not constant, but are changing still

One vice but of a minute old for one

Not half so old as that. I’ll write against them,

Detest them, curse them, yet ’tis greater skill

In a true hate to pray they have their will.

The very devils cannot plague them better.

Exit

3.1 ⌈Flourish.⌉ Enter in state Cymbeline, the Queen, Cloten, and lords at one door, and at another, Caius Lucius and attendants

CYMBELINE

Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?

LUCIUS

When Julius Caesar—whose remembrance yet

Lives in men’s eyes, and will to ears and tongues

Be theme and hearing ever—was in this Britain

And conquered it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,

Famous in Caesar’s praises no whit less

Than in his feats deserving it, for him

And his succession granted Rome a tribute,

Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately

Is left untendered.

QUEEN

And, to kill the marvel,

Shall be so ever.

CLOTEN

There will be many Caesars

Ere such another Julius. Britain’s a world

By itself, and we will nothing pay

For wearing our own noses.

QUEEN

That opportunity

Which then they had to take from ‘s, to resume

We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,

The kings your ancestors, together with

The natural bravery of your isle, which stands

As Neptune’s park, ribbed and paled in

With banks unscalable and roaring waters,

With sands that will not bear your enemies’ boats,

But suck them up to th’ topmast. A kind of conquest

Caesar made here, but made not here his brag

Of ‘came and saw and overcame’. With shame—

The first that ever touched him—he was carried

From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping,

Poor ignorant baubles, on our terrible seas

Like eggshells moved upon their surges, cracked

As easily ’gainst our rocks; for joy whereof

The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point—

O giglot fortune!—to master Caesar’s sword,

Made Lud’s town with rejoicing fires bright,

And Britons strut with courage.

CLOTEN Come, there’s no more tribute to be paid. Our kingdom is stronger than it was at that time, and, as I said, there is no more such Caesars. Other of them may have crooked noses, but to owe such straight arms, none.

CYMBELINE Son, let your mother end.

CLOTEN We have yet many among us can grip as hard as Cassibelan. I do not say I am one, but I have a hand. Why tribute? Why should we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light; else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.

CYMBELINE (to Lucius) You must know,

Till the injurious Romans did extort

This tribute from us we were free. Caesar’s ambition,

Which swelled so much that it did almost stretch

The sides o‘th’ world, against all colour here

Did put the yoke upon ’s, which to shake off

Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon

Ourselves to be. We do say then to Caesar,

Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which

Ordained our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar

Hath too much mangled, whose repair and franchise

Shall by the power we hold be our good deed,

Though Rome be therefore angry. Mulmutius made

our laws,

Who was the first of Britain which did put

His brows within a golden crown and called

Himself a king.

LUCIUS

I am sorry, Cymbeline,

That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar—

Caesar, that hath more kings his servants than

Thyself domestic officers—thine enemy.

Receive it from me, then: war and confusion

In Caesar’s name pronounce I ’gainst thee. Look

For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,

I thank thee for myself.

CYMBELINE

Thou art welcome, Caius.

Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent

Much under him; of him I gathered honour,

Which he to seek of me again perforce

Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect

That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for

Their liberties are now in arms, a precedent

Which not to read would show the Britons cold;

So Caesar shall not find them.

LUCIUS

Let proof speak.

CLOTEN His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two or longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you; and there’s an end.

LUCIUS So, sir.

CYMBELINE

I know your master’s pleasure, and he mine.

All the remain is ‘Welcome’.

⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt

3.2 Enter Pisanio, reading of a letter

PISANIO

How? Of adultery? Wherefore write you not

What monster’s her accuser? Leonatus,

O master, what a strange infection

Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian,

As poisonous tongued as handed, hath prevailed

On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.

She’s punished for her truth, and undergoes,

More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults

As would take in some virtue. O my master,

Thy mind to hers is now as low as were

Thy fortunes. How? That I should murder her,

Upon the love and truth and vows which I

Have made to thy command? I her? Her blood?

If it be so to do good service, never

Let me be counted serviceable. How look I,

That I should seem to lack humanity

So much as this fact comes to? (Reads) ‘Do’t. The letter

That I have sent her, by her own command

Shall give thee opportunity.’ O damned paper,

Black as the ink that’s on thee! Senseless bauble,

Art thou a fedary for this act, and look’st

So virgin-like without?

Enter Innogen

Lo, here she comes.

I am ignorant in what I am commanded.

INNOGEN How now, Pisanio?

PISANIO

Madam, here is a letter from my lord.

INNOGEN

Who, thy lord that is my lord, Leonatus?

O learned indeed were that astronomer

That knew the stars as I his characters—

He’d lay the future open. You good gods,

Let what is here contained relish of love,

Of my lord’s health, of his content—yet not

That we two are asunder; let that grieve him.

Some griefs are med’cinable; that is one of them,

For it doth physic love—of his content

All but in that. Good wax, thy leave. Blest be

You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers

And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;

Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet

You clasp young Cupid’s tables. Good news, gods!

She opens and reads the letter

’Justice and your father’s wrath, should he take me in

his dominion, could not be so cruel to me as you, O

the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with

your eyes. Take notice that I am in Cambria, at Milford

Haven. What your own love will out of this advise you,

follow. So he wishes you all happiness, that remains

loyal to his vow, and your increasing in love,

Leonatus Posthumus.’

O for a horse with wings! Hear‘st thou, Pisanio?

He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me

How far ’tis thither. If one of mean affairs

May plod it in a week, why may not I

Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,

Who long‘st like me to see thy lord, who long’st—

O let me bate—but not like me—yet long‘st

But in a fainter kind—O, not like me,

For mine’s beyond beyond; say, and speak thick—

Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,

To th’ smothering of the sense—how far it is

To this same blessèd Milford. And by th’ way

Tell me how Wales was made so happy as

T’inherit such a haven. But first of all,

How we may steal from hence; and for the gap

That we shall make in time from our hence-going

Till our return, to excuse; but first, how get hence.

Why should excuse be born or ere begot?

We’ll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,

How many score of miles may we well ride

’Twixt hour and hour?

PISANIO

One score ’twixt sun and sun,

Madam, ’s enough for you, and too much too.

INNOGEN

Why, one that rode to ’s execution, man,

Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers

Where horses have been nimbler than the sands

That run i‘th’ clock’s behalf. But this is fool’ry.

Go bid my woman feign a sickness, say

She’ll home to her father; and provide me presently

A riding-suit no costlier than would fit

A franklin’s housewife.

PISANIO

Madam, you’re best consider.

INNOGEN

I see before me, man. Nor here, nor here,

Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them

That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee,

Do as I bid thee. There’s no more to say:

Accessible is none but Milford way.

Exeunt

3.3 Enter Belarius, followed by Guiderius and Arviragus, ⌈from a cave in the woods⌉

BELARIUS

A goodly day not to keep house with such

Whose roof’s as low as ours. Stoop, boys; this gate

Instructs you how t‘adore the heavens, and bows you

To a morning’s holy office. The gates of monarchs

Are arched so high that giants may jet through

And keep their impious turbans on without

Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!

We house i’th’ rock, yet use thee not so hardly

As prouder livers do.

GUIDERIUS

Hail, heaven!

ARVIRAGUS

Hail, heaven!

BELARIUS

Now for our mountain sport. Up to yon hill,

Your legs are young; I’ll tread these flats. Consider,

When you above perceive me like a crow,

That it is place which lessens and sets off,

And you may then revolve what tales I have told you

Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war;

That service is not service, so being done,

But being so allowed. To apprehend thus

Draws us a profit from all things we see,

And often to our comfort shall we find

The sharded beetle in a safer hold

Than is the full-winged eagle. O, this life

Is nobler than attending for a check,

Richer than doing nothing for a bauble,

Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk;

Such gain the cap of him that makes ’em fine,

Yet keeps his book uncrossed. No life to ours.

GUIDERIUS

Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledged,

Have never winged from view o’th’ nest, nor know

not

What air’s from home. Haply this life is best,

If quiet life be best; sweeter to you

That have a sharper known; well corresponding

With your stiff age, but unto us it is

A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,

A prison for a debtor, that not dares

To stride a limit.

ARVIRAGUS (to Belarius) What should we speak of

When we are old as you? When we shall hear

The rain and wind beat dark December, how,

In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse

The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.

We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey,

Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.

Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage

We make a choir, as doth the prisoned bird,

And sing our bondage freely.

BELARIUS

How you speak!

Did you but know the city’s usuries,

And felt them knowingly; the art o‘th’ court,

As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb

Is certain falling, or so slipp’ry that

The fear’s as bad as falling; the toil o‘th’ war,

A pain that only seems to seek out danger

I’th’ name of fame and honour, which dies i‘th’ search

And hath as oft a sland’rous epitaph

As record of fair act; nay, many times

Doth ill deserve by doing well; what’s worse,

Must curtsy at the censure. O boys, this story

The world may read in me. My body’s marked

With Roman swords, and my report was once

First with the best of note. Cymbeline loved me,

And when a soldier was the theme my name

Was not far off. Then was I as a tree

Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night

A storm or robbery, call it what you will,

Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,

And left me bare to weather.

GUIDERIUS

Uncertain favour!

BELARIUS

My fault being nothing, as I have told you oft,

But that two villains, whose false oaths prevailed

Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline

I was confederate with the Romans. So

Followed my banishment, and this twenty years

This rock and these demesnes have been my world,

Where I have lived at honest freedom, paid

More pious debts to heaven than in all

The fore-end of my time. But up to th’ mountains!

This is not hunter’s language. He that strikes

The venison first shall be the lord o’th’ feast,

To him the other two shall minister,

And we will fear no poison which attends

In place of greater state. I’ll meet you in the valleys.

Exeunt Guiderius and Arviragus

How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!

These boys know little they are sons to th’ King,

Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.

They think they are mine, and though trained up

thus meanly

I‘th’ cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit

The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them

In simple and low things to prince it much

Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,

The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who

The King his father called Guiderius—Jove,

When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell

The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out

Into my story: say ‘Thus mine enemy fell,

And thus I set my foot on ’s neck’, even then

The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,

Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture

That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,

Once Arviragus, in as like a figure

Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more

His own conceiving.

⌈A hunting-horn sounds⌉

Hark, the game is roused!

O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows

Thou didst unjustly banish me, whereon

At three and two years old I stole these babes,

Thinking to bar thee of succession as

Thou reft’st me of my lands. Euriphile,

Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their

mother,

And every day do honour to her grave.

Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan called,

They take for natural father.

⌈A hunting-horn sounds⌉

The game is up.

Exit