Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

II.

ACT IV.-SCENE II.-Before the Care.

Enter, from the Cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, Arviragus, and IMOGEN.

Bel. You are not well: [To IMOGEN.] remain here in the cave;

We'll come to you after hunting.

Arv.

Are we not brothers?

Imo.

Brother, stay here: [To IMOGEN.

So man and man should be;

But clay and clay differs in dignity,

Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.
Gui. Go you to hunting: I'll abide with him.
Imo. So sick I am not ;-yet I am not weil:
But not so citizen a wanton, as

To seem to die, ere sick: So please you, leave me,
Stick to your journal course; the breach of custom
Is breach of all. I am ill; but your being by me
Cannot amend me: Society is no comfort

To one not sociable: I am not very sick,
Since I can reason of it. Pray you, trust me here:
I'll rob none but myself; and let me die,
Stealing so poorly.

Gui.

I love thee; I have spoke it:
How much the quantity, the weight as much,
As I do love my father.

Bel.

What? how? how?

Arv. If it be sin to say so, sir, I yoke me

In my good brother's fault: I know not why
I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love's reason's without reason: the bier at door,
And a demand who is 't shall die, I'd say,
"My father, not this youth."

Bel.
O noble strain!
O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!
Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base:
Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.
I'm not their father; yet who this should be
Doth miracle itself, lov'd before me.-

'Tis the ninth hour of the morn.

[Aside

Arv.

Imo. I wish ye sport.

Arv.

Brother, farewell.

You health. So please you, sir.

Imo. [Aside.] These are kind creatures.
lies I have heard!

Our courtiers say all's savage, but at court:
Experience, O, thou disprov'st report!

Gods, what

The imperious seas breed monsters; for the dish,
Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.

I am sick still; heart-sick :-Pisanio,
I'll now taste of thy drug.

Gui.

I could not stir him:

He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.

Arv. Thus did he answer me: yet said, hereafter

I might know more.

Bel.

To the field, to the field:

We'll leave you for this time; go in and rest.
Arv. We'll not be long away.

Bel.

For you must be our housewife.
Imo.

I am bound to you.

Bel.

Pray, be not sick,

Well, or ill,

And shalt be ever.

[Exit IMOGEN.

This youth, howe'er distress'd he appears, hath had

Good ancestors.

Arv.

How angel-like he sings!

Gui. But his neat cookery! He cut our roots in cha.

racters;

And sauced our broths, as Juno had been sick,

[blocks in formation]

A smiling with a sigh: as if the sigh

Was that it was, for not being such a smile;
The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly
From so divine a temple, to commix

With winds that sailors rail at.

I do note

Gui.
That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
Mingle their spurs together.

Arv.
Grow, patience!
And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
His perishing root with the increasing vine!
Bel. It is great morning. Come; away.—

III.

Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, bearing IMOGEN as dead in his arms.

Bel. Look, here he comes,

And brings the dire occasion in his arms,

Of what we blame him for!

Arv.
The bird is dead,
That we have made so much on. I had rather
Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty,
To have turn'd my leaping time into a crutch,
Than have seen this.

Gui.
O sweetest, fairest lily!
My brother wears thee not the one-half so well,
As when thou grew'st thyself.

Bel.

O, melancholy!

Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find

The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might easiliest harb ur in ?-Thou blessed thing!
Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,
Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy!

How found you him?

Arv.

Stark, as you see:

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at: his right cheek
Reposing on a cushion.

Gui.

Arv.

Where?

O' the floor:

His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept; and put
My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness
Answer'd my steps too loud.

Gui.

Why, he but sleeps:

If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee.

Arv.

With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack

The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor

a Crare is a small vessel; and the word is often used by Holinshed

and by Drayton.

b Stark-stiff.

Brogues-rude shoes.

The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Outsweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!) bring thee all this;

Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.

Gui.
Prithee, have done;
And do not play in wench-like words with that
Which is so serious. Let us bury him,
And not protract with admiration what

Is now due debt.-To the grave.

Arv.

Say, where shall's lay him?

Gui. By good Euriphile, our mother.
Arv.

Be 't so:

And let us, Polydore, though now our voices
Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,
As once our mother; use like note, and words,
Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.

Gui. Cadwal,

I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee:
For notes of sorrow, out of tune, are worse

Than priests and fanes that lie.

Arv.

We'll speak it then.

Bel. Great griefs, I see, medicine the less: for Cloten

Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys:

And, though he came our enemy, remember

He was paid for that: Though mean and mighty, rotting Together, have one dust; yet reverence

(That angel of the world) doth make distinction

Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely;
And though you took his life, as being our foe,

Yet bury him as a prince.

Pray you, fetch him hither.

Gui.
Thersites' body is as good as Ajax,
When neither are alive.

Arv.

If you'll go fetch him,

We'll say our song the whilst.-Brother, begin. [Exit BEL
Gui. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east:
My father hath a reason for 't.

Arv.

"T is true.

Gui. Come on then, and remove him.

Arv.

So,-begin.

SONG.

Gui. Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Arv. Fear no more the frown o' the great
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe, and eat;

To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Gui. Fear no more the lightning flash;
Arv. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Gui. Fear not slander, censure rash;
Arv. Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
Both. All lovers young, all lovers must

Consign to thee, and come to dust.

Gui. No exorciser harm thee!
Arv. Nor no witchcraft charm thee'
Gui. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Arv. Nothing ill come near thee!
Both. Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

« AnteriorContinuar »