Cym.

The time's troublesome :

We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy

[TO PISANIO.

Does yet dependo.
1 Lord.
So please your majesty,
The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,
Are landed on your coast; with a supply
Of Roman gentlemen, by the senate sent.
Cym. Now for the counsel of my son, and queen!-
I am amaz'd with matter 3.

1 Lord.

Good my liege, Your preparation can affront1 no less.

Than what you hear of: come more, for more you're ready:

The want is, but to put those powers in motion,
That long to move.

Cym.
I thank you: Let's withdraw;
And meet the time, as it seeks us. We fear not
What can from Italy annoy us; but
We grieve at chances here.-Away.

[Exeunt.

Pis. I heard no letter5 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

these plays, especially in King Henry VIII. take one example:

which if granted,

As he made semblance of his duty, would

Have put his knife into him.'

See Lear, Act ii. Sc. 4.

2

My suspicion is yet undetermined; if I do not condemn you, I likewise have not acquitted you.' 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.'

But per

5 Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, I've had no letter.' haps no letter' is here used to signify 'no tidings,' not a syllable of reply.

What is betid to Cloten; but remain

6

Perplex'd in all. The heavens still must work :
Wherein I am false, I am honest; not true, to be true.
These present wars shall find I love my country,
Even to the note o' the king, or I'll fall in them.
All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd:
Fortune brings in some boats, that are not steer'd.
[Exit.

SCENE IV. Before the Cave.

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
For barbarous and unnatural revolts1

During their use, and slay us after.

Sons,

Bel. 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 muster'd Among the bands) may drive us to a render2 Where we have liv'd; and so extort from us

6 I will so distinguish myself, the king shall remark my

'Lead me to the revolts of England here.'

2 An account of our place of abode.' This dialogue is a just representation of the superfluous caution of an old man.

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.'

That which we've done, whose answer would be death

That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,
Behold their quarter'd fires3, have both their eyes
And ears so cloy'd importantly as now,

That they will waste their time upon our note,
To know from whence we are.

Of

Bel.

O, I am known

many in the army: many years,
Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him
From my remembrance. And, besides, the king
Hath not deserv'd my service, nor your loves;
Who find in my exile the want of breeding,
The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless
To have the courtesy your
cradle promis'd,
But to be still hot summer's tanlings, and
The shrinking slaves of winter.

Gui.
Than be so,
Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to the army:
I and my brother are not known; yourself,
So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,
Cannot be question'd.

Arv.

By this sun that shines, I'll thither: What thing is it, that I never Did see man die? scarce ever look'd on blood, But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison? Never bestrid a horse, save one, that had

A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel

3 i. e. the fires in the respective quarters of the Roman army. Their beacon or watch-fires. So in King Henry V.:

Fire answers fire: and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face.'

4 That is, the certain consequence of this hard life.'

Nor iron on his heel? I am asham'd

To look upon the holy sun, to have
The benefit of his bless'd beams, remaining
So long a poor unknown.

If

Gui.

you

will bless me, sir,

By heavens, I'll go :

and give me leave,

I'll take the better care; but if you will not,
The hazard therefore due fall on me, by
The hands of Romans!

Arv.

So say I; Amen. Bel. No reason I, since on your lives you So slight a valuation, should reserve

set

My crack'd 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 Handkerchief1. Post. Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wish'd Thou should'st be colour'd thus. You married ones, If each of you would take this course, how many Must murder wives much better than themselves,

1 The bloody token of Imogen's death, which Pisanio, in the foregoing act, determined to send.

This is a soliloquy of nature, uttered when the effervescence of a mind agitated and perturbed, spontaneously and inadvertently discharges itself in words. The speech throughout all its tenour, if the last conceit be excepted, seems to issue warm

For wrying but a little?-O, Pisanio!
Every good servant does not all commands:
No bond, but to do just ones.—Gods! if you
Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never
Had liv'd to put on3 this: so had you saved
The noble Imogen to repent; and struck

Me, wretch, more worth your vengeance. But, alack,
You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,
To have them fall no more: you some permit
To second ills with ills, each elder worse;
And make them dread it to the doer's shrift 5.

from the heart. He first condemns his own violence; then tries to disburden himself by imputing part of the crime to Pisanio; he next sooths his mind to an artificial and momentary tranquillity, by trying to think that he has been only an instrument of the gods for the happiness of Imogen. He is now grown reasonable enough to determine that, having done so much evil, he will do no more; that he will not fight against the country which he has already injured; but as life is no longer supportable, he will die in a just cause, and die with the obscurity of a man who does not think himself worthy to be remembered.'--Johnson.

2 This uncommon verb is used by Stanyhurst in the third book of the translation of Virgil:

the maysters wrye their vessells.' 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. Where corruptions are, they grow with years, and the oldest sinner is the greatest. 5 The old copy reads:

And make them dread it to the doers thrift.'

Which the commentators have in vain tormented themselves to give a meaning to. Mason endeavoured to give the sense of repentance to thrift: but his explanation better suits the passage as it now stands :-'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, when sh and th were frequently confounded.