2 Lord. No, my lord; nor [aside] crop the ears

of them.

Clo. Whoreson dog!-I give him satisfaction? 'Would, he had been one of my rank!

2 Lord. To have smelt like a fool 2.

[Aside.

Clo. I am not more vexed at any thing in the earth,-A pox on't! I had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me, because of

the queen my mother: every jack-slave hath his

belly full of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody can match.

2 Lord. You are a cock and capon too; and crow, cock, with your comb on 3.

Clo. Sayest thou?

4

you

[Aside.

1 Lord. It is not fit, your lordship should undertake every companion that you give offence to. Clo. No, I know that: but it is fit, I should commit offence to my inferiors.

2 Lord. Ay, it is fit for your lordship only. Clo. Why, so I say.

1 Lord. Did you hear of a stranger, that's come to court to-night?

Clo. A stranger! and I know not on't!

2 Lord. He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it not.

[Aside. 1 Lord. There's an Italian come; and, 'tis thought, one of Leonatus' friends.

Clo. Leonatus! a banished rascal; and he's another, whatsoever he be. Who told you of this stranger?

2 The same quibble has occurred in As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 2::

Touch. Nay, if I keep not my rank.

Ros. Thou losest thy old smell.'’

3 That is, in other words, you are a coxcomb.

4 The use of companion was the same as of fellow now. It was a word of contempt.

1 Lord. One of your lordship's pages.

Clo. Is it fit, I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation in't?

1 Lord. You cannot derogate, my lord.

Clo. Not easily, I think.

2 Lord. You are a fool granted; therefore your issues being foolish, do not derogate. [Aside. Clo. Come, I'll go see this Italian: What I have lost to-day at bowls, I'll win to-night of him. Come, go.

2 Lord. I'll attend your lordship.

[Exeunt CLOTEN and first Lord.
That such a crafty devil as is his mother
Should yield the world this ass! a woman, that
Bears all down with her brain; and this her son
Cannot take two from twenty for his heart
And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess,
Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st!
Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd;
A mother hourly coining plots; a wooer,
More hateful than the foul expulsion is
Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act

Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm
The walls of thy dear honour; keep unshak'd
That temple, thy fair mind; that thou may'st stand,
To enjoy thy banish'd lord, and this great land!

SCENE II.

[Exit.

A Bedchamber; in one Part of it a Trunk.

IMOGEN reading in her Bed; a Lady attending.

Imo. Who's there? my woman Helen?

Lady.

Imo. What hour is it?

Lady.

Please you, madam.

Almost midnight, madam.

Imo. I have read three hours then; mine eyes

are weak:

Fold down the leaf where I have left: To bed:
Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
And if thou canst awake by four o' the clock,
I pr'ythee, call me. Sleep hath seiz'd me wholly.
[Exit Lady.
To your protection I commend me, gods!
From fairies, and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye!

[Sleeps. IACHIMO, from the Trunk.

Iach. The crickets sing, and man's o'erlabour'd

sense

Repairs itself by rest: Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes1, ere he waken'd
The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea,

How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily!
And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
But kiss; one kiss!-Rubies unparagon'd,
How dearly they do't!-Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus 2: The flame o' the taper
Bows toward her; and would underpeep her lids,
To see the enclosed lights, now canopied

Under these windows 3: White and azure, lac'd

1 It was anciently the custom to strew chambers with rushes. This passage may serve as a comment on the ravishing strides' of Tarquin, in Macbeth, as it shows that Shakspeare meant softly stealing strides.' See vol. iv. p. 243.

2

— no lips did seem so fair

In his conceit; through which he thinks doth flie
So sweet a breath that doth perfume the air.'

Pygmalion's Image, by Marston, 1598. 3 That is, her eyelids. So in Romeo and Juliet:'Thy eyes' windows fall

Like death when he shuts up the day of life.'

And in Venus and Adonis :

'The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day;
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth.'

With blue of heaven's own tinct*.-But my design? To note the chamber:-I will write all down:Such, and such, pictures :-There the window :Such

The adornment of her bed;-The arras, figures, Why, such, and such:-And the contents o' the story,

Ay, but some natural notes about her body,
Above ten thousand meaner moveables
Would testify, to enrich mine inventory:
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying!-Come off, come off;-
[Taking off her Bracelet.
As slippery, as the Gordian knot was hard!-
"Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To the madding of her lord. On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I'the bottom of a cowslip: Here's a voucher,
Stronger than ever law could make: this secret
Will force him think I have pick'd the lock, and ta'en
The treasure of her honour. No more.-To what end?
Why should I write this down, that's riveted,

4 Warburton wished to read:

White with azure lac'd,

The blue of heaven's own tinct.'

But there is no necessity for change. It is an exact description of the eyelid of a fair beauty, which is white tinged with blue, and laced with veins of darker blue. By azure our ancestors understood not a dark blue, but a light glaucous colour, a tinct or effusion of a blue colour. Drayton seems to have had this passage in his mind :

And these sweet veins by nature rightly plac'd,
Wherewith she seems the white skin to have lac'd.'

The reader will remember that Shakspeare has dwelt on corresponding imagery in a beautiful passage of The Winter's Tale :violets dim,

But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.'

Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late
The tale of Tereus 5; here the leaf's turn'd down,
Where Philomel gave up;-I have enough:
To the trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
Swift,swift, you dragons of the night!-that dawning
May bare the raven's eye: I lodge in fear;
Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.

One, two, three,-Time, time!

[Clock strikes.

[Goes into the Trunk.

The Scene closes.

SCENE III.

An Ante-Chamber adjoining Imogen's Apartment.

Enter CLOTEN and Lords.

1 Lord. Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most coldest that ever turn'd up ace. Clo. It would make any man cold to lose.

1 Lord. But not every man patient, after the noble temper of your lordship; You are most hot, and furious, when you win.

Clo. Winning would put any man into courage:

5 Tereus and Progne is the second tale in A Petite Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, 4to. 1576. The story is related in Ovid. Metam. 1. vi.; and by Gower in his Confessio Amantis, b. v. fol. 113, b.

6 The task of drawing the chariot of Night was assigned to dragons, on account of their supposed watchfulness. Milton mentions 'the dragon yoke of night' in Il Penseroso; and in his Comus:

the dragon womb

Of Stygian darkness.'

Again, In Obitum Præsulis Eliensis :

sub pedibus deam

Vidi triformem, dum coërcebat suos

Frænis dracones aureis.'

It may be remarked that the whole tribe of serpents sleep with their eyes open, and therefore appear to exert a constant vigilance.