Cymbeline

1 Enter Queen, Ladies and Cornelius.
2 QUEEN.
3 Whiles yet the dew’s on ground, gather those flowers;
4 Make haste; who has the note of them?
5 LADY.
6 I, madam.
7 QUEEN.
8 Dispatch.
9 [_Exeunt Ladies._]
10 Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs?
11 CORNELIUS.
12 Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.
13 [_Presenting a box._]
14 But I beseech your Grace, without offence,
15 (My conscience bids me ask) wherefore you have
16 Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds
17 Which are the movers of a languishing death,
18 But, though slow, deadly?
19 QUEEN.
20 I wonder, Doctor,
21 Thou ask’st me such a question. Have I not been
22 Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn’d me how
23 To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
24 That our great king himself doth woo me oft
25 For my confections? Having thus far proceeded
26 (Unless thou think’st me devilish) is’t not meet
27 That I did amplify my judgement in
28 Other conclusions? I will try the forces
29 Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
30 We count not worth the hanging (but none human)
31 To try the vigour of them, and apply
32 Allayments to their act, and by them gather
33 Their several virtues and effects.
34 CORNELIUS.
35 Your Highness
36 Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;
37 Besides, the seeing these effects will be
38 Both noisome and infectious.
39 QUEEN.
40 O, content thee.
41 Enter Pisanio.
42 [_Aside._] Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
43 Will I first work. He’s for his master,
44 An enemy to my son. How now, Pisanio!
45 Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
46 Take your own way.
47 CORNELIUS.
48 [_Aside._] I do suspect you, madam;
49 But you shall do no harm.
50 QUEEN.
51 [_To Pisanio._] Hark thee, a word.
52 CORNELIUS.
53 [_Aside._] I do not like her. She doth think she has
54 Strange ling’ring poisons. I do know her spirit,
55 And will not trust one of her malice with
56 A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has
57 Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,
58 Which first perchance she’ll prove on cats and dogs,
59 Then afterward up higher; but there is
60 No danger in what show of death it makes,
61 More than the locking up the spirits a time,
62 To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d
63 With a most false effect; and I the truer
64 So to be false with her.
65 QUEEN.
66 No further service, Doctor,
67 Until I send for thee.
68 CORNELIUS.
69 I humbly take my leave.
70 [_Exit._]
71 QUEEN.
72 Weeps she still, say’st thou? Dost thou think in time
73 She will not quench, and let instructions enter
74 Where folly now possesses? Do thou work.
75 When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
76 I’ll tell thee on the instant thou art then
77 As great as is thy master; greater, for
78 His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name
79 Is at last gasp. Return he cannot, nor
80 Continue where he is. To shift his being
81 Is to exchange one misery with another,
82 And every day that comes comes to decay
83 A day’s work in him. What shalt thou expect
84 To be depender on a thing that leans,
85 Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends
86 So much as but to prop him?
87 [_The Queen drops the box. Pisanio takes it up._]
88 Thou tak’st up
89 Thou know’st not what; but take it for thy labour.
90 It is a thing I made, which hath the King
91 Five times redeem’d from death. I do not know
92 What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee take it;
93 It is an earnest of a further good
94 That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
95 The case stands with her; do’t as from thyself.
96 Think what a chance thou changest on; but think
97 Thou hast thy mistress still; to boot, my son,
98 Who shall take notice of thee. I’ll move the King
99 To any shape of thy preferment, such
100 As thou’lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
101 That set thee on to this desert, am bound
102 To load thy merit richly. Call my women.
103 Think on my words.
104 [_Exit Pisanio._]
105 A sly and constant knave,
106 Not to be shak’d; the agent for his master,
107 And the remembrancer of her to hold
108 The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
109 Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
110 Of liegers for her sweet; and which she after,
111 Except she bend her humour, shall be assur’d
112 To taste of too.
113 Enter Pisanio and Ladies.
114 So, so. Well done, well done.
115 The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
116 Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
117 Think on my words.
118 [_Exeunt Queen and Ladies._]
119 PISANIO.
120 And shall do.
121 But when to my good lord I prove untrue
122 I’ll choke myself: there’s all I’ll do for you.
123 [_Exit._]