Cymbeline

1 Enter Imogen in her bed, and a Lady attending.
2 IMOGEN.
3 Who’s there? My woman Helen?
4 LADY.
5 Please you, madam.
6 IMOGEN.
7 What hour is it?
8 LADY.
9 Almost midnight, madam.
10 IMOGEN.
11 I have read three hours then. Mine eyes are weak;
12 Fold down the leaf where I have left. To bed.
13 Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
14 And if thou canst awake by four o’ th’ clock,
15 I prithee call me. Sleep hath seiz’d me wholly.
16 [_Exit Lady._]
17 To your protection I commend me, gods.
18 From fairies and the tempters of the night
19 Guard me, beseech ye!
20 [_Sleeps. Iachimo comes from the trunk._]
21 IACHIMO.
22 The crickets sing, and man’s o’er-labour’d sense
23 Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus
24 Did softly press the rushes ere he waken’d
25 The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,
26 How bravely thou becom’st thy bed! fresh lily,
27 And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
28 But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon’d,
29 How dearly they do’t! ’Tis her breathing that
30 Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o’ th’ taper
31 Bows toward her and would under-peep her lids
32 To see th’ enclosed lights, now canopied
33 Under these windows white and azure, lac’d
34 With blue of heaven’s own tinct. But my design
35 To note the chamber. I will write all down:
36 Such and such pictures; there the window; such
37 Th’ adornment of her bed; the arras, figures,
38 Why, such and such; and the contents o’ th’ story.
39 Ah, but some natural notes about her body
40 Above ten thousand meaner movables
41 Would testify, t’ enrich mine inventory.
42 O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
43 And be her sense but as a monument,
44 Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off;
45 [_Taking off her bracelet._]
46 As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!
47 ’Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
48 As strongly as the conscience does within,
49 To th’ madding of her lord. On her left breast
50 A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
51 I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip. Here’s a voucher
52 Stronger than ever law could make; this secret
53 Will force him think I have pick’d the lock and ta’en
54 The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end?
55 Why should I write this down that’s riveted,
56 Screw’d to my memory? She hath been reading late
57 The tale of Tereus; here the leaf’s turn’d down
58 Where Philomel gave up. I have enough.
59 To th’ trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
60 Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
61 May bare the raven’s eye! I lodge in fear;
62 Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.
63 [_Clock strikes._]
64 One, two, three. Time, time!
65 [_Exit into the trunk._]