Cymbeline

1 Enter from the cave Belarius, Guiderius and Arviragus.
2 BELARIUS.
3 A goodly day not to keep house with such
4 Whose roof’s as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate
5 Instructs you how t’ adore the heavens, and bows you
6 To a morning’s holy office. The gates of monarchs
7 Are arch’d so high that giants may jet through
8 And keep their impious turbans on without
9 Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!
10 We house i’ th’ rock, yet use thee not so hardly
11 As prouder livers do.
12 GUIDERIUS.
13 Hail, heaven!
14 ARVIRAGUS.
15 Hail, heaven!
16 BELARIUS.
17 Now for our mountain sport. Up to yond hill,
18 Your legs are young; I’ll tread these flats. Consider,
19 When you above perceive me like a crow,
20 That it is place which lessens and sets off;
21 And you may then revolve what tales I have told you
22 Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war.
23 This service is not service so being done,
24 But being so allow’d. To apprehend thus
25 Draws us a profit from all things we see,
26 And often to our comfort shall we find
27 The sharded beetle in a safer hold
28 Than is the full-wing’d eagle. O, this life
29 Is nobler than attending for a check,
30 Richer than doing nothing for a robe,
31 Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
32 Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,
33 Yet keeps his book uncross’d. No life to ours!
34 GUIDERIUS.
35 Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledg’d,
36 Have never wing’d from view o’ th’ nest, nor know not
37 What air’s from home. Haply this life is best,
38 If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
39 That have a sharper known; well corresponding
40 With your stiff age. But unto us it is
41 A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,
42 A prison for a debtor that not dares
43 To stride a limit.
44 ARVIRAGUS.
45 What should we speak of
46 When we are old as you? When we shall hear
47 The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
48 In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse.
49 The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
50 We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey,
51 Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.
52 Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
53 We make a choir, as doth the prison’d bird,
54 And sing our bondage freely.
55 BELARIUS.
56 How you speak!
57 Did you but know the city’s usuries,
58 And felt them knowingly; the art o’ th’ court,
59 As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb
60 Is certain falling, or so slipp’ry that
61 The fear’s as bad as falling; the toil o’ th’ war,
62 A pain that only seems to seek out danger
63 I’ th’ name of fame and honour, which dies i’ th’ search,
64 And hath as oft a sland’rous epitaph
65 As record of fair act; nay, many times,
66 Doth ill deserve by doing well; what’s worse,
67 Must curtsy at the censure. O, boys, this story
68 The world may read in me; my body’s mark’d
69 With Roman swords, and my report was once
70 First with the best of note. Cymbeline lov’d me;
71 And when a soldier was the theme, my name
72 Was not far off. Then was I as a tree
73 Whose boughs did bend with fruit. But in one night
74 A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,
75 Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
76 And left me bare to weather.
77 GUIDERIUS.
78 Uncertain favour!
79 BELARIUS.
80 My fault being nothing, as I have told you oft,
81 But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail’d
82 Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline
83 I was confederate with the Romans. So
84 Follow’d my banishment, and this twenty years
85 This rock and these demesnes have been my world,
86 Where I have liv’d at honest freedom, paid
87 More pious debts to heaven than in all
88 The fore-end of my time. But up to th’ mountains!
89 This is not hunters’ language. He that strikes
90 The venison first shall be the lord o’ th’ feast;
91 To him the other two shall minister;
92 And we will fear no poison, which attends
93 In place of greater state. I’ll meet you in the valleys.
94 [_Exeunt Guiderius and Arviragus._]
95 How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
96 These boys know little they are sons to th’ King,
97 Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
98 They think they are mine; and though train’d up thus meanly
99 I’ th’ cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
100 The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
101 In simple and low things to prince it much
102 Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
103 The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
104 The King his father call’d Guiderius—Jove!
105 When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell
106 The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
107 Into my story; say ‘Thus mine enemy fell,
108 And thus I set my foot on’s neck’; even then
109 The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
110 Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture
111 That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,
112 Once Arviragus, in as like a figure
113 Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more
114 His own conceiving. Hark, the game is rous’d!
115 O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows
116 Thou didst unjustly banish me! Whereon,
117 At three and two years old, I stole these babes,
118 Thinking to bar thee of succession as
119 Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile,
120 Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother,
121 And every day do honour to her grave.
122 Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call’d,
123 They take for natural father. The game is up.
124 [_Exit._]