CERIMON. Your master will be dead ere you return; There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature That can recover him. [_To Philemon._] Give this to the ’pothecary, And tell me how it works. [_Exeunt all but Cerimon._] Enter two Gentlemen. FIRST GENTLEMAN. Good morrow. SECOND GENTLEMAN. Good morrow to your lordship. CERIMON. Gentlemen, why do you stir so early? FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sir, our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea, Shook as the earth did quake; The very principals did seem to rend, And all to topple: pure surprise and fear Made me to quit the house. SECOND GENTLEMAN. That is the cause we trouble you so early; ’Tis not our husbandry. CERIMON. O, you say well. FIRST GENTLEMAN. But I much marvel that your lordship, having Rich tire about you, should at these early hours Shake off the golden slumber of repose. ’Tis most strange, Nature should be so conversant with pain. Being thereto not compell’d. CERIMON. I hold it ever, Virtue and cunning were endowments greater Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs May the two latter darken and expend; But immortality attends the former, Making a man a god. ’Tis known, I ever Have studied physic, through which secret art, By turning o’er authorities, I have, Together with my practice, made familiar To me and to my aid the blest infusions That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones; And I can speak of the disturbances That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me A more content in course of true delight Than to be thirsty after tottering honour, Or tie my pleasure up in silken bags, To please the fool and death. SECOND GENTLEMAN. Your honour has through Ephesus pour’d forth Your charity, and hundreds call themselves Your creatures, who by you have been restored: And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even Your purse, still open, hath built Lord Cerimon Such strong renown as time shall never— Enter two or three Servants with a chest. FIRST SERVANT. So, lift there. CERIMON. What’s that? FIRST SERVANT. Sir, even now Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest: ’Tis of some wreck. CERIMON. Set’t down, let’s look upon’t. SECOND GENTLEMAN. ’Tis like a coffin, sir. CERIMON. Whate’er it be, ’Tis wondrous heavy. Wrench it open straight: If the sea’s stomach be o’ercharged with gold, ’Tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon us. SECOND GENTLEMAN. ’Tis so, my lord. CERIMON. How close ’tis caulk’d and bitumed! Did the sea cast it up? FIRST SERVANT. I never saw so huge a billow, sir, As toss’d it upon shore. CERIMON. Wrench it open; Soft! it smells most sweetly in my sense. SECOND GENTLEMAN. A delicate odour. CERIMON. As ever hit my nostril. So up with it. O you most potent gods! what’s here? a corpse! FIRST GENTLEMAN. Most strange! CERIMON. Shrouded in cloth of state; balm’d and entreasured With full bags of spices! A passport too! Apollo, perfect me in the characters! [_Reads from a scroll._]