The Complete Works of William ShakespeareShakespeare, William
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The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William
English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
GUIDERIUS.
With his own sword,
Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta’en
His head from him. I’ll throw’t into the creek
Behind our rock, and let it to the sea
And tell the fishes he’s the Queen’s son, Cloten.
That’s all I reck.
[_Exit._]
BELARIUS.
I fear ’twill be reveng’d.
Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done’t! though valour
Becomes thee well enough.
ARVIRAGUS.
Would I had done’t,
So the revenge alone pursu’d me! Polydore,
I love thee brotherly, but envy much
Thou hast robb’d me of this deed. I would revenges,
That possible strength might meet, would seek us through,
And put us to our answer.
BELARIUS.
Well, ’tis done.
We’ll hunt no more today, nor seek for danger
Where there’s no profit. I prithee to our rock.
You and Fidele play the cooks; I’ll stay
Till hasty Polydore return, and bring him
To dinner presently.
ARVIRAGUS.
Poor sick Fidele!
I’ll willingly to him; to gain his colour
I’d let a parish of such Cloten’s blood,
And praise myself for charity.
[_Exit._]
BELARIUS.
O thou goddess,
Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon’st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchaf’d, as the rud’st wind
That by the top doth take the mountain pine
And make him stoop to th’ vale. ’Tis wonder
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn’d, honour untaught,
Civility not seen from other, valour
That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
As if it had been sow’d. Yet still it’s strange
What Cloten’s being here to us portends,
Or what his death will bring us.
Enter Guiderius.
GUIDERIUS.
Where’s my brother?
I have sent Cloten’s clotpoll down the stream,
In embassy to his mother; his body’s hostage
For his return.
[_Solemn music._]
BELARIUS.
My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds. But what occasion
Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!
GUIDERIUS.
Is he at home?
BELARIUS.
He went hence even now.
GUIDERIUS.
What does he mean? Since death of my dear’st mother
It did not speak before. All solemn things
Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
Is Cadwal mad?
Enter Arviragus with Imogen as dead, bearing her in his arms.
BELARIUS.
Look, here he comes,
And brings the dire occasion in his arms
Of what we blame him for!
ARVIRAGUS.
The bird is dead
That we have made so much on. I had rather
Have skipp’d from sixteen years of age to sixty,
To have turn’d my leaping time into a crutch,
Than have seen this.
GUIDERIUS.
O sweetest, fairest lily!
My brother wears thee not the one half so well
As when thou grew’st thyself.
BELARIUS.
O melancholy!
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
The ooze to show what coast thy sluggish crare
Might’st easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!
Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,
Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.
How found you him?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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