SCENE III.
Changes to a forest, in Wales, with a cave.
Enter Belarius, Guiderius, and Arviragus.
Bel.
A goodly day not to keep house, with such
Whose roof's as low as ours! 3 noteStoop, boys: This gate
-- 247 --
Instructs you how to adore the heavens; and bows you
To morning's holy office: The gates of monarchs
Are arch'd so high, that giants may jet through
And keep 4 notetheir impious turbands on, without
Good morrow to the sun.—Hail, thou fair heaven!
We house i' the rock, yet use thee not so hardly
As prouder livers do.
Guid.
Hail, heaven!
Arv.
Hail, heaven!
Bel.
Now for our mountain sport: Up to yon hill,
Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider,
When you above perceive me like a crow,
That it is place, which lessens, and sets off.
And you may then revolve what tales I have told you,
Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war:
5 noteThis service is not service, so being done,
But being so allow'd: To apprehend thus,
Draws us a profit from all things we see:
And often, to our comfort, shall we find
6 note
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-wing'd eagle.9Q1059 O, this life
-- 248 --
Is nobler, than attending for a check7 note;
Richer, 8 note
than doing nothing for a babe;
Prouder, than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
Such gain the cap of him, that makes them fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross'd: no life to ours.
-- 249 --
Guid.
Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledg'd,
Have never wing'd from view o' the nest; nor know not
What air's from home. Haply, this life is best,
If quiet life be best; sweeter to you,
That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With your stiff age: but, unto us, it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling abed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
9 noteTo stride a limit.
Arv.
1 noteWhat should we speak of,
When we are as old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
We are beastly; subtle as the fox, for prey;
Like warlike as the wolf, for what we eat:
Our valour is, to chace what flies; our cage
We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird,
And sing our bondage freely.
Bel.
2 noteHow you speak!
Did you but know the city's usuries,
And felt them knowingly: the art o' the court,
As hard to leave, as keep; whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slippery, that
The fear's as bad as falling: the toil of the war,
A pain that only seems to seek out danger
I' the name of fame, and honour; which dies i' the search;
-- 250 --
And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph,
As record of fair act; nay, many times,
Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse,
Must curt'sy at the censure:—O, boys, this story
The world may read in me: My body's mark'd
With Roman swords; and my report was once
First with the best of note: Cymbeline lov'd me;
And when a soldier was the theme, my name
Was not far off: Then was I as a tree,
Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but, in one night,
A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather3 note
.
Guid.
Uncertain favour!
Bel.
My fault being nothing (as I have told you oft)
But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd
Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline,
I was confederate with the Romans: so,
Follow'd my banishment; and, these twenty years,
This rock, and these demesnes, have been my world:
Where I have liv'd at honest freedom; pay'd
More pious debts to heaven, than in all
The fore-end of my time.—But, up to the mountains;
This is not hunters' language: He, that strikes
The venison first, shall be the lord o' the feast;
To him the other two shall minister;
And we will fear no poison, which attends
In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys.
[Exeunt Guid. and Arv.
How hard it is, to hide the sparks of nature!
These boys know little, they are sons to the king;
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
-- 251 --
They think, they are mine: and, though train'd up thus meanly
4 note
I' the cave, wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them,
-- 252 --
In simple and low things, to prince it, much
Beyond the trick of others. 5 noteThis Polydore,—
The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, whom
The king his father call'd Guiderius,—Jove!
When on my three-foot stool I sit, and tell
The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
Into my story: say,—Thus mine enemy fell;
And thus I set my foot on his neck; even then
The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture
That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,9Q1061
(Once, Arviragus) in as like a figure,
Strikes life into my speech, and shews much more
His own conceiving. Hark! the game is rouz'd!—
O Cymbeline! heaven, and my conscience, knows,
Thou didst unjustly banish me: whereon,
At three, and two years old, 6 noteI stole these babes;
Thinking to bar thee of succession, as
Thou reft'st me of my lands. Euriphile,
Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother,
And every day do honour to her grave:
Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd,
They take for natural father. The game is up.
[Exit.
-- 253 --
Samuel Johnson [1778], The plays of William Shakspeare. In ten volumes. With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators; to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The second edition, Revised and Augmented (Printed for C. Bathurst [and] W. Strahan [etc.], London) [word count] [S10901].
