BELLARIUS.
It is a goodly sky—Stoop, boys, this gate
Instructs you how t'adore the heavens, and bows you
To ev'ning's holy office. Gates of monarchs
Are arch'd so high that giants may jut thro',
And keep their impious turbands on without
Obeisance to the sun—Hail! thou fair heav'n,
We house i'th' rock, yet use thee not so hardly
As prouder livers do.

PALADOR.
Hail heav'n!

CADWAL.
Hail heav'n!

BELLARIUS.
Our life, my boys, is such as mortals led
Ere living was an art. The busy knaves
That clatter in yon world, are mad to purchase
Honour with danger; wealth with envy; pleasure
With manifold infirmity; while we,
Poor in possession, in enjoyment rich,
Have no more wants than means; our av'rice is not

Wider than are our stomachs; our ambition,
Who first shall scale the steepy mountain's cliff,
Or strike the destin'd venison; this is life,
And health, the life of life.

CADWAL.
My rev'rend father,
Out of your proof you speak—we, poor unfledged,
Have never wing'd from view o'th' nest, nor know
What air's from home; haply this life is best,
If quiet life is best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known.

PALADOR.
What shall we speak of,
When we are 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're beastly; subtle as the fox for prey;
Like valiant as the wolf for what we eat;
Our courage is to chace what flies; our cage
We make a choir as doth the prison'd bird,
And sing our bondage freely.

BELLARIUS.
How you speak?
Did you but know the cities' usuries,
The art o'th' court, the toil of war that goes
In quest of honest fame, yet dies i'th'search,
And hath as oft a sland'rous epitaph
As record of fair act; did you know this

How would you smile in solitude—Oh! boys,
The sharded beetle is in safer hold
Than is the full-wing'd eagle—I 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 robb'ry, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.

PALADOR.
Uncertain favour!

BELLARIUS.
My fault was nothing, (as I oft have told you)
But that two villains, stand'ring my fair honour,
Swore me confed'rate 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; paid
More pious debts to heaven than in all
The fore-end of my time—but up to the woods—
This is not hunter's language—He who brings
The largest fardle home is lord o'th'feast.

CADWAL.
Come, Palador— [Exeunt Pal. and Cad.

BELLARIUS.
I'll meet you in the valleys.
Thou divine nature, how thyself thou blazon'st

In these two princely boys! O Cymbeline!
Thy sons, tho' train'd thus meanly up among
These desart rocks, have lofty thoughts that hit
The roofs of palaces—'tis wonderful
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,
Civility not seen from others, valour
That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop,
As if it had been sow'd.—Well—I must after— [Exit

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