So worthy as thy birth.

Clo.

Art not afeard?

Gui. Those that I reverence, those I fear, the wise: At fools I laugh, not fear them.

Clo.
Die the death.
When I have slain thee with my proper hand,
I'll follow those that even now fled hence,

And on the gates of Lud's town set your heads.
Yield, rustic, mountaineer.

[Exeunt, fighting.

Enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS.

Bel. No company's abroad.

Arv. None in the world. You did mistake him, sure. Bel. I cannot tell: long is it since I saw him, But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour Which then he wore: the snatches in his voice,

And burst of speaking, were as his. I am absolute 'Twas very Cloten.

Arv.

In this place we left them: I wish my brother make good time with him, You say he is so fell.

Bel.

Being scarce made up,
I mean, to man, he had not apprehension

Of roaring terrors; for th' effect of judgment
Is oft the cause of fear3. But see, thy brother.

Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN'S Head.

Gui. This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse, There was no money in't. Not Hercules

which is evidently wrong, and the question is, whether we shall read “th’effect,” with Theobald, or cure for “cause" in the next line. Johnson preferred Theobald's slight change, giving "the play of effect and cause, more resembling the manner of Shakespeare," and on this account also we adopt it.

Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none; Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne

My head, as I do his.

Bel.

What hast thou done?

Gui. I am perfect what*: cut off one Cloten's head, Son to the queen, after his own report;

Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer; and swore,
With his own single hand he'd take us in,

Displace our heads, where (thank the gods!) they grow,
And set them on Lud's town.

Bel.

We are all undone.
Gui. Why, worthy father, what have we to lose,
But that he swore to take, our lives? The law
Protects not us; then, why should we be tender,
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us;
Play judge, and executioner, all himself,
For we do fear the law? What company
Discover you abroad?

Bel.

No single soul

Can we set eye on, but in all safe reason

5

He must have some attendants. Though his humour
Was nothing but mutation; ay, and that
From one bad thing to worse; not frenzy, not
Absolute madness, could so far have rav'd,
To bring him here alone. Although, perhaps,
It may be heard at court, that such as we
Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time
May make some stronger head; the which he hearing,
(As it is like him) might break out, and swear
He'd fetch us in, yet is't not probable

To come alone, either he so undertaking,

Or they so suffering: then, on good ground we fear,

I am perfect what :] i. e. I am perfectly aware what I have done. We

have had the phrase before in this play. See Act iii. sc. 1.

3

5 Though his HUMOUR] In the folios, honour is evidently misprinted for "humour," meaning disposition: the error, with its converse, has before several times occurred. Theobald detected it.

To hunt this day: the boy Fidele's sickness
Did make my way long forth.

Gui.

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.

Bel.

I fear, 'twill be reveng'd.

[Exit.

Would, Polydore, thou had'st not done't, though

valour

Becomes thee well enough.

Arv.

'Would I had done't,

So the revenge alone pursued 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.

Bel.

Well, 'tis done.

We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger

Where there's no profit. I pr'ythee, to our rock:
You and Fidele play the cooks; I'll stay

Till hasty Polydore return, and bring him

To dinner presently.

Arv.

Poor sick Fidele !

I'll willingly to him: to gain his colour,
I'd let a parish of such Clotens blood,
And praise myself for charity.

Bel.

[Exit.

O thou goddess,

Thou divine Nature, how 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 the 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.

Gui.

Re-enter GUIDERIUS.

Where's my brother?

[Solemn Music.

I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,
In embassy to his mother: his body's hostage
For his return.

Bel.
My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds; but what occasion
Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!

Gui. Is he at home?

Bel.

He went hence even now.

Gui. What does he mean? since death of

mother

It did not speak before. All solemn things
Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
Triumphs for nothing, and lamenting toys,

6 How thyself thou blazon'st] The folio, 1623, introduces "thou" three times into this line,

"Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st."

The folio, 1632, omitted the second thou, to the injury of the metre, and it was followed by the folios of 1664 and 1685; but Malone judiciously substituted "how" for thou, which suits the sound, the sense, and the measure.

Is jollity for apes, and grief for boys.
Is Cadwal mad?

Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, bearing IMOGEN, as dead, in his

Bel.

Arms.

Look! here he comes,

And brings the dire occasion in his arms,

Of what we blame him for.

Arv.
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.

Gui.

O sweetest, fairest lily! My brother wears thee not the one half so well, As when thou grew'st thyself.

O, melancholy!

Bel.
Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find

The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare'
Might easiliest harbour in?-Thou blessed thing!
Jove knows what man thou might'st have made; but I,
Thou diedst a most rare boy, of melancholy.-

How found you him?

Arv.

Stark, as you see:

Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,

Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right cheek Reposing on a cushion.

Gui.

Arv.

Where?

O' the floor;

His arms thus leagu'd: I thought he slept, and put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rude

7

ness

8

- thy sluggish CRARE] All the folios have care for "crare," a word in frequent use of old for a small vessel called, as Heath tells us, crayera in middle-age Latin. Drayton calls it a cray, and crea; and Heywood and others, craier, and crare.

My clouted brogues-] i. e. My nailed shoes. Brogue' seems to be derived from the Irish brog, a shoe; and perhaps because "brogues" were chiefly