That shouldst repair my youth; thou heapest
A year's age on me!

İmo.

I beseech you, sir,
Harm not yourself with your vexation: I

Am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare
Subdues all pangs, all fears.

Cym. Past grace? obedience? Imo. Past hope, and in despair; that way, past grace. Cym. That might'st have had the sole son of my queen! Imo. O blessed, that I might not! I chose an eagle, And did avoid a puttock.

Cym. Thou took'st a beggar; wouldst have made my throne A seat for baseness.

Imo.

A lustre to it.

Cym.

Imo.

No; I rather added

O thou vile one!

Sir,

It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus.
You bred him as my playfellow; and he is
A man, worth any woman; overbuys me
Almost the sum he pays.
Cym.

What!-art thou mad?
Imo. Almost, sir; Heaven restore me!-Would I were
A neat-herd's daughter! and my Leonatus.

Our neighbor shepherd's son!

Cym.

Re-enter Queen.

Thou foolish thing!

They were again together; you have done [To the Queen. Not after our command. Away with her,

And pen her up.

Queen.

'Beseech your patience;― peace, Dear lady daughter, peace. Sweet sovereign,

Leave us to ourselves; and make yourself some comfort

Out of your best advice.

Cym.

A drop of blood a day; and, being aged,

Die of this folly!

Queen.

Nay, let her languish

[Exit.

Enter PISANIO.

Fie!-you must give way;

Here is your servant.-How now, sir? What news? Pis. My lord your son drew on my master.

Queen.

No harm, I trust, is done?

Pis.

Ha!

There might have been,

But that my master rather played than fought,
And had no help of anger. They were parted
By gentlemen at hand.

Queen.

I am very glad on't.

Imo. Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part.To draw upon an exile!-O brave sir!

I would they were in Afric both together;

Myself by with a needle, that I might prick

The goer back.-Why came you from your master?
Pis. On his command. He would not suffer me

To bring him to the haven; left these notes
Of what commands I should be subject to,
When it pleased you to employ me.

Queen.
This hath been
Your faithful servant; I dare lay mine honor,
He will remain so.

Pis.

I humbly thank your highness.

Queen. Pray, walk a while.
Imo.

I pray you, speak with me; you shall, at least,

Go see my lord aboard.

About some half hour hence,

For this time, leave me. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. A public Place.

Enter CLOTEN and two Lords.

1 Lord. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out, air comes in; there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.

Clo. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it.- Have I hurt him?

2 Lord. No, faith; not so much as his patience. [Aside. 1 Lord. Hurt him? his body's a passable carcass, if he be not hurt; it is a thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt. 2 Lord. His steel was in debt; it went o' the backside the town.

[Aside. face. [Aside.

Clo. The villain would not stand me.
2 Lord. No; but he fled forward still, toward your

1 Lord. Stand you! You have land enough of your own; but he added to your having; gave you some ground. 2 Lord. As many inches as you have oceans. Puppies! [Aside.

Clo. I would they had not come between us. 2 Lord. So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground.

[Aside.

Clo. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me! 2 Lord. If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned. [Aside.

1 Lord. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together. She's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit.

2 Lord. She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her.

[Aside. Clo. Come, I'll to my chamber. 'Would there had been. some hurt done!

2 Lord. I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt.

Clo. You'll go with us?

1 Lord. I'll attend your lordship.

Clo. Nay, come, let's go together.

2 Lord. Well, my lord.

[Aside.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Room in Cymbeline's Palace.

Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO.

Imo. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' the haven, And question'dst every sail; if he should write,

And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost

As offered mercy is. What was the last

That he spake to thee?

Pis.

'Twas, His queen, his queen!

And kissed it, madam.

Imo. Then waved his handkerchief?
Pis.

Imo. Senseless linen! happier therein than I!-
And that was all?

Pis.
No, madam; for so long
As he could make me with this eye or ear
Distinguish him from others, he did keep
The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
Still waving, as the fits and stirs of his mind
Could best express how slow his soul sailed on,
How swift his ship.

Imo.

Thou shouldst have made him

As little as a crow, or less, ere left

To after-eye him.

Pis. Madam, so I did.

Imo. I would have broke mine eye-strings; cracked them,

but

To look upon him; till the diminution

Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;

Nay, followed him, till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air; and then

Have turned mine eye, and wept.-But, good Pisanio, When shall we hear from him?

Pis.

With his next vantage.

Be assured, madam,

Imo. I did not take my leave of him, but had Most pretty things to say. Ere I could tell him, How I would think on him, at certain hours,

Such thoughts, and such; or I could make him swear
The shes of Italy should not betray

Mine interest, and his honor; or have charged him,
At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
To encounter me with orisons, for then

I am in heaven for him; or ere I could.
Give him that parting kiss, which I had set
Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from growing.

Lady.

Enter a Lady.

The queen, madam,

Desires your highness' company.

Imo. Those things I bid you do, get them despatched.— I will attend the queen.

Pis.

Madam, I shall.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. Rome. An Apartment in Philario's House.

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard.

Iach. Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain; he was then of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy, as since he hath been allowed the name of; but I could then have looked on him without the help of admiration; though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side, and I do peruse him by items.

Phi. You speak of him when he was less furnished, than now he is, with that which makes him both without and within.

French. I have seen him in France; we had very many there, could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.

Iach. This matter of marrying his king's daughter, (wherein he must be weighed rather by her value, than his own,) words him, I doubt not, a great deal from the matter.

French. And then his banishment:

Iach. Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable divorce, under her colors, are wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar without more quality. But how comes it he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance?

Phi. His father and I were soldiers together; to whom I have been often bound for no less than my life.

Enter POSTHUMUS.

Here comes the Briton. Let him be so entertained amongst you, as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of his quality.-I beseech you all, be better known to this gentleman; whom I commend to you, as a noble friend of mine. How worthy he is, I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.

French. Sir, we have known together in Orleans. Post. Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay, and yet pay still. French. Sir, you o'errate my poor kindness. I was glad I did atone my countryman and you; it had been pity, you should have been put together with so mortal a purpose, as then each bore, upon importance of so slight and trivial a

nature.

Post. By your pardon, sir, I was then a young traveller; rather shunned to go even with what I heard, than in my every action to be guided by others' experiences; but upon my mended judgment, (if I offend not to say it is mended,) my quarrel was not altogether slight.

French. 'Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords; and by such two, that would, by all likelihood, have confounded one the other, or have fallen both.

Iach. Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference? French. Safely, I think; 'twas a contention in public, which may, without contradiction, suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last night, where each of us fell in praise of our country mistresses: This gentleman at that time vouching (and upon warrant of bloody affirmation) his to be more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant-qualified, and less attemptible, than any the rarest of our ladies in France.

Iach. That lady is not now living; or this gentleman's opinion, by this, worn out.

Post. She holds her virtue still, and I my mind.

Iach. You must not so far prefer her 'fore ours of Italy.