Post. What lady would you choose to assail? lach. Yours; whom in constancy, you think, stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring, that, commend me to the court where your lady is, with no more advantage than the opportunity of a second conference, and I will bring from thence that honor of hers, which you imagine so reserved.

Post. I will wage against your gold, gold to it: my ring I hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it. Iach. You are a friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting: But, I see, you have some religion in you, that you fear.

Post. This is but a custom in your tongue: you bear a graver purpose, I hope.

Iach. I am the master of my speeches; and would undergo what's spoken, I swear.

Post. Will you?--I shall but lend my diamond till your return:-Let there be covenants drawn between us: My mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking: I dare you to this match: here's my ring.

Phi. I will have it no lay.

Iach. By the gods it is one :-If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too. If I come off, and leave her in such honor as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours:-provided, I have your commendation, for my more free entertainment.

Post. I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us:-only, thus far you shall answer. If you make your voyage upon her, and give me directly to understand you have prevailed, I am no further your enemy, she is not worth our debate: if she remain unseduced, (you not making it appear otherwise,) for your ill opinion, and the assault you have made to her chastity, you shall answer me with your sword.

lach. Your hand; a covenant: We will have these things set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain; lest the bargain should catch cold, and starve: I will fetch my gold, and have our two wagers recorded.

Post. Agreed.

[Exeunt POSTHUMUS and IACHIMO. French. Will this hold, think you? Phi. Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray let us follow 'em. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.-Britain. A Room in Cymbeline's

Palace.

Enter QUEEN, Ladies, and CORNELIUS. Queen. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;

Make haste: Who has the note of them?
1 Lady.
I, madam.
Queen. Despatch.——
[Exeunt Ladies.
Now master doctor; have you brought those drugs?
Cor. Pleaseth your highness, ay: here they are,
madam: [Presenting a small Box.
But I beseech your grace, (without offence;
My conscience bids me ask,) wherefore you have
Commanded of me these most poisonous com-
pounds,

Which are the movers of a languishing death;
But, though slow, deadly?

Queen.
I do wonder, doctor,
Thou ask'st me such a question: Have I not been
Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how

$ Recommendation.

To make perfumes? distil! preserve? yea, so,
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections? Having thus far proceeded,
(Unless you think me devilish,) is't not meet
That I did amplify my judgment in
Other conclusions?" I will try the forces
Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
We count not worth the hanging,(but none human,)
To try the vigor of them, and apply
Allayments to their act; and by them gather
Their several virtues, and effects.
Cor.
Your highness
Shall from this practice but make hard your heart:
Besides, the seeing these effects will be
Both noisome and infectious.
Queen.

O, content thee.

Strange lingering poisons: I do know her spirit,
And will not trust one of her malice with
A drug of such damn'd nature: Those she has,
Will stupify and dull the sense awhile:
Which first, perchance, she'll prove on cats and dogs;
Then afterward up higher; but there is
No danger in what show of death it makes,
More than the locking up the spirits a time,
To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd
With a most false effect; and I the truer,
So to be false with her.
Queen.

Until I send for thee. Cor.

No further service, doctor,

I humbly take my leave.
[Exit.
Queen. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou
think, in time

She will not quench; and let instructions enter
Where folly now possesses? Do thou work;
When thou shalt bring me word, she loves my son,
I'll tell thee, on the instant, thou art then
As great as is thy master: greater; for
Is at last gasp: Return he cannot, nor
His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name

Continue where he is: to shift his being,"
Is to exchange one misery with another;
And every day that comes, comes to decay
A day's work in him: What shalt thou expect,
To be depender on a thing that leans?
Who cannot be new built; nor has no friends,

[The QUEEN drops a Box: PISANIO takes

it up.
So much as but to prop him?-Thou tak'st up
Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labor:
It is a thing I made, which hath the king
Five times redeem'd from death: I do not know
What is more cordial:-Nay, I pr'ythee, take it;
It is an earnest of a further good

That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
The case stands with her; do't, as from thyself.
Think what a chance thou changest on; but think
Thou hast thy mistress, still; to boot, my son,
Who shall take notice of thee: I'll move the king
• Experiments.
To change his abode.

Something of me, or what concerns me: Pray you,
(Since doubting things go ill often hurts more
Than to be sure they do: For certainties
Either are past remedies; or, timely knowing,
The remedy then born,) discover to me
What both you spur and stop.'

Iach.
Had I this cheek
To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
Whose every touch would force the feeler's soul
To the oath of loyalty; this object, which
Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here: should I (damn'd then)
Slaver with lips as common as the stairs
That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood; (falsehood as
With labor;) then lie peeping in an eye,
Base and unlustrous as the smoky light
That's fed with stinking tallow; it were fit
That all the plagues of hell should at one time
Encounter such revolt.

How should I be revenged? If this be true,
(As I have such a heart, that both mine ears
Must not in haste abuse,) if it be true,
How should I be revenged?

Iach.
Should he make me
Live like Diana's priest, betwixt cold sheets;
Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,

In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.
I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure;
More nobly than that runagate to your bed;
And will continue fast to your affection,
Still close, as sure.

What ho, Pisanio!

Imo.
Iach. Let me my service tender on your lips.
Imo. Away!-I do condemn mine ears, that have
So long attended thee.-If thou wert honorable,
Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not
For such an end thou seek'st; as base, as strange.
Thou wrong'st a gentleman, who is as far
From thy report, as thou from honor; and
Solicit'st here a lady, that disdains

Thee and the devil alike.-What ho, Pisanio!
The king my father shall be made acquainted
Of thy assault: if he shall think it fit,
A saucy stranger in his court, to mart

What you seem anxious to utter, and yet withhold.
Sovereign command. Allowance, pension.

As in a Romish stew, and to expound
His beastly mind to us; he hath a court
He little cares for, and a daughter whom
He not respects at all.-What ho, Pisanio!-
Iach. O happy Leonatus! I may say;
The credit that thy lady hath of thee,
Deserves thy trust; and thy most perfect goodness,
Her assured credit!-Blessed live you long!
A lady to the worthiest sir, that ever
Country called his! and you, his mistress, only
For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon.
I have spoke this, to know if your affiance
Were deeply-rooted; and shall make your lord,
That which he is new o'er: And he is one
The truest manner'd; such a holy witch,
That he enchants societies unto him:
Half all men's hearts are his.
Imo.
You make amends.
Iach. He sits 'mongst men, like a descended god:
He hath a kind of honor sets him off,
More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry,
Most mighty princess, that I have adventured
To try your taking of a false report; which hath
Honor'd with confirmation your great judgment
In the election of a sir so rare,

Which you know, cannot err: The love I bear him Made me to fan' you thus; but the gods made you,

Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray, your pardon. Imo. All's well, sir: Take my power i' the court

for yours.

Iach. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot To entreat your grace but in a small request, And yet of moment too, for it concerns Your lord; myself, and other noble friends, Are partners in the business.

Imo.
Pray, what is't?
Iach. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord,
(The best feather of our wing,) have mingled sums,
To buy a present for the emperor;

Which I, the factor for the rest, have done
In France: "Tis plate of rare device; and jewels,
Of rich and exquisite form; their values great;
And I am something curious, being strange,
To have them in safe stowage; May it please you
To take them in protection?

SCENE I-Court before Cymbeline's Palace.

Enter CLOTEN, and two Lords.

Clo. Was there ever man had such luck? when I kissed the jack upon an up-cast,' to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't: And then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my pleasure.

1 Lord. What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your bowl.

2 Lord. If his wit had been like him that broke it, it would have run all out.

[Aside. Clo. When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths: Ha?

2 Lord. No, my lord; nor [Aside.] crop the ears

of them.

Clo. Whoreson dog!-I give him satisfaction? 'Would he had been one of my rank!.

2 Lord. To have smelt like a fool. [Aside. Clo. I am not more vexed at any thing in the earth: A pox on't! I had rather not be so noble as I am: they dare not fight with me, because of the queen my mother: every jack-slave hath his belly full of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody can match.

2 Lord. You are a cock and capon too; and you crow, cock, with your comb on.

Clo. Sayest thou?

[Aside.

1 Lord. It is not fit your lordship should undertake every companion that you give offence to. Clo. No, I know that: but it is fit, I should commit offence to my inferiors.

2 Lord. Ay, it is fit for your lordship only. Clo. Why, so I say.

1 Lord. Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court to-night?

Clo. A stranger! and I know not on't!

2 Lord. He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it not. [Aside. 1 Lord. There's an Italian come; and, 'tis thought, one of Leonatus' friends.

Clo. Leonatus! a banished rascal; and he's another, whatsoever he be. Who told you of this stranger?

1 Lord. One of your lordship's pages.

More hateful than the foul expulsion is
Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act
Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm
The walls of thy dear honor; keep unshak'd
That temple, thy fair mind; that thou mayst stand.
To enjoy thy banish'd lord, and this great land!
[Ent

SCENE II-A Bed-chamber; in one Part of it a Trunk.

IMOGEN reading in her Bed; a Lady attending. Imo. Who's there? my woman Helen? Lady.

Imo. What hour is it?

Lady.

Please you, madam

Almost midnight, madam Imo. I have read three hours, then: mine eyes

are weak:

Fold down the leaf where I have left: To bed:
Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
And if thou canst awake by four o'the clock,
I pr'ythee, call me. Sleep hath seiz'd me whol
[Erit Laty
To your protection I commend me, gods!
From fairies, and the tempters of the night,
Guard me, beseech ye!

[Sleeps. IACHIMO, from the Trunk Iach. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labe

sense

Repairs itself by rest: Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd
The chastity he wounded.-Cytherea,
How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! Fresh lily!
And whiter than the sheets! that I might touch
But kiss; one kiss!-Rubies unparagon'd,
How dearly they do't!-"Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus: The flame o'the tape
Bows toward her; and would under-peep her lids
To see the enclosed lights, now canopied
Under these windows: White and azure, laced
With blue of heaven's own tinct.'-But my desig
To note the chamber:-I will write all down-
Such and such pictures:-There the window:-

Such

The adornment of her bed;-The arras, figures Why, such, and such:--And the contents o'th

story,

Ah, but some natural notes about her body,

1 Lord. You cannot derogate, my lord. Clo. Not easily, I think.

2 Lord. You are a fool granted; therefore your issues being foolish, do not derogate. [Aside. Clo. Come, I'll go see this Italian: What I have lost to-day at bowls, I'll win to-night of him. Come, go.

2 Lord. I'll attend your lordship.

[Exeunt CLOTEN and first Lord. That such a crafty devil as is his mother Should yield the world this ass! a woman, that Bears all down with her brain; and this her son Cannot take two from twenty for his heart, And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess, Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st! Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd; A mother hourly coining plots; a wooer

He is describing his fate at bowls, the jack is the small bowl at which the others are aimed.

Would testify, to enrich mine inventory:
O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
And be her sense but as a monument,
Thus in a chapel lying!-Come off, come off-
[Taking off her Brocess
As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!
"Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
As strongly as the conscience does within,
To the madding of her lord. On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowslip: Here's a voucher,
Stronger than ever law could make: this secret
Will force him think I have pick'd the lock,
ta'en

The treasure of her honor. No more.-To wis end?

Why should I write this down, that's riveted,

It was anciently the custom to strew chambers with rushes. i. e. The white skin laced with blue veins.