Act 3, Scene 4

Country near Milford-Haven.

[Enter PISANIO and IMOGEN]
Imogen
1628 Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the place
1629 Was near at hand: ne'er long'd my mother so
1630 To see me first, as I have now. Pisanio! man!
1631 Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind,
1632 That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh
1633 From the inward of thee? One, but painted thus,
1634 Would be interpreted a thing perplex'd
1635 Beyond self-explication: put thyself
1636 Into a havior of less fear, ere wildness
1637 Vanquish my staider senses. What's the matter?
1638 Why tender'st thou that paper to me, with
1639 A look untender? If't be summer news,
1640 Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st
1641 But keep that countenance still. My husband's hand!
1642 That drug-damn'd Italy hath out-craftied him,
1643 And he's at some hard point. Speak, man: thy tongue
1644 May take off some extremity, which to read
1645 Would be even mortal to me.
Pisanio
1646 Please you, read;
1647 And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing
1648 The most disdain'd of fortune.
[Reads]
Imogen
1649 'Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath played the
1650 strumpet in my bed; the testimonies whereof lie
1651 bleeding in me. I speak not out of weak surmises,
1652 but from proof as strong as my grief and as certain
1653 as I expect my revenge. That part thou, Pisanio,
1654 must act for me, if thy faith be not tainted with
1655 the breach of hers. Let thine own hands take away
1656 her life: I shall give thee opportunity at
1657 Milford-Haven. She hath my letter for the purpose
1658 where, if thou fear to strike and to make me certain
1659 it is done, thou art the pandar to her dishonour and
1660 equally to me disloyal.'
Pisanio
1661 What shall I need to draw my sword? the paper
1662 Hath cut her throat already. No, 'tis slander,
1663 Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
1664 Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
1665 Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
1666 All corners of the world: kings, queens and states,
1667 Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
1668 This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam?
Imogen
1669 False to his bed! What is it to be false?
1670 To lie in watch there and to think on him?
1671 To weep 'twixt clock and clock? if sleep
1672 charge nature,
1673 To break it with a fearful dream of him
1674 And cry myself awake? that's false to's bed, is it?
Pisanio
1675 Alas, good lady!
Imogen
1676 I false! Thy conscience witness: Iachimo,
1677 Thou didst accuse him of incontinency;
1678 Thou then look'dst like a villain; now methinks
1679 Thy favour's good enough. Some jay of Italy
1680 Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him:
1681 Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;
1682 And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,
1683 I must be ripp'd:—to pieces with me!—O,
1684 Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming,
1685 By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought
1686 Put on for villany; not born where't grows,
1687 But worn a bait for ladies.
Pisanio
1688 Good madam, hear me.
Imogen
1689 True honest men being heard, like false Aeneas,
1690 Were in his time thought false, and Sinon's weeping
1691 Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity
1692 From most true wretchedness: so thou, Posthumus,
1693 Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men;
1694 Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjured
1695 From thy great fall. Come, fellow, be thou honest:
1696 Do thou thy master's bidding: when thou see'st him,
1697 A little witness my obedience: look!
1698 I draw the sword myself: take it, and hit
1699 The innocent mansion of my love, my heart;
1700 Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief;
1701 Thy master is not there, who was indeed
1702 The riches of it: do his bidding; strike
1703 Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause;
1704 But now thou seem'st a coward.
Pisanio
1705 Hence, vile instrument!
1706 Thou shalt not damn my hand.
Imogen
1707 Why, I must die;
1708 And if I do not by thy hand, thou art
1709 No servant of thy master's. Against self-slaughter
1710 There is a prohibition so divine
1711 That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart.
1712 Something's afore't. Soft, soft! we'll no defence;
1713 Obedient as the scabbard. What is here?
1714 The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus,
1715 All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,
1716 Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more
1717 Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools
1718 Believe false teachers: though those that
1719 are betray'd
1720 Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
1721 Stands in worse case of woe.
1722 And thou, Posthumus, thou that didst set up
1723 My disobedience 'gainst the king my father
1724 And make me put into contempt the suits
1725 Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find
1726 It is no act of common passage, but
1727 A strain of rareness: and I grieve myself
1728 To think, when thou shalt be disedged by her
1729 That now thou tirest on, how thy memory
1730 Will then be pang'd by me. Prithee, dispatch:
1731 The lamb entreats the butcher: where's thy knife?
1732 Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding,
1733 When I desire it too.
Pisanio
1734 O gracious lady,
1735 Since I received command to do this business
1736 I have not slept one wink.
Imogen
1737 Do't, and to bed then.
Pisanio
1738 I'll wake mine eye-balls blind first.
Imogen
1739 Wherefore then
1740 Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abused
1741 So many miles with a pretence? this place?
1742 Mine action and thine own? our horses' labour?
1743 The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court,
1744 For my being absent? whereunto I never
1745 Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far,
1746 To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand,
1747 The elected deer before thee?
Pisanio
1748 But to win time
1749 To lose so bad employment; in the which
1750 I have consider'd of a course. Good lady,
1751 Hear me with patience.
Imogen
1752 Talk thy tongue weary; speak
1753 I have heard I am a strumpet; and mine ear
1754 Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,
1755 Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.
Pisanio
1756 Then, madam,
1757 I thought you would not back again.
Imogen
1758 Most like;
1759 Bringing me here to kill me.
Pisanio
1760 Not so, neither:
1761 But if I were as wise as honest, then
1762 My purpose would prove well. It cannot be
1763 But that my master is abused:
1764 Some villain, ay, and singular in his art.
1765 Hath done you both this cursed injury.
Imogen
1766 Some Roman courtezan.
Pisanio
1767 No, on my life.
1768 I'll give but notice you are dead and send him
1769 Some bloody sign of it; for 'tis commanded
1770 I should do so: you shall be miss'd at court,
1771 And that will well confirm it.
Imogen
1772 Why good fellow,
1773 What shall I do the where? where bide? how live?
1774 Or in my life what comfort, when I am
1775 Dead to my husband?
Pisanio
1776 If you'll back to the court—
Imogen
1777 No court, no father; nor no more ado
1778 With that harsh, noble, simple nothing,
1779 That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me
1780 As fearful as a siege.
Pisanio
1781 If not at court,
1782 Then not in Britain must you bide.
Imogen
1783 Where then
1784 Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
1785 Are they not but in Britain? I' the world's volume
1786 Our Britain seems as of it, but not in 't;
1787 In a great pool a swan's nest: prithee, think
1788 There's livers out of Britain.
Pisanio
1789 I am most glad
1790 You think of other place. The ambassador,
1791 Lucius the Roman, comes to Milford-Haven
1792 To-morrow: now, if you could wear a mind
1793 Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise
1794 That which, to appear itself, must not yet be
1795 But by self-danger, you should tread a course
1796 Pretty and full of view; yea, haply, near
1797 The residence of Posthumus; so nigh at least
1798 That though his actions were not visible, yet
1799 Report should render him hourly to your ear
1800 As truly as he moves.
Imogen
1801 O, for such means!
1802 Though peril to my modesty, not death on't,
1803 I would adventure.
Pisanio
1804 Well, then, here's the point:
1805 You must forget to be a woman; change
1806 Command into obedience: fear and niceness—
1807 The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,
1808 Woman its pretty self—into a waggish courage:
1809 Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy and
1810 As quarrelous as the weasel; nay, you must
1811 Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,
1812 Exposing it—but, O, the harder heart!
1813 Alack, no remedy!—to the greedy touch
1814 Of common-kissing Titan, and forget
1815 Your laboursome and dainty trims, wherein
1816 You made great Juno angry.
Imogen
1817 Nay, be brief
1818 I see into thy end, and am almost
1819 A man already.
Pisanio
1820 First, make yourself but like one.
1821 Fore-thinking this, I have already fit—
1822 'Tis in my cloak-bag—doublet, hat, hose, all
1823 That answer to them: would you in their serving,
1824 And with what imitation you can borrow
1825 From youth of such a season, 'fore noble Lucius
1826 Present yourself, desire his service, tell him
1827 wherein you're happy,—which you'll make him know,
1828 If that his head have ear in music,—doubtless
1829 With joy he will embrace you, for he's honourable
1830 And doubling that, most holy. Your means abroad,
1831 You have me, rich; and I will never fail
1832 Beginning nor supplyment.
Imogen
1833 Thou art all the comfort
1834 The gods will diet me with. Prithee, away:
1835 There's more to be consider'd; but we'll even
1836 All that good time will give us: this attempt
1837 I am soldier to, and will abide it with
1838 A prince's courage. Away, I prithee.
Pisanio
1839 Well, madam, we must take a short farewell,
1840 Lest, being miss'd, I be suspected of
1841 Your carriage from the court. My noble mistress,
1842 Here is a box; I had it from the queen:
1843 What's in't is precious; if you are sick at sea,
1844 Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this
1845 Will drive away distemper. To some shade,
1846 And fit you to your manhood. May the gods
1847 Direct you to the best!
Imogen
1848 Amen: I thank thee.
[Exeunt, severally]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1629syntax grammar
“ne'er long'd my mother so”
The syntax inverts the modern word order: 'ne'er long'd my mother so / To see me first, as I have now' means 'my mother never longed to first see me [at my birth] as much as I now long [to see Posthumus].' The comparison equates Imogen's desire to reach Posthumus with a newborn's first gaze at its mother.
TLN 1634archaic vocab
“a thing perplex'd / Beyond self-explication: put thyself / Into a havior of less fear”
'Perplex'd beyond self-explication' means baffled beyond the ability to explain itself. 'Havior' (also spelled 'behaviour') means bearing or demeanor. Imogen is telling Pisanio: whoever was painted with that expression would be taken for someone bewildered beyond speech — so adopt a less frightening manner before you drive me mad.
TLN 1642cultural context
“drug-damn'd Italy hath out-craftied him”
Elizabethan and Jacobean England stereotyped Italy as a land of poison, scheming, and sophisticated deceit; 'drug-damn'd' concentrates these associations (Italy is 'damned' by poisoners and manipulators). Imogen assumes Posthumus has been tricked or corrupted by Italian villainy — a reasonable inference, since Iachimo is precisely such an Italian schemer.
TLN 1659archaic vocab
“thou art the pandar to her dishonour”
A 'pandar' (or pander) is a go-between who facilitates sexual transgression — someone who procures partners for illicit activity. Posthumus's letter warns that if Pisanio refuses to kill Imogen and instead lets her live in supposed adultery, he becomes the enabler of her dishonor. The word derives from Pandarus, the procurer in the Troy legend.
TLN 1664classical allusion
“Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath / Rides on the posting winds”
Pisanio compares slander to a serpent more venomous than all the snakes and reptiles bred by the Nile. The Nile was proverbially believed to generate living creatures from its fertile mud after flooding — including asps, crocodiles, and venomous worms. The comparison makes slander worse than any natural poison.
TLN 1679archaic vocab
“Some jay of Italy / Whose mother was her painting”
A 'jay' was slang for a loose woman or a flashy, showy creature (the bird's gaudy plumage suggested cheap display). 'Whose mother was her painting' means she owes her beauty entirely to cosmetics — she was born of nothing except paint. Imogen imagines Posthumus seduced by a garish Italian woman whose looks are entirely artificial.
TLN 1681rhetorical device
“Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion; / And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls, / I must be ripp'd”
Imogen turns herself into a discarded piece of clothing: she is 'stale' (worn-out, out of date), a garment too good to hang on a wall peg unused but too unfashionable to wear — and so it must be 'ripp'd' apart (destroyed). The metaphor of a woman as a costly dress her husband has tired of is bitterly self-aware.
TLN 1689classical allusion
“like false Aeneas, / Were in his time thought false, and Sinon's weeping”
Imogen draws on two figures from the fall of Troy: Aeneas, branded 'false' by some ancient and medieval tradition as a traitor to Troy (he survived while the city burned), and Sinon, the Greek who wept convincingly to make the Trojans drag the wooden horse inside the walls. Both men used apparent honesty to deceive — so, Imogen says, honest Pisanio can hardly expect to be believed now that Posthumus has made all good-seeming men look treacherous.
TLN 1693archaic vocab
“Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men; / Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjured”
'Leaven' is the yeast that makes dough rise but that also, in biblical usage, means a corrupting or spreading influence. To 'lay the leaven on' all proper (handsome, worthy) men means to taint them all with the same suspicion of treachery. Because Posthumus looked so virtuous and proved false, no virtuous-looking man can be trusted.
TLN 1709biblical allusion
“Against self-slaughter / There is a prohibition so divine / That cravens my weak hand”
Imogen wants to die but is held back by the Christian prohibition against suicide — to kill oneself was 'self-slaughter,' a mortal sin against God, who alone holds the right to take life. 'Cravens my weak hand' means makes my hand a coward (craven means cowardly; here used as a verb, 'to craven' = to make cowardly).
biblical The Sixth Commandment and self-slaughter
TLN 1714archaic vocab
“The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus, / All turn'd to heresy? Away, away, / Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more / Be stomachers to my heart”
Imogen turns to Posthumus's love-letters, which she has been keeping against her breast. She calls them her 'scriptures' (sacred texts), now 'turned to heresy' (false doctrine). 'Stomachers' were decorative chest-pieces women wore over the front of their bodices; the letters have been her heart's armor. Now she tears them away.
TLN 1728archaic vocab
“when thou shalt be disedged by her / That now thou tirest on, how thy memory / Will then be pang'd by me”
'Disedged' means blunted, made dull — the edge (keenness of appetite or desire) worn off. 'Tirest on' uses a falconry term: a hawk 'tires' when it tears and feeds ravenously at its prey. Imogen predicts that when Posthumus's lust for his new Italian mistress is spent and blunted, his memory of the true, faithful wife he threw away will cause him anguish.
TLN 1746archaic vocab
“To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand, / The elected deer before thee”
The image is from deer hunting. A hunter 'takes his stand' (waits at a fixed post) and 'bends' his bow when the targeted ('elected') deer comes into range. To be 'unbent' at that moment — to lower the bow without shooting — is to let the moment go to waste. Imogen accuses Pisanio of leading her all this way, only to refuse the kill at the very moment she stood before him.
TLN 1753archaic vocab
“mine ear / Therein false struck, can take no greater wound, / Nor tent to bottom that”
'Tent' here is a surgical term: a tent was a roll of cloth or lint inserted into a wound to keep it open and prevent it from closing before it healed from the inside. 'To tent to bottom that' means to probe that wound all the way to the bottom, to sound its full depth. Imogen says her ear has been so thoroughly wounded by the accusation of being a strumpet that nothing worse can reach it.
TLN 1785rhetorical device
“I' the world's volume / Our Britain seems as of it, but not in 't; / In a great pool a swan's nest”
Imogen argues against treating Britain as the whole world: in 'the world's volume' (the great book of the world, or the entire globe), Britain is merely a part of it, not the whole — like a swan's nest in a vast pool. The image rejects her father's court as the only possible home and opens her mind to Pisanio's plan.
TLN 1790historical topical
“The ambassador, / Lucius the Roman, comes to Milford-Haven”
Caius Lucius is the Roman general and ambassador sent to collect Britain's overdue tribute to Rome. His arrival at Milford Haven — the great harbour in west Wales — is the historical hinge of the plot: Britain has refused Rome's tribute, and Lucius is about to demand war. Pisanio sees the chance to send Imogen to Rome disguised in his service.
historical Milford Havenhistorical Ancient Britain and the Roman tribute
TLN 1805archaic vocab
“change / Command into obedience: fear and niceness— / The handmaids of all women”
'Niceness' here means fastidiousness, delicacy, or over-refined modesty — the quality of being too careful about propriety. Pisanio says Imogen must abandon her princess's authority ('command') for a servant's obedience, and replace womanly 'fear and niceness' with a 'waggish courage' (bold, irreverent bravery). The speech outlines what a male disguise requires.
TLN 1813classical allusion
“the greedy touch / Of common-kissing Titan, and forget / Your laboursome and dainty trims, wherein / You made great Juno angry”
'Titan' is the sun-god (Helios, son of the Titan Hyperion), whose rays touch ('kiss') everyone without distinction — hence 'common-kissing,' the democratizing sun that weathers and tans all faces alike. Imogen's delicate ('dainty') dress and elaborate ('laboursome') grooming once rivalled the queen of the gods herself: Pisanio says she dressed so magnificently she made Juno envious.
classical Juno, queen of the gods
TLN 1840archaic vocab
“Lest, being miss'd, I be suspected of / Your carriage from the court”
'Carriage' here means the act of carrying off or conveying — Pisanio fears he will be suspected of having spirited Imogen away from the court. The word does not mean a wheeled vehicle in this sense but the abstract noun from 'carry.'
TLN 1842stage direction note
“Here is a box; I had it from the queen: / What's in't is precious; if you are sick at sea, / Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this / Will drive away distemper”
Pisanio gives Imogen a small box of medicine provided by the Queen, believing it is a powerful remedy for seasickness and illness. The audience knows what Pisanio does not: the Queen obtained this 'medicine' from the physician Cornelius believing it was a deadly poison; Cornelius, suspecting her purpose, gave her instead a drug that induces a death-like sleep. This box will cause Imogen's apparent death in Act 4.