Act 4, Scene 2

Before the cave of Belarius.

[Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN]
[To IMOGEN]
Belarius
2194 You are not well: remain here in the cave;
2195 We'll come to you after hunting.
[To IMOGEN]
Arviragus
2196 Brother, stay here
2197 Are we not brothers?
Imogen
2198 So man and man should be;
2199 But clay and clay differs in dignity,
2200 Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.
Guiderius
2201 Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him.
Imogen
2202 So sick I am not, yet I am not well;
2203 But not so citizen a wanton as
2204 To seem to die ere sick: so please you, leave me;
2205 Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom
2206 Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me
2207 Cannot amend me; society is no comfort
2208 To one not sociable: I am not very sick,
2209 Since I can reason of it. Pray you, trust me here:
2210 I'll rob none but myself; and let me die,
2211 Stealing so poorly.
Guiderius
2212 I love thee; I have spoke it
2213 How much the quantity, the weight as much,
2214 As I do love my father.
Belarius
2215 What! how! how!
Arviragus
2216 If it be sin to say so, I yoke me
2217 In my good brother's fault: I know not why
2218 I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
2219 Love's reason's without reason: the bier at door,
2220 And a demand who is't shall die, I'd say
2221 'My father, not this youth.'
[Aside]
Belarius
2222 O noble strain!
2223 O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!
2224 Cowards father cowards and base things sire base:
2225 Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.
2226 I'm not their father; yet who this should be,
2227 Doth miracle itself, loved before me.
2228 'Tis the ninth hour o' the morn.
Arviragus
2229 Brother, farewell.
Imogen
2230 I wish ye sport.
Arviragus
2231 You health. So please you, sir.
[Aside]
Imogen
2232 These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies
2233 I have heard!
2234 Our courtiers say all's savage but at court:
2235 Experience, O, thou disprovest report!
2236 The imperious seas breed monsters, for the dish
2237 Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
2238 I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,
2239 I'll now taste of thy drug.
[Swallows some]
Guiderius
2240 I could not stir him:
2241 He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
2242 Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.
Arviragus
2243 Thus did he answer me: yet said, hereafter
2244 I might know more.
Belarius
2245 To the field, to the field!
2246 We'll leave you for this time: go in and rest.
Arviragus
2247 We'll not be long away.
Belarius
2248 Pray, be not sick,
2249 For you must be our housewife.
Imogen
2250 Well or ill,
2251 I am bound to you.
Belarius
2252 And shalt be ever.
[Exit IMOGEN, to the cave]
Belarius
2253 This youth, how'er distress'd, appears he hath had
2254 Good ancestors.
Arviragus
2255 How angel-like he sings!
Guiderius
2256 But his neat cookery! he cut our roots
2257 In characters,
2258 And sauced our broths, as Juno had been sick
2259 And he her dieter.
Arviragus
2260 Nobly he yokes
2261 A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh
2262 Was that it was, for not being such a smile;
2263 The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly
2264 From so divine a temple, to commix
2265 With winds that sailors rail at.
Guiderius
2266 I do note
2267 That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
2268 Mingle their spurs together.
Arviragus
2269 Grow, patience!
2270 And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
2271 His perishing root with the increasing vine!
Belarius
2272 It is great morning. Come, away!—
2273 Who's there?
[Enter CLOTEN]
Cloten
2274 I cannot find those runagates; that villain
2275 Hath mock'd me. I am faint.
Belarius
2276 'Those runagates!'
2277 Means he not us? I partly know him: 'tis
2278 Cloten, the son o' the queen. I fear some ambush.
2279 I saw him not these many years, and yet
2280 I know 'tis he. We are held as outlaws: hence!
Guiderius
2281 He is but one: you and my brother search
2282 What companies are near: pray you, away;
2283 Let me alone with him.
[Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS]
Cloten
2284 Soft! What are you
2285 That fly me thus? some villain mountaineers?
2286 I have heard of such. What slave art thou?
Guiderius
2287 A thing
2288 More slavish did I ne'er than answering
2289 A slave without a knock.
Cloten
2290 Thou art a robber,
2291 A law-breaker, a villain: yield thee, thief.
Guiderius
2292 To who? to thee? What art thou? Have not I
2293 An arm as big as thine? a heart as big?
2294 Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not
2295 My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art,
2296 Why I should yield to thee?
Cloten
2297 Thou villain base,
2298 Know'st me not by my clothes?
Guiderius
2299 No, nor thy tailor, rascal,
2300 Who is thy grandfather: he made those clothes,
2301 Which, as it seems, make thee.
Cloten
2302 Thou precious varlet,
2303 My tailor made them not.
Guiderius
2304 Hence, then, and thank
2305 The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool;
2306 I am loath to beat thee.
Cloten
2307 Thou injurious thief,
2308 Hear but my name, and tremble.
Guiderius
2309 What's thy name?
Cloten
2310 Cloten, thou villain.
Guiderius
2311 Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,
2312 I cannot tremble at it: were it Toad, or
2313 Adder, Spider,
2314 'Twould move me sooner.
Cloten
2315 To thy further fear,
2316 Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
2317 I am son to the queen.
Guiderius
2318 I am sorry for 't; not seeming
2319 So worthy as thy birth.
Cloten
2320 Art not afeard?
Guiderius
2321 Those that I reverence those I fear, the wise:
2322 At fools I laugh, not fear them.
Cloten
2323 Die the death:
2324 When I have slain thee with my proper hand,
2325 I'll follow those that even now fled hence,
2326 And on the gates of Lud's-town set your heads:
2327 Yield, rustic mountaineer.
[Exeunt, fighting]
[Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS]
Belarius
2328 No companies abroad?
Arviragus
2329 None in the world: you did mistake him, sure.
Belarius
2330 I cannot tell: long is it since I saw him,
2331 But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour
2332 Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,
2333 And burst of speaking, were as his: I am absolute
2334 'Twas very Cloten.
Arviragus
2335 In this place we left them:
2336 I wish my brother make good time with him,
2337 You say he is so fell.
Belarius
2338 Being scarce made up,
2339 I mean, to man, he had not apprehension
2340 Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment
2341 Is oft the cause of fear. But, see, thy brother.
[Re-enter GUIDERIUS, with CLOTEN'S head]
Guiderius
2342 This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;
2343 There was no money in't: not Hercules
2344 Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none:
2345 Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne
2346 My head as I do his.
Belarius
2347 What hast thou done?
Guiderius
2348 I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten's head,
2349 Son to the queen, after his own report;
2350 Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer, and swore
2351 With his own single hand he'ld take us in
2352 Displace our heads where—thank the gods!—they grow,
2353 And set them on Lud's-town.
Belarius
2354 We are all undone.
Guiderius
2355 Why, worthy father, what have we to lose,
2356 But that he swore to take, our lives? The law
2357 Protects not us: then why should we be tender
2358 To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,
2359 Play judge and executioner all himself,
2360 For we do fear the law? What company
2361 Discover you abroad?
Belarius
2362 No single soul
2363 Can we set eye on; but in all safe reason
2364 He must have some attendants. Though his humour
2365 Was nothing but mutation, ay, and that
2366 From one bad thing to worse; not frenzy, not
2367 Absolute madness could so far have raved
2368 To bring him here alone; although perhaps
2369 It may be heard at court that such as we
2370 Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time
2371 May make some stronger head; the which he hearing—
2372 As it is like him—might break out, and swear
2373 He'ld fetch us in; yet is't not probable
2374 To come alone, either he so undertaking,
2375 Or they so suffering: then on good ground we fear,
2376 If we do fear this body hath a tail
2377 More perilous than the head.
Arviragus
2378 Let ordinance
2379 Come as the gods foresay it: howsoe'er,
2380 My brother hath done well.
Belarius
2381 I had no mind
2382 To hunt this day: the boy Fidele's sickness
2383 Did make my way long forth.
Guiderius
2384 With his own sword,
2385 Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en
2386 His head from him: I'll throw't into the creek
2387 Behind our rock; and let it to the sea,
2388 And tell the fishes he's the queen's son, Cloten:
2389 That's all I reck.
[Exit]
Belarius
2390 I fear 'twill be revenged:
2391 Would, Polydote, thou hadst not done't! though valour
2392 Becomes thee well enough.
Arviragus
2393 Would I had done't
2394 So the revenge alone pursued me! Polydore,
2395 I love thee brotherly, but envy much
2396 Thou hast robb'd me of this deed: I would revenges,
2397 That possible strength might meet, would seek us through
2398 And put us to our answer.
Belarius
2399 Well, 'tis done:
2400 We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger
2401 Where there's no profit. I prithee, to our rock;
2402 You and Fidele play the cooks: I'll stay
2403 Till hasty Polydote return, and bring him
2404 To dinner presently.
Arviragus
2405 Poor sick Fidele!
2406 I'll weringly to him: to gain his colour
2407 I'ld let a parish of such Clotens' blood,
2408 And praise myself for charity.
[Exit]
Belarius
2409 O thou goddess,
2410 Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
2411 In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
2412 As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
2413 Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
2414 Their royal blood enchafed, as the rudest wind,
2415 That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
2416 And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonder
2417 That an invisible instinct should frame them
2418 To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,
2419 Civility not seen from other, valour
2420 That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
2421 As if it had been sow'd. Yet still it's strange
2422 What Cloten's being here to us portends,
2423 Or what his death will bring us.
[Re-enter GUIDERIUS]
Guiderius
2424 Where's my brother?
2425 I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,
2426 In embassy to his mother: his body's hostage
2427 For his return.
[Solemn music]
Belarius
2428 My ingenious instrument!
2429 Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion
2430 Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!
Guiderius
2431 Is he at home?
Belarius
2432 He went hence even now.
Guiderius
2433 What does he mean? since death of my dear'st mother
2434 it did not speak before. All solemn things
2435 Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
2436 Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
2437 Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
2438 Is Cadwal mad?
Belarius
2439 Look, here he comes,
2440 And brings the dire occasion in his arms
2441 Of what we blame him for.
[Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN, as dead, bearing her in his arms]
Arviragus
2442 The bird is dead
2443 That we have made so much on. I had rather
2444 Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty,
2445 To have turn'd my leaping-time into a crutch,
2446 Than have seen this.
Guiderius
2447 O sweetest, fairest lily!
2448 My brother wears thee not the one half so well
2449 As when thou grew'st thyself.
Belarius
2450 O melancholy!
2451 Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
2452 The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare
2453 Might easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!
2454 Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,
2455 Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.
2456 How found you him?
Arviragus
2457 Stark, as you see:
2458 Thus smiling, as some fly hid tickled slumber,
2459 Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his
2460 right cheek
2461 Reposing on a cushion.
Guiderius
2462 Where?
Arviragus
2463 O' the floor;
2464 His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept, and put
2465 My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness
2466 Answer'd my steps too loud.
Guiderius
2467 Why, he but sleeps:
2468 If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;
2469 With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
2470 And worms will not come to thee.
Arviragus
2471 With fairest flowers
2472 Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,
2473 I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
2474 The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
2475 The azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor
2476 The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
2477 Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,
2478 With charitable bill,—O bill, sore-shaming
2479 Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
2480 Without a monument!—bring thee all this;
2481 Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
2482 To winter-ground thy corse.
Guiderius
2483 Prithee, have done;
2484 And do not play in wench-like words with that
2485 Which is so serious. Let us bury him,
2486 And not protract with admiration what
2487 Is now due debt. To the grave!
Arviragus
2488 Say, where shall's lay him?
Guiderius
2489 By good Euriphile, our mother.
Arviragus
2490 Be't so:
2491 And let us, Polydore, though now our voices
2492 Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,
2493 As once our mother; use like note and words,
2494 Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.
Guiderius
2495 Cadwal,
2496 I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee;
2497 For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse
2498 Than priests and fanes that lie.
Arviragus
2499 We'll speak it, then.
Belarius
2500 Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten
2501 Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;
2502 And though he came our enemy, remember
2503 He was paid for that: though mean and
2504 mighty, rotting
2505 Together, have one dust, yet reverence,
2506 That angel of the world, doth make distinction
2507 Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely
2508 And though you took his life, as being our foe,
2509 Yet bury him as a prince.
Guiderius
2510 Pray You, fetch him hither.
2511 Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',
2512 When neither are alive.
Arviragus
2513 If you'll go fetch him,
2514 We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.
[Exit BELARIUS]
Guiderius
2515 Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;
2516 My father hath a reason for't.
Arviragus
2517 'Tis true.
Guiderius
2518 Come on then, and remove him.
Arviragus
2519 So. Begin.
[SONG]
Guiderius
2520 Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
2521 Nor the furious winter's rages;
2522 Thou thy worldly task hast done,
2523 Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
2524 Golden lads and girls all must,
2525 As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Arviragus
2526 Fear no more the frown o' the great;
2527 Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
2528 Care no more to clothe and eat;
2529 To thee the reed is as the oak:
2530 The sceptre, learning, physic, must
2531 All follow this, and come to dust.
Guiderius
2532 Fear no more the lightning flash,
Arviragus
2533 Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Guiderius
2534 Fear not slander, censure rash;
Arviragus
2535 Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
Guiderius and Arviragus
2536 All lovers young, all lovers must
2537 Consign to thee, and come to dust.
Guiderius
2538 No exorciser harm thee!
Arviragus
2539 Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Guiderius
2540 Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Arviragus
2541 Nothing ill come near thee!
Guiderius and Arviragus
2542 Quiet consummation have;
2543 And renowned be thy grave!
[Re-enter BELARIUS, with the body of CLOTEN]
Guiderius
2544 We have done our obsequies: come, lay him down.
Belarius
2545 Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight, more:
2546 The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night
2547 Are strewings fitt'st for graves. Upon their faces.
2548 You were as flowers, now wither'd: even so
2549 These herblets shall, which we upon you strew.
2550 Come on, away: apart upon our knees.
2551 The ground that gave them first has them again:
2552 Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
[Exeunt BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS]
[Awaking]
Imogen
2553 Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven; which is
2554 the way?—
2555 I thank you.—By yond bush?—Pray, how far thither?
2556 'Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?—
2557 I have gone all night. 'Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.
2558 But, soft! no bedfellow!—O gods and goddesses!
[Seeing the body of CLOTEN]
Imogen
2559 These flowers are like the pleasures of the world;
2560 This bloody man, the care on't. I hope I dream;
2561 For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,
2562 And cook to honest creatures: but 'tis not so;
2563 'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
2564 Which the brain makes of fumes: our very eyes
2565 Are sometimes like our judgments, blind. Good faith,
2566 I tremble stiff with fear: but if there be
2567 Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
2568 As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!
2569 The dream's here still: even when I wake, it is
2570 Without me, as within me; not imagined, felt.
2571 A headless man! The garments of Posthumus!
2572 I know the shape of's leg: this is his hand;
2573 His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh;
2574 The brawns of Hercules: but his Jovial face
2575 Murder in heaven?—How!—'Tis gone. Pisanio,
2576 All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,
2577 And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,
2578 Conspired with that irregulous devil, Cloten,
2579 Hast here cut off my lord. To write and read
2580 Be henceforth treacherous! Damn'd Pisanio
2581 Hath with his forged letters,—damn'd Pisanio—
2582 From this most bravest vessel of the world
2583 Struck the main-top! O Posthumus! alas,
2584 Where is thy head? where's that? Ay me!
2585 where's that?
2586 Pisanio might have kill'd thee at the heart,
2587 And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?
2588 'Tis he and Cloten: malice and lucre in them
2589 Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!
2590 The drug he gave me, which he said was precious
2591 And cordial to me, have I not found it
2592 Murderous to the senses? That confirms it home:
2593 This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten's: O!
2594 Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,
2595 That we the horrider may seem to those
2596 Which chance to find us: O, my lord, my lord!
[Falls on the body]
[Enter LUCIUS, a Captain and other Officers, and a Soothsayer]
Captain
2597 To them the legions garrison'd in Gailia,
2598 After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending
2599 You here at Milford-Haven with your ships:
2600 They are in readiness.
Caius Lucius
2601 But what from Rome?
Captain
2602 The senate hath stirr'd up the confiners
2603 And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,
2604 That promise noble service: and they come
2605 Under the conduct of bold Iachimo,
2606 Syenna's brother.
Caius Lucius
2607 When expect you them?
Captain
2608 With the next benefit o' the wind.
Caius Lucius
2609 This forwardness
2610 Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers
2611 Be muster'd; bid the captains look to't. Now, sir,
2612 What have you dream'd of late of this war's purpose?
Soothsayer
2613 Last night the very gods show'd me a vision—
2614 I fast and pray'd for their intelligence—thus:
2615 I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd
2616 From the spongy south to this part of the west,
2617 There vanish'd in the sunbeams: which portends—
2618 Unless my sins abuse my divination—
2619 Success to the Roman host.
Caius Lucius
2620 Dream often so,
2621 And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here
2622 Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime
2623 It was a worthy building. How! a page!
2624 Or dead, or sleeping on him? But dead rather;
2625 For nature doth abhor to make his bed
2626 With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.
2627 Let's see the boy's face.
Captain
2628 He's alive, my lord.
Caius Lucius
2629 He'll then instruct us of this body. Young one,
2630 Inform us of thy fortunes, for it seems
2631 They crave to be demanded. Who is this
2632 Thou makest thy bloody pillow? Or who was he
2633 That, otherwise than noble nature did,
2634 Hath alter'd that good picture? What's thy interest
2635 In this sad wreck? How came it? Who is it?
2636 What art thou?
Imogen
2637 I am nothing: or if not,
2638 Nothing to be were better. This was my master,
2639 A very valiant Briton and a good,
2640 That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!
2641 There is no more such masters: I may wander
2642 From east to occident, cry out for service,
2643 Try many, all good, serve truly, never
2644 Find such another master.
Caius Lucius
2645 'Lack, good youth!
2646 Thou movest no less with thy complaining than
2647 Thy master in bleeding: say his name, good friend.
Imogen
2648 Richard du Champ.
[Aside]
Imogen
2649 If I do lie and do
2650 No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope
2651 They'll pardon it.—Say you, sir?
Caius Lucius
2652 Thy name?
Imogen
2653 Fidele, sir.
Caius Lucius
2654 Thou dost approve thyself the very same:
2655 Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.
2656 Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say
2657 Thou shalt be so well master'd, but, be sure,
2658 No less beloved. The Roman emperor's letters,
2659 Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner
2660 Than thine own worth prefer thee: go with me.
Imogen
2661 I'll follow, sir. But first, an't please the gods,
2662 I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep
2663 As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when
2664 With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave,
2665 And on it said a century of prayers,
2666 Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh;
2667 And leaving so his service, follow you,
2668 So please you entertain me.
Caius Lucius
2669 Ay, good youth!
2670 And rather father thee than master thee.
2671 My friends,
2672 The boy hath taught us manly duties: let us
2673 Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can,
2674 And make him with our pikes and partisans
2675 A grave: come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr'd
2676 By thee to us, and he shall be interr'd
2677 As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes
2678 Some falls are means the happier to arise.
[Exeunt]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2199rhetorical device
“clay and clay differs in dignity, Whose dust is both alike”
Imogen (disguised as Fidele) uses a paradox: clay is clay — all humans are made of the same dust — yet society ranks them in 'dignity' (rank, worth). The line signals her awareness that, despite Arviragus's fraternal warmth, she is ostensibly a servant-page, not his social equal. The paradox draws on the biblical dust-to-dust idea as well as the Stoic levelling of death.
TLN 2203archaic vocab
“not so citizen a wanton as To seem to die ere sick”
'Citizen' here is used as an adjective meaning 'townbred, soft, or pampered' — the kind of person who makes a great show of illness. A 'wanton' is a wilful, self-indulgent person. Imogen says she is not so weak and town-bred as to perform illness ('seem to die') before she is actually sick.
TLN 2205archaic vocab
“Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom Is breach of all”
'Journal' means daily, regular — from Latin diurnalis via French. Imogen urges Belarius and the brothers to keep to their everyday routine ('daily course') of hunting. 'The breach of custom is breach of all' is a compressed maxim: breaking an established habit throws everything into disorder.
TLN 2222cultural context
“O noble strain! O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!”
Belarius's aside uses the language of blood and breeding: 'strain' means lineage or hereditary disposition, 'breed' means the stock one comes from. He marvels that the boys' instinctive nobility ('worthiness of nature') reveals their royal birth even though they have never known it. The passage voices the play's central theme: that royal blood announces itself even in total ignorance of courtly education.
TLN 2258classical allusion
“sauced our broths, as Juno had been sick And he her dieter”
Guiderius praises Fidele's cooking with a high compliment: the sauces were so exquisite that they might have been prepared for Juno, queen of the gods, if she had been ill and needed specially prepared food. A 'dieter' is one who regulates and prepares diet for the sick. The simile elevates Imogen's domestic skill to divine standard.
classical Juno, queen of the gods
TLN 2270archaic vocab
“let the stinking elder, grief, untwine His perishing root with the increasing vine”
The elder-tree (Sambucus) had an Elizabethan reputation for unpleasant smell, and its pithy, hollow stems perish quickly. Arviragus constructs an image: patience is the vine, growing stronger; grief is the foul elder, whose roots will wither and disentangle from the vine as patience grows. The metaphor urges patience to win out over grief.
TLN 2274archaic vocab
“I cannot find those runagates”
'Runagates' (also 'runaways' or 'vagabonds') are fugitives who have run away — deserters or outlaws. Cloten is hunting Belarius and the boys, whom he calls runagates because they fled the court and are officially outlaws. The word carries contempt: they are runaways from lawful society.
TLN 2294rhetorical device
“Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not My dagger in my mouth”
Guiderius says Cloten's words are bigger than his own — not because Guiderius lacks courage but because Cloten talks while Guiderius acts. 'I wear not my dagger in my mouth' is a tart proverb-like inversion: a weapon belongs at your belt, used in deeds, not in your mouth, used as mere noise. The retort mocks Cloten's bluster as all talk.
TLN 2323archaic vocab
“Die the death”
'Die the death' is a legal and biblical formula meaning to be executed — to die the death prescribed by law. The phrase is a Hebraism ('dying thou shalt die,' Genesis 2:17 in the Geneva Bible) that passed into English law and common speech. Cloten is sentencing Guiderius to death by royal authority, making it more than a mere threat.
TLN 2326historical topical
“on the gates of Lud's-town set your heads”
Lud's Town is the legendary ancient name for London — supposed by Tudor chroniclers to have been built or named by King Lud, a mythical British king. To set heads on city gates was a real post-execution practice: traitors' heads were displayed on the gates of London Bridge as a warning. Cloten's threat is both archaic (invoking the legendary British past) and topically familiar.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2331archaic vocab
“time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour Which then he wore”
'Lines of favour' means the features of a face — the lines of his countenance, his physiognomy. Belarius says time has not blurred (worn away, distorted) the facial features he remembers from years ago, confirming this is indeed Cloten. 'Favour' in this sense means face, looks, or feature.
TLN 2338syntax grammar
“Being scarce made up, I mean, to man, he had not apprehension Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment Is oft the cause of fear”
Belarius says that because Cloten was barely developed ('scarce made up') into a man mentally — meaning not fully grown in judgment — he had no real understanding of 'roaring terrors' (physical danger). The reasoning: fear is typically produced by understanding one's situation; Cloten's deficient judgment ('effect of judgment') meant he felt no proper fear, which explains why he came alone.
TLN 2343classical allusion
“not Hercules Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none”
Guiderius's grim joke: even Hercules, the strongest hero of mythology, could not have knocked out Cloten's brains — because he had none. The allusion to Hercules as the supreme measure of physical strength makes the joke land harder: the most powerful force imaginable would have found nothing to work with.
classical Hercules and his labours
TLN 2364archaic vocab
“Though his humour Was nothing but mutation, ay, and that From one bad thing to worse”
'Humour' here means temperament or disposition — drawn from the medical theory of the four humours (blood, phlegm, choler, melancholy) that governed personality. Belarius says Cloten's entire disposition was 'nothing but mutation' — constant, unpredictable change, always worsening. The medical-psychological sense is: a character so ruled by fluctuating humours that no stable reasoning was possible.
TLN 2378archaic vocab
“Let ordinance Come as the gods foresay it”
'Ordinance' here means ordained fate or the order decreed by the gods — not the modern sense of a municipal law. Arviragus says: let what the gods have ordained happen as they have foretold it. The word carries the sense of divine appointment; a variant spelling of 'ordnance' (artillery) is unrelated. This is a statement of Stoic-inflected fatalism: submit to providential order.
TLN 2406archaic vocab
“I'll weringly to him: to gain his colour I'ld let a parish of such Clotens' blood”
'Weringly' is an otherwise unrecorded word, generally taken by editors to mean 'lingeringly' or 'tenderly, with care' — from the Old English werian (to protect, guard) or possibly a coinage meaning 'cautiously.' Arviragus says he will go to the sick Fidele with watchful, nursing care; and to restore Fidele's lost colour he would gladly bleed an entire parish-worth of Clotenlike men.
TLN 2409rhetorical device
“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”
Belarius apostrophizes Nature as a goddess — a standard Renaissance personification — and says she 'blazons' (displays, proclaims by heraldic display) herself in the two boys. 'Zephyrs' are the gentle west winds of classical poetry (from Zephyrus, the west-wind god); 'blowing below the violet' means a breeze so soft it passes under the flower without moving it. The double image — gentle as the smallest breeze, rough as a mountain-toppling wind — captures the boys' dual nature.
TLN 2425archaic vocab
“I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream, In embassy to his mother”
'Clotpoll' (also clodpoll) means a blockhead — literally a clod-shaped head, combining 'clot' (lump, clod) and 'poll' (head). Guiderius puns brutally on Cloten's name ('Cloten's clotpoll') — the name itself sounds like 'clot' — and says he has floated the severed head down the creek as a 'messenger' (in embassy) to the queen. The whole sentence is bitter, contemptuous black comedy.
TLN 2428stage direction note
“My ingenious instrument! Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion Hath Cadwal now to give it motion?”
Belarius has a self-playing or wind-activated musical instrument — called 'ingenious' (ingeniously made, cleverly constructed) — hidden in the cave. It begins to sound without anyone touching it, which Belarius and Guiderius take as a solemn omen. The sudden, uncaused music signals Imogen's apparent death inside the cave and functions as the play's supernatural call to the elegy that follows.
TLN 2436rhetorical device
“Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys Is jollity for apes and grief for boys”
Guiderius states a paired maxim: empty celebration ('triumphs for nothing') is the foolishness of apes, and trivial lamentation ('lamenting toys') is only childish weeping. He is demanding that the music's solemn occasion be met with appropriate solemnity — not idle emotion. 'Toys' here means trifles, trivial things. The couplet is an aphorism in the plain, proverbial style Guiderius favours.
TLN 2442rhetorical device
“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.”
Arviragus calls Imogen (believed dead) 'the bird' — a tender, protective image for a small, fragile creature the brothers have sheltered. His hyperbole ('skipped from sixteen to sixty') means he would rather have jumped from youth straight to old age — forgoing all the vigour of his prime ('leaping-time') — than have watched this death. 'Turned my leaping-time into a crutch' means exchanged youthful energy for the helplessness of extreme age.
TLN 2447rhetorical device
“O sweetest, fairest lily! My brother wears thee not the one half so well As when thou grew'st thyself.”
Guiderius calls Imogen a lily — the standard emblem of purity and beauty — but then adds a strange, tender compliment: Arviragus is carrying the 'dead' Imogen, and she looks less like a lily in his arms than when she lived and moved in her own person ('grew'st thyself'). The compliment collapses the metaphor of a cut flower into the image of a living plant: death is figured as the flower being removed from the root that sustained it.
TLN 2451archaic vocab
“find The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish crare Might easiliest harbour in”
A 'crare' (or crayer) is a small, slow merchant vessel — a coastal trading boat. Belarius personifies melancholy as a navigable sea so deep and murky that its 'ooze' (the muddy bottom) cannot be sounded; a sluggish little ship could find no easy harbour in it. The extended nautical metaphor gives melancholy oceanic vastness: no chart can map it.
TLN 2464archaic vocab
“put My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud”
'Clouted brogues' are heavy shoes (brogues, from Gaelic) patched or studded with nails ('clouted' = patched with clouts, i.e. pieces of leather or metal). Arviragus removed his rough, noisy footwear so that his steps would not wake what he thought was a sleeping Fidele. The detail places the boys firmly in a rustic, Welsh-pastoral world — these are the shoes of cave-dwellers, not courtiers.
TLN 2471rhetorical device
“With fairest flowers Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave”
Arviragus's flower-catalogue — pale primrose, azured harebell, eglantine, ruddock (robin) with charitable bill, furred moss — is an elegy in the pastoral tradition, listing natural things that will grace the dead's resting-place. Such flower-catalogues appear in classical elegy (Virgil, Eclogue 5; Ovid) and were a set-piece of Renaissance pastoral (compare Ophelia's flowers, Perdita's in The Winter's Tale). The specific flowers are painted with precise English botanical detail.
TLN 2477cultural context
“the ruddock would, With charitable bill,—O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie Without a monument”
The 'ruddock' is the robin redbreast. It was a strong English folk-belief that robins would cover the faces or bodies of the unburied dead with leaves and moss as a natural act of piety. The parenthetical moral — that the robin shames 'rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie without a monument' — uses the bird's instinctive duty to rebuke neglectful, inheriting children. This aside breaks the tone of pure elegy to make a pointed social observation.
TLN 2482archaic vocab
“To winter-ground thy corse.”
'Winter-ground' is used as a verb, meaning to protect or lay in for the winter, as gardeners cover ('ground') tender plants with straw or moss to protect them from frost. To 'winter-ground' a corpse ('corse') is to insulate the grave with moss against the cold season, a gardener's tenderness applied to the dead. The word appears nowhere else in Shakespeare.
TLN 2497archaic vocab
“notes of sorrow out of tune are worse Than priests and fanes that lie”
'Fanes' are temples or shrines — from Latin fanum (a sacred place). Guiderius says a song of mourning sung out of tune would be worse than the most corrupt thing he can imagine: priests who lie in a sacred building. The comparison is pointed — a house of worship where falsehood is spoken is as corrupted as possible; and still, a tuneless dirge would be worse. He decides they will speak the song as verse rather than risk singing it.
TLN 2500rhetorical device
“Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten Is quite forgot.”
Belarius notes that Fidele's death has made them forget all about Cloten's killing — 'great griefs medicine (cure) the less.' The observation is a sententious epigram: a larger sorrow dulls a smaller one, as a strong medicine overcomes a minor ailment. Belarius uses this as an opening to remind the boys to bury Cloten with ceremony despite their feelings.
TLN 2503cultural context
“though mean and mighty, rotting Together, have one dust, yet reverence, That angel of the world, doth make distinction Of place 'tween high and low”
Belarius rehearses a piece of Elizabethan orthodoxy: all people — mean (lowly) and mighty (powerful) — rot to the same dust in death; yet the institution of reverence for rank (here called 'that angel of the world') properly maintains distinctions between high and low even in death. The social order, though dissolved by death at last, must be observed while the world endures. Even an enemy prince deserves burial according to his rank.
TLN 2511classical allusion
“Thersites' body is as good as Ajax', When neither are alive.”
Guiderius invokes two figures from the Trojan War to make a point about death's levelling. Thersites was the ugliest and most contemptible Greek at Troy — a cowardly, foul-mouthed commoner. Ajax was one of the greatest Greek warriors — vast, powerful, second only to Achilles. Guiderius says: in death, Thersites and Ajax are equal. The line accepts Belarius's case for rank-burial while conceding the underlying equality of corpses.
TLN 2520rhetorical device
“Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages”
The funeral song 'Fear no more' is one of Shakespeare's most celebrated lyrics. Each stanza catalogues the hardships of life — heat, cold, the tyrant's power, hunger, lightning, slander — and declares that the dead are past all of them. The refrain 'come to dust' binds high ('golden lads') and low ('chimney-sweepers') in the same end. The song is simultaneously consolation and memento mori — death as release from suffering.
TLN 2529rhetorical device
“To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust.”
In death, the reed (the weak, bending plant) and the oak (the massive, enduring tree) are equal — the dead are past distinguishing between fragility and strength. Then the stanza escalates: the sceptre (power), learning (knowledge), and physic (medicine — the art that preserves life) must all alike 'come to dust.' The three stand for the three estates — ruler, scholar, physician — all levelled. This is the Stoic and biblical ubi sunt (where are they now?) commonplace brought to its most compressed form.
TLN 2533cultural context
“Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone”
'Thunder-stone' is the thunderbolt imagined as a physical missile — a stone or metallic object hurled by the gods when thunder strikes. Elizabethans genuinely believed that lightning left behind a material 'thunderstone' (often a belemnite fossil or a neolithic arrowhead found in the ground where lightning struck). The line says the dead need not fear even the most terrifying of divine weapons.
TLN 2556archaic vocab
“'Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?”
'Ods pittikins' is a comic minced oath — a softened swear that avoids saying 'God's' outright, in compliance with the 1606 Act to Restrain Abuses of Players (which prohibited profane use of God's name on stage). 'Pittikins' is a diminutive intensifier, perhaps from 'pity' or 'petit'; the whole phrase is roughly 'God's (little) mercy!' or 'For pity's sake!' Imogen wakes from her drug-sleep confused and still half-dreaming, and the exclamation gives her awakening a disoriented, almost comic tone.
TLN 2563archaic vocab
“'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing, Which the brain makes of fumes”
Imogen tries to convince herself she is still dreaming: the cave-keeper life was 'a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing' — an arrow (bolt) without substance, aimed at nothing. 'The brain makes of fumes' refers to the medical theory that dreams were produced by vapours or fumes rising from the stomach to the brain during sleep, making them mere bodily products without truth. Imogen is recalling a medical commonplace to deny reality — but reality reasserts itself immediately.
TLN 2573classical allusion
“His foot Mercurial; his Martial thigh; The brawns of Hercules”
Imogen, believing the headless body is Posthumus, reads his body as a classical catalogue: the foot is Mercurial (swift and light as Mercury's, god of speed and messengers); the thigh is Martial (powerful as Mars's, god of war); the muscles ('brawns') are like Hercules's (the greatest strongman of myth). The three gods — Mercury, Mars, Hercules — represent speed, military power, and raw strength: the ideal Renaissance soldier's body described in mythological terms.
classical Hercules and his labours
TLN 2576classical allusion
“All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks, And mine to boot, be darted on thee!”
Imogen, blaming Pisanio for the apparent murder, calls down on him all the curses that 'madded Hecuba gave the Greeks.' Hecuba was the queen of Troy who watched her city, husband, and children destroyed by the Greeks, and who, according to classical tradition, went mad with grief and rage, cursing her captors. Imogen's own grief is measured against the queen who suffered the greatest loss in all of classical myth.
classical Hecuba, Queen of Troy
TLN 2578archaic vocab
“Conspired with that irregulous devil, Cloten”
'Irregulous' is an extremely rare word — apparently a coinage meaning 'lawless, without rule or constraint' (from Latin irregularis). It appears only once in Shakespeare and is virtually unique in English literature. Imogen brands Cloten an 'irregulous devil' — a being outside all law or moral order, a creature who recognises no constraints. The word's strangeness itself enacts how far outside normal human category Cloten is.
TLN 2582rhetorical device
“From this most bravest vessel of the world Struck the main-top!”
Imogen uses an extended ship metaphor: Posthumus is 'this most bravest vessel of the world' — the finest ship ever built — and the forged letters have 'struck the main-top,' that is, shot away the topmost mast, destroying the vessel's power and direction. 'Main-top' is the platform or upper section of the mainmast. The image applies naval violence to the murder of a man's worth and life.
TLN 2588archaic vocab
“'Tis he and Cloten: malice and lucre in them Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!”
'Lucre' is financial gain or profit — here used in its pejorative sense of base greed or mercenary motive (from Latin lucrum). 'Pregnant' here means 'pressing, obvious, full of implication' — not related to childbirth but from the sense of something 'bursting with meaning.' Imogen believes the malice (hatred) and greed (lucre) of Pisanio and Cloten conspired together to produce this scene; the repeated 'pregnant, pregnant!' intensifies her feeling that the evidence is overwhelming.
TLN 2597historical topical
“the legions garrison'd in Gailia, After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending You here at Milford-Haven with your ships”
'Gailia' is Gaul (modern France), the Roman province on the far side of the Channel from Britain. The Roman military invasion of Britain crossing from Gaul at Milford Haven follows the play's historical framework: Julius Caesar had staged the original British expeditions from Gaul, and the tribute Cymbeline is refusing was a legacy of those campaigns. Here the legions cross from the continent to the great harbour of Milford Haven in west Wales.
historical Milford Havenhistorical Ancient Britain and the Roman tribute
TLN 2615classical allusion
“I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd From the spongy south to this part of the west, There vanish'd in the sunbeams: which portends— Unless my sins abuse my divination— Success to the Roman host.”
The Roman Soothsayer reports a vision: Jove's bird — the eagle, emblem of both Jupiter and the Roman legions — flew from the south ('spongy' = damp and rainy) to the west (Britain) and vanished into sunbeams, which he reads as a good omen for Rome. The eagle was Jupiter's sacred bird and the standard of the Roman legions. The Soothsayer's prophecy will be reinterpreted at the play's end when Roman and British peace is restored.
classical Jupiter, king of the gods
TLN 2621rhetorical device
“what trunk is here Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime It was a worthy building.”
Lucius sees the headless body and Imogen beside it and uses a double metaphor: first the body is a 'trunk' (tree-trunk or chest) without its top (head); then it is a ruined 'building' whose very wreckage testifies that it was once worthy. The quick shift from tree to building — both things that have a head/top — allows Lucius to express simultaneous horror and admiration with economical wit. It also echoes Guiderius's pun about Cloten as an 'empty purse' with no money in it.
TLN 2642archaic vocab
“From east to occident, cry out for service”
'Occident' is the formal Latin-derived word for west — the part of the world where the sun sets, as opposed to the orient (east, where it rises). Imogen (as Fidele) tells Lucius that she could wander the whole world searching for another master as good as the 'dead' Cloten-as-Posthumus. The elevated Latin vocabulary — occident, not simply 'west' — suits the dignified, formal tone she adopts in grief.
TLN 2654wordplay
“Thou dost approve thyself the very same: Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.”
Lucius plays on the name 'Fidele': it is Italian for 'faithful' (from Latin fidelis). He says the page's constant loyalty to his dead master proves the name fits, and the name in turn fits the faith — a rhetorical chiasmus (name-faith / faith-name). The irony is richly doubled: Imogen is indeed the most faithful person in the play, but under a false name, while the 'master' she mourns is not actually Posthumus.
TLN 2662rhetorical device
“I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep As these poor pickaxes can dig”
Imogen calls her fingers 'these poor pickaxes' — a gentle self-deprecating metaphor for her hands as digging tools. The image is tender and humble: she will bury her supposed dead master with her bare hands if necessary, and she asks Lucius for only enough time to finish this act of devotion before joining his service. The smallness of the 'pickaxes' measures the scale of her grief against the enormity of the loss.
TLN 2665archaic vocab
“on it said a century of prayers”
A 'century' here means a set or company of a hundred — from the Latin centuria (a military unit of roughly a hundred men). Imogen will say one hundred prayers over the grave. The word carries martial weight (a century of soldiers) which Imogen transfers to prayer: she will perform a full military company's worth of devotion. The locution is formal and Roman-inflected, fitting the scene in which she joins a Roman general.
TLN 2674archaic vocab
“make him with our pikes and partisans A grave”
Lucius orders his soldiers to dig a grave using their military weapons as shovels: pikes (long spears with iron points) and partisans (broad-bladed pole-weapons, a kind of halberd). The soldiers will turn implements of war into tools of burial, an image of military honour turned toward a tender purpose — and a practical gesture showing that Roman soldiers in the field carry digging tools or can improvise them from their spears.
TLN 2678rhetorical device
“Some falls are means the happier to arise.”
Lucius closes the scene with a sententious couplet: some falls (descents, disasters) are the very means by which one rises to a better state. The maxim functions as a quiet preview of the play's providential arc — the falls of Imogen (drugged, thought dead), Posthumus (condemned, imprisoned), Cymbeline (invaded) will all prove to be the route to their recoveries. It also echoes de casibus tradition inverted: not all falls are ends.