Enter Pisanio reading of a letter.PISANIO How? Of adultery? Wherefore write you not What monsters her accuse? Leonatus, O master, what a strange infection Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian,5 As poisonous-tongued as handed, hath prevailed On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No. She’s punished for her truth and undergoes, More goddesslike than wifelike, such assaults As would take in some virtue. O my master,10 Thy mind to her is now as low as were Thy fortunes. How? That I should murder her, Upon the love and truth and vows which I Have made to thy command? I her? Her blood? If it be so to do good service, never15 Let me be counted serviceable. How look I That I should seem to lack humanity So much as this fact comes to? (⌜He reads:⌝) Do ’t!
The letter
That I have sent her, by her own command
20 Shall give thee opportunity. O damned paper, Black as the ink that’s on thee! Senseless bauble, Art thou a fedary for this act, and look’st So virginlike without? Lo, here she comes.Enter Imogen. I am ignorant in what I am commanded.IMOGEN 25How now, Pisanio?PISANIO Madam, here is a letter from my lord.⌜He gives her a paper.⌝IMOGEN Who, thy lord that is my lord, Leonatus?
109
Cymbeline
ACT 3. SC. 2
O, learned indeed were that astronomer That knew the stars as I his characters!30 He’d lay the future open. You good gods, Let what is here contained relish of love, Of my lord’s health, of his content (yet not That we two are asunder; let that grieve him. Some griefs are med’cinable; that is one of them,35 For it doth physic love) of his content All but in that. Good wax, thy leave.⌜She opens the letter.⌝ Blest be You bees that make these locks of counsel. Lovers And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;40 Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet You clasp young Cupid’s tables. Good news, gods! ⌜Reads.⌝ Justice and your father’s wrath, should he
take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me
as you, O the dearest of creatures, would even renew
45 me with your eyes. Take notice that I am in Cambria
at Milford Haven. What your own love will out of
this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness,
that remains loyal to his vow, and your increasing
in love.
50 Leonatus Posthumus. O, for a horse with wings! Hear’st thou, Pisanio? He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me How far ’tis thither. If one of mean affairs May plod it in a week, why may not I55 Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio, Who long’st like me to see thy lord, who long’st— O, let me bate—but not like me, yet long’st But in a fainter kind—O, not like me, For mine’s beyond beyond—say, and speak thick—60 Love’s counselor should fill the bores of hearing To th’ smothering of the sense—how far it is To this same blessèd Milford. And by th’ way
111
Cymbeline
ACT 3. SC. 3
Tell me how Wales was made so happy as T’ inherit such a haven. But first of all,65 How we may steal from hence, and for the gap That we shall make in time from our hence-going And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence? Why should excuse be born or ere begot? We’ll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,70 How many ⌜score⌝ of miles may we well rid ’Twixt hour and hour?PISANIO One score ’twixt sun and sun, Madam, ’s enough for you, and too much too.IMOGEN Why, one that rode to ’s execution, man,75 Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers Where horses have been nimbler than the sands That run i’ th’ clock’s behalf. But this is fool’ry. Go, bid my woman feign a sickness, say She’ll home to her father; and provide me presently80 A riding suit no costlier than would fit A franklin’s huswife.PISANIO Madam, you’re best consider.IMOGEN I see before me, man. Nor here, ⌜nor⌝ here, Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them85 That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee. Do as I bid thee. There’s no more to say. Accessible is none but Milford way.They exit.