Enter, ⌜as from a cave,⌝ Belarius ⌜as Morgan,⌝ Guiderius
⌜as Polydor,⌝ and Arviragus ⌜as Cadwal.⌝BELARIUS, ⌜as Morgan⌝ A goodly day not to keep house with such
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Whose roof’s as low as ours! ⌜Stoop,⌝ boys. This gate Instructs you how t’ adore the heavens and bows you To a morning’s holy office. The gates of monarchs5 Are arched so high that giants may jet through And keep their impious turbans on, without Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven! We house i’ th’ rock, yet use thee not so hardly As prouder livers do.GUIDERIUS, ⌜as Polydor⌝ 10 Hail, heaven!ARVIRAGUS, ⌜as Cadwal⌝ Hail, heaven!BELARIUS, ⌜as Morgan⌝ Now for our mountain sport. Up to yond hill; Your legs are young. I’ll tread these flats. Consider, When you above perceive me like a crow,15 That it is place which lessens and sets off, And you may then revolve what tales I have told you Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war. This service is not service, so being done, But being so allowed. To apprehend thus20 Draws us a profit from all things we see, And often, to our comfort, shall we find The sharded beetle in a safer hold Than is the full-winged eagle. O, this life Is nobler than attending for a check,25 Richer than doing nothing for a ⌜robe,⌝ Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk: Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine Yet keeps his book uncrossed. No life to ours.GUIDERIUS, ⌜as Polydor⌝ Out of your proof you speak. We poor unfledged30 Have never winged from view o’ th’ nest, nor ⌜know⌝ not What air ’s from home. Haply this life is best If quiet life be best, sweeter to you That have a sharper known, well corresponding35 With your stiff age; but unto us it is
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A cell of ignorance, traveling abed, A prison ⌜for⌝ a debtor that not dares To stride a limit.ARVIRAGUS, ⌜as Cadwal⌝ What should we speak of40 When we are old as you? When we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December, how In this our pinching cave shall we discourse The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing. We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey,45 Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat. Our valor is to chase what flies. Our cage We make a choir, as doth the prisoned bird, And sing our bondage freely.BELARIUS, ⌜as Morgan⌝ How you speak!50 Did you but know the city’s usuries And felt them knowingly; the art o’ th’ court, As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb Is certain falling, or so slipp’ry that The fear’s as bad as falling; the toil o’ th’ war,55 A pain that only seems to seek out danger I’ th’ name of fame and honor, which dies i’ th’ search And hath as oft a sland’rous epitaph As record of fair act—nay, many times Doth ill deserve by doing well; what’s worse,60 Must curtsy at the censure. O boys, this story The world may read in me. My body’s marked With Roman swords, and my report was once First with the best of note. Cymbeline loved me, And when a soldier was the theme, my name65 Was not far off. Then was I as a tree Whose boughs did bend with fruit. But in one night A storm or robbery, call it what you will, Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves, And left me bare to weather.GUIDERIUS, ⌜as Polydor⌝ 70 Uncertain favor!
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BELARIUS, ⌜as Morgan⌝ My fault being nothing, as I have told you oft, But that two villains, whose false oaths prevailed Before my perfect honor, swore to Cymbeline I was confederate with the Romans. So75 Followed my banishment; and this twenty years This rock and these demesnes have been my world, Where I have lived at honest freedom, paid More pious debts to heaven than in all The fore-end of my time. But up to th’ mountains!80 This is not hunters’ language. He that strikes The venison first shall be the lord o’ th’ feast; To him the other two shall minister, And we will fear no poison, which attends In place of greater state. I’ll meet you in the valleys.⌜Guiderius and Arviragus⌝ exit.⌜BELARIUS⌝ 85 How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature! These boys know little they are sons to th’ King, Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive. They think they are mine, and, though trained up thus meanly,90 I’ th’ cave ⌜wherein they⌝ bow, their thoughts do hit The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them In simple and low things to prince it much Beyond the trick of others. This Polydor, The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who95 The King his father called Guiderius—Jove! When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out Into my story; say “Thus mine enemy fell, And thus I set my foot on ’s neck,” even then100 The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats, Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal, Once Arviragus, in as like a figure
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Strikes life into my speech and shows much more105 His own conceiving. Hark, the game is roused! O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows Thou didst unjustly banish me; whereon, At three and two years old I stole these babes, Thinking to bar thee of succession as110 Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile, Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother, And every day do honor to her grave. Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan called,115 They take for natural father. The game is up!He exits.
