SCENE III. Wales. A mountainous country with a cave.

ACT III

SCENE III. Wales. A mountainous country with a cave.

[Enter from the cave Belarius, Guiderius and Arviragus.]

BELARIUS

A goodly day not to keep house with such

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 monarchs

Are arch’d 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

Hail, heaven!

ARVIRAGUS

Hail, heaven!

BELARIUS

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,

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 allow’d. To apprehend thus

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-wing’d eagle. O, this life

Is nobler than attending for a check,

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 uncross’d. No life to ours!

GUIDERIUS

Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledg’d,

Have never wing’d 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 corresponding

With your stiff age. But unto us it is

A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,

A prison for a debtor that not dares

To stride a limit.

ARVIRAGUS

What should we speak of

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,

Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.

Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage

We make a choir, as doth the prison’d bird,

And sing our bondage freely.

BELARIUS

How you speak!

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,

A pain that only seems to seek out danger

I’ th’ name of fame and honour, 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,

Must curtsy at the censure. O, boys, this story

The world may read in me; my body’s mark’d

With Roman swords, and my report was once

First with the best of note. Cymbeline lov’d me;

And when a soldier was the theme, my name

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

Uncertain favour!

BELARIUS

My fault being nothing, as I have told you oft,

But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail’d

Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline

I was confederate with the Romans. So

Follow’d my banishment, and this twenty years

This rock and these demesnes have been my world,

Where I have liv’d at honest freedom, paid

More pious debts to heaven than in all

The fore-end of my time. But up to th’ mountains!

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.

[Exeunt Guiderius and Arviragus.]

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 train’d up thus meanly 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 Polydore, The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who The King his father call’d 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 then 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 Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more His own conceiving. Hark, the game is rous’d! 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 as Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile, Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother, And every day do honour to her grave. Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call’d, They take for natural father. The game is up.

[Exit.]