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Another Room in the Same. | |
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Enter PISANIO, reading a letter. | |
| Pis. How! of adultery! Wherefore write you not | |
| What monster’s her accuser? Leonatus! | |
| O master! what a strange infection | 5 |
| Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian— | |
| As poisonous-tongu’d as handed—hath prevail’d | |
| On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal! No: | |
| She’s punish’d for her truth, and undergoes, | |
| More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults | 10 |
| As would take in some virtue. O my master! | |
| 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? | 15 |
| If it be so to do good service, never | |
| Let me be counted serviceable. How look I, | |
| That I should seem to lack humanity | |
| So much as this fact comes to?—Do ’t: the letter | |
| That I have sent her by her own command | 20 |
| Shall give thee opportunity:—O damn’d paper! | |
| Black as the ink that’s on thee. Senseless bauble, | |
| Art thou a feodary for this act, and look’st | |
| So virgin-like without? Lo! here she comes. | |
| I am ignorant in what I am commanded. | 25 |
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Enter IMOGEN. | |
| Imo. How now, Pisanio! | |
| Pis. Madam, here is a letter from my lord. | |
| Imo. Who? thy lord? that is my lord, Leonatus. | |
| O! learn’d indeed were that astronomer | 30 |
| That knew the stars as I his characters; | |
| He’d lay the future open. You good gods, | |
| Let what is here contain’d relish of love, | |
| Of my lord’s health, of his content, yet not | |
| That we two are asunder; let that grieve him,— | 35 |
| Some griefs are med’cinable; that is one of them, | |
| For it doth physic love,—of his content, | |
| All but in that! Good wax, thy leave. Bless’d 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! | |
| 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 not even renew 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, LEONATUS POSTHUMUS. | |
| O! for a horse with wings! Hear’st thou, Pisanio? | |
| He is at Milford-Haven; read, and tell me | 45 |
| How far ’tis thither. If one of mean affairs | |
| May plod it in a week, why may not I | |
| 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, | 50 |
| But in a fainter kind:—O! not like me, | |
| For mine’s beyond beyond; say, and speak thick;— | |
| Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing, | |
| To the smothering of the sense,—how far it is | |
| To this same blessed Milford; and, by the way, | 55 |
| Tell me how Wales was made so happy as | |
| T’ inherit such a haven; but, first of all, | |
| How we may steal from hence, and, for the gap | |
| That we shall make in time, from our hencegoing | |
| And our return, to excuse; but first, how get hence. | 60 |
| Why should excuse be born or ere begot? | |
| We’ll talk of that hereafter. Prithee, speak, | |
| How many score of miles may we well ride | |
| ’Twixt hour and hour? | |
| Pis. One score ’twixt sun and sun, | 65 |
| Madam, ’s enough for you, and too much too. | |
| Imo. Why, one that rode to ’s execution, man, | |
| Could never go so slow: I have heard of riding wagers, | |
| Where horses have been nimbler than the sands | |
| That run i’ the clock’s behalf. But this is foolery; | 70 |
| Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say | |
| She’ll home to her father; and provide me presently | |
| A riding-suit, no costlier than would fit | |
| A franklin’s housewife. | |
| Pis. Madam, you’re best consider. | 75 |
| Imo. I see before me, man; nor here, nor here, | |
| Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them, | |
| 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. [Exeunt. | 80 |
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