Cymbeline
Act I, Scene 3
Britain. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.
Helen
From costume illustrations for the Daly production of Cymbeline
Walford Graham Robertson, circa 1900
- Enter Imogen and Pisanio.
Imogen
1 - 5- I would thou grew’st unto the shores o’ th’ haven,
- And questionedst every sail. If he should write
- And I not have it, ’twere a paper lost
- As offer’d mercy is. What was the last
- That he spake to thee?
Pisanio
6- It was his queen, his queen!
Imogen
7- Then wav’d his handkerchief?
Pisanio
8- And kiss’d it, madam.
Imogen
9 - 10- Senseless linen, happier therein than I!
- And that was all?
Pisanio
11 - 17- No, madam; for so long
- As he could make me with this eye or ear
- Distinguish him from others, he did keep
- The deck, with glove or hat or handkerchief
- Still waving, as the fits and stirs of ’s mind
- Could best express how slow his soul sail’d on,
- How swift his ship.
Imogen
18 - 20- Thou shouldst have made him
- As little as a crow, or less, ere left
- To after-eye him.
Pisanio
21- Madam, so I did.
Imogen
22 - 28- I would have broke mine eye-strings, crack’d them, but
- To look upon him, till the diminution
- Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
- Nay, followed him till he had melted from
- The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
- Have turn’d mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,
- When shall we hear from him?
Pisanio
29 - 30- Be assur’d, madam,
- With his next vantage.
Imogen
31 - 43- I did not take my leave of him, but had
- Most pretty things to say. Ere I could tell him
- How I would think on him at certain hours
- Such thoughts and such; or I could make him swear
- The shes of Italy should not betray
- Mine interest and his honor; or have charg’d him,
- At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
- T’ encounter me with orisons, for then
- I am in heaven for him; or ere I could
- Give him that parting kiss which I had set
- Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
- And like the tyrannous breathing of the north
- Shakes all our buds from growing.
- Enter Helen.
Helen
44 - 45- The Queen, madam,
- Desires your Highness’ company.
Imogen
46 - 47- Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch’d,
- I will attend the Queen.
Pisanio
48- Madam, I shall.
- Exeunt.
Costume design for unspecified character in the Viola Allen production of Cymbeline
Tom Heslewood, 1906