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Cymbeline: Act I, Scene 5

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Cymbeline
Act I, Scene 5

Britain. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.

Byam Shaw, 1901

  1. Enter Queen, Ladies, and Cornelius.

Queen

1 - 2
  1. Whiles yet the dew’s on ground, gather those flowers;
  2. Make haste. Who has the note of them?

Lady Attendant

3
  1.                                       I, madam.

Queen

4 - 5
  1. Dispatch.
  2. Exeunt Ladies.
  3. Now, master doctor, have you brought those drugs?

Cornelius

6 - 11
  1. Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.
  2. Presenting a small box.
  3. But I beseech your Grace, without offense
  4. (My conscience bids me ask), wherefore you have
  5. Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds,
  6. Which are the movers of a languishing death,
  7. But though slow, deadly.

Queen

12 - 25
  1.                          I wonder, doctor,
  2. Thou ask’st me such a question. Have I not been
  3. Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn’d me how
  4. To make perfumes? Distill? Preserve? Yea so,
  5. That our great King himself doth woo me oft
  6. For my confections? Having thus far proceeded
  7. (Unless thou think’st me devilish) is’t not meet
  8. That I did amplify my judgment in
  9. Other conclusions? I will try the forces
  10. Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
  11. We count not worth the hanging (but none human),
  12. To try the vigor of them, and apply
  13. Allayments to their act, and by them gather
  14. Their several virtues and effects.

Cornelius

26 - 29
  1.                                    Your Highness
  2. Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;
  3. Besides, the seeing these effects will be
  4. Both noisome and infectious.

Queen

30 - 35
  1.                              O, content thee.
  2. Enter Pisanio.
  3. Aside.
  4. Here comes a flattering rascal, upon him
  5. Will I first work. He’s for his master,
  6. And enemy to my son.—How now, Pisanio?
  7. Doctor, your service for this time is ended,
  8. Take your own way.

Cornelius

36 - 37
  1. Aside.
  2.                    I do suspect you, madam,
  3. But you shall do no harm.

Queen

38
  1. To Pisanio.
  2.                           Hark thee, a word.

Cornelius

39 - 50
  1. Aside.
  2. I do not like her. She doth think she has
  3. Strange ling’ring poisons. I do know her spirit,
  4. And will not trust one of her malice with
  5. A drug of such damn’d nature. Those she has
  6. Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,
  7. Which first (perchance) she’ll prove on cats and dogs,
  8. Then afterward up higher; but there is
  9. No danger in what show of death it makes,
  10. More than the locking up the spirits a time,
  11. To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool’d
  12. With a most false effect; and I the truer,
  13. So to be false with her.

Queen

51 - 52
  1.                          No further service, doctor,
  2. Until I send for thee.

Cornelius

53
  1.                        I humbly take my leave.
  1. Exit.

Queen

54 - 96
  1. Weeps she still, say’st thou? Dost thou think in time
  2. She will not quench, and let instructions enter
  3. Where folly now possesses? Do thou work.
  4. When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
  5. I’ll tell thee on the instant thou art then
  6. As great as is thy master—greater, for
  7. His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name
  8. Is at last gasp. Return he cannot, nor
  9. Continue where he is. To shift his being
  10. Is to exchange one misery with another,
  11. And every day that comes comes to decay
  12. A day’s work in him. What shalt thou expect
  13. To be depender on a thing that leans?
  14. Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends
  15. So much as but to prop him?
  16. The Queen drops the box; Pisanio takes it up.
  17.                             Thou tak’st up
  18. Thou know’st not what; but take it for thy labor.
  19. It is a thing I made, which hath the King
  20. Five times redeem’d from death. I do not know
  21. What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee take it,
  22. It is an earnest of a farther good
  23. That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
  24. The case stands with her; do’t as from thyself.
  25. Think what a chance thou changest on, but think
  26. Thou hast thy mistress still; to boot, my son,
  27. Who shall take notice of thee. I’ll move the King
  28. To any shape of thy preferment, such
  29. As thou’lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
  30. That set thee on to this desert, am bound
  31. To load thy merit richly. Call my women.
  32. Think on my words.
  33. Exit Pisanio.
  34.                    A sly and constant knave,
  35. Not to be shak’d; the agent for his master,
  36. And the remembrancer of her to hold
  37. The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
  38. Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
  39. Of liegers for her sweet; and which she after,
  40. Except she bend her humor, shall be assur’d
  41. To taste of too.
  42. Enter Pisanio and Ladies.
  43.                  So, so. Well done, well done.
  44. The violets, cowslips, and the primeroses,
  45. Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
  46. Think on my words.
  1. Exeunt Queen and Ladies.
Cymbeline's Queen

Cymbeline's Queen

From costume designs for the Viola Allen production of Cymbeline

Tom Heslewood, 1906

Pisanio

97 - 99
  1.                    And shall do.
  2. But when to my good lord I prove untrue,
  3. I’ll choke myself. There’s all I’ll do for you.
  1. Exit.
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