Cymbeline
Act II, Scene 1
Britain. Before Cymbeline’s palace.
- Enter Cloten and the two Lords.
Cloten
1 - 5- Was there ever man had such luck? When I kiss’d the jack
- upon an up-cast, to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on’t;
- and then a whoreson jack-an-apes must take me up for
- swearing, as if I borrow’d mine oaths of him and might not
- spend them at my pleasure.
First Lord
6- What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your bowl.
Second Lord
7 - 8- Aside.
- If his wit had been like him that broke it, it would have
- run all out.
Cloten
9 - 10- When a gentleman is dispos’d to swear, it is not for any
- standers-by to curtal his oaths. Ha?
Second Lord
11 - 12- No, my lord;
- Aside.
- nor crop the ears of them.
Cloten
13 - 14- Whoreson dog! I gave him satisfaction! Would he had been one
- of my rank!
Second Lord
15- Aside.
- To have smell’d like a fool.
Cloten
16 - 20- I am not vex’d more at any thing in th’ earth; a pox on’t! I
- had rather not be so noble as I am. They dare not fight with
- me because of the Queen my mother. Every Jack slave hath his
- bellyful of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock
- that nobody can match.
Second Lord
21 - 22- Aside.
- You are cock and capon too, and you crow, cock, with your
- comb on.
Cloten
23- Sayest thou?
Second Lord
24 - 25- It is not fit your lordship should undertake every companion
- that you give offense to.
Cloten
26 - 27- No, I know that; but it is fit I should commit offense to my
- inferiors.
Second Lord
28- Ay, it is fit for your lordship only.
Cloten
29- Why, so I say.
First Lord
30- Did you hear of a stranger that’s come to court tonight?
Cloten
31- A stranger, and I not know on’t?
Second Lord
32- Aside.
- He’s a strange fellow himself, and knows it not.
First Lord
33 - 34- There’s an Italian come, and ’tis thought one of Leonatus’
- friends.
Costume design for British Lord
Tom Heslewood, 1906
Cloten
35 - 36- Leonatus? A banish’d rascal; and he’s another, whatsoever he
- be. Who told you of this stranger?
First Lord
37- One of your lordship’s pages.
Cloten
38 - 39- Is it fit I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation
- in’t?
Second Lord
40- You cannot derogate, my lord.
Cloten
41- Not easily, I think.
Second Lord
42 - 43- Aside.
- You are a fool granted, therefore your issues, being
- foolish, do not derogate.
Cloten
44 - 45- Come, I’ll go see this Italian. What I have lost today at
- bowls I’ll win tonight of him. Come; go.
Second Lord
46 - 60- I’ll attend your lordship.
- Exeunt Cloten and First Lord.
- That such a crafty devil as is his mother
- Should yield the world this ass! A woman that
- Bears all down with her brain, and this her son
- Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart,
- And leave eighteen. Alas, poor Princess,
- Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur’st,
- Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern’d,
- A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer
- More hateful than the foul expulsion is
- Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act
- Of the divorce he’ld make. The heavens hold firm
- The walls of thy dear honor; keep unshak’d
- That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand
- T’ enjoy thy banish’d lord and this great land!
- Exit.