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Cymbeline: Act III, Scene 2

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Cymbeline
Act III, Scene 2

Britain. A room in Cymbeline’s palace.

Viola Allen as Imogen

Viola Allen as Imogen

circa 1900

  1. Enter Pisanio reading of a letter.

Pisanio

1 - 25
  1. How? Of adultery? Wherefore write you not
  2. What monsters her accuse? Leonatus!
  3. O master, what a strange infection
  4. Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian
  5. (As poisonous tongu’d as handed) hath prevail’d
  6. On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.
  7. She’s punish’d for her truth, and undergoes,
  8. More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults
  9. As would take in some virtue. O my master,
  10. Thy mind to her is now as low as were
  11. Thy fortunes. How? That I should murder her,
  12. Upon the love and truth and vows which I
  13. Have made to thy command? I, her? Her blood?
  14. If it be so to do good service, never
  15. Let me be counted serviceable. How look I
  16. That I should seem to lack humanity
  17. So much as this fact comes to?
  18. Reading.
  19. “Do’t; the letter
  20. That I have sent her, by her own command
  21. Shall give thee opportunity.”
  22. O damn’d paper,
  23. Black as the ink that’s on thee! Senseless bauble,
  24. Art thou a feodary for this act, and look’st
  25. So virgin-like without? Lo here she comes.
  26. Enter Imogen.
  27. I am ignorant in what I am commanded.

Imogen

26
  1. How now, Pisanio?

Pisanio

27
  1. Madam, here is a letter from my lord.

Imogen

28 - 70
  1. Who, thy lord? That is my lord Leonatus?
  2. O, learn’d indeed were that astronomer
  3. That knew the stars as I his characters;
  4. He’ld lay the future open. You good gods,
  5. Let what is here contain’d relish of love,
  6. Of my lord’s health, of his content—yet not
  7. That we two are asunder; let that grieve him:
  8. Some griefs are med’cinable, that is one of them,
  9. For it doth physic love—of his content,
  10. All but in that! Good wax, thy leave. Blest be
  11. You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers
  12. And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;
  13. Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet
  14. You clasp young Cupid’s tables. Good news, gods!
  15. Reads.
  16. “Justice, and your father’s wrath, should he take me in his
  17. dominion, could not be so cruel to me as you, O the dearest
  18. of creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take
  19. notice that I am in Cambria, at Milford-Haven; what your own
  20. love will out of this advise you, follow. So he wishes you
  21. all happiness, that remains loyal to his vow, and your
  22. increasing in love.
  23. Leonatus Posthumus.”
  24. O for a horse with wings! Hear’st thou, Pisanio?
  25. He is at Milford-Haven. Read, and tell me
  26. How far ’tis thither. If one of mean affairs
  27. May plod it in a week, why may not I
  28. Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio,
  29. Who long’st like me to see thy lord; who long’st
  30. (O let me bate!)—but not like me—yet long’st,
  31. But in a fainter kind—O, not like me,
  32. For mine’s beyond beyond—say, and speak thick
  33. (Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing,
  34. To th’ smothering of the sense), how far it is
  35. To this same blessed Milford. And by th’ way
  36. Tell me how Wales was made so happy as
  37. T’ inherit such a haven. But first of all,
  38. How we may steal from hence; and for the gap
  39. That we shall make in time, from our hence-going
  40. And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence.
  41. Why should excuse be born or ere begot?
  42. We’ll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,
  43. How many score of miles may we well rid
  44. ’Twixt hour and hour?
Thomas Hull as Pisanio

Thomas Hull as Pisanio

Charles Grignion, printmaker; John Bell, publisher; Thomas Parkinson; 1775

Pisanio

71 - 72
  1.                       One score ’twixt sun and sun,
  2. Madam, ’s enough for you—and too much too.

Imogen

73 - 80
  1. Why, one that rode to ’s execution, man,
  2. Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers,
  3. Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
  4. That run i’ th’ clock’s behalf. But this is fool’ry.
  5. Go, bid my woman feign a sickness, say
  6. She’ll home to her father; and provide me presently
  7. A riding-suit, no costlier than would fit
  8. A franklin’s huswife.

Pisanio

81
  1.                       Madam, you’re best consider.

Imogen

82 - 86
  1. I see before me, man; nor here, nor here,
  2. Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them
  3. That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee,
  4. Do as I bid thee. There’s no more to say:
  5. Accessible is none but Milford way.
  1. Exeunt.
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