Speeches (Lines) for Guiderius in "Cymbeline, King of Britain"

Belarius. A goodly day not to keep house, with such
Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate
Instructs you how to adore the heavens and bows you
To a morning's holy office: the gates of monarchs
Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through
And keep their impious turbans on, without
Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!
We house i' the rock, yet use thee not so hardly
As prouder livers do.

Guiderius. Hail, heaven!

Belarius. Now for our mountain sport: up to yond hill;
Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider,
When you above perceive me like a crow,
That it is place which lessens and sets off;
And you may then revolve what tales I have told you
Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war:
This service is not service, so being done,
But being so allow'd: to apprehend thus,
Draws us a profit from all things we see;
And often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded beetle in a safer hold
Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this life
Is nobler than attending for a cheque,
Richer than doing nothing for a bauble,
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
Such gain the cap of him that makes 'em fine,
Yet keeps his book uncross'd: no life to ours.

Guiderius. Out of your proof you speak: we, poor unfledged,
Have never wing'd from view o' the nest, nor know not
What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
That have a sharper known; well corresponding
With your stiff age: but unto us it is
A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed;
A prison for a debtor, that not dares
To stride a limit.

Belarius. How you speak!
Did you but know the city's usuries
And felt them knowingly; the art o' the court
As hard to leave as keep; whose top to climb
Is certain falling, or so slippery that
The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' the war,
A pain that only seems to seek out danger
I' the name of fame and honour; which dies i'
the search,
And hath as oft a slanderous epitaph
As record of fair act; nay, many times,
Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse,
Must court'sy at the censure:--O boys, this story
The world may read in me: my body's mark'd
With Roman swords, and my report was once
First with the best of note: Cymbeline loved me,
And when a soldier was the theme, my name
Was not far off: then was I as a tree
Whose boughs did bend with fruit: but in one night,
A storm or robbery, call it what you will,
Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
And left me bare to weather.

Guiderius. Uncertain favour!

Belarius. You, Polydote, have proved best woodman and
Are master of the feast: Cadwal and I
Will play the cook and servant; 'tis our match:
The sweat of industry would dry and die,
But for the end it works to. Come; our stomachs
Will make what's homely savoury: weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard. Now peace be here,
Poor house, that keep'st thyself!

Guiderius. I am thoroughly weary.

Arviragus. I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite.

Guiderius. There is cold meat i' the cave; we'll browse on that,
Whilst what we have kill'd be cook'd.

Belarius. [Looking into the cave]
Stay; come not in.
But that it eats our victuals, I should think
Here were a fairy.

Guiderius. What's the matter, sir?

Imogen. Good masters, harm me not:
Before I enter'd here, I call'd; and thought
To have begg'd or bought what I have took:
good troth,
I have stol'n nought, nor would not, though I had found
Gold strew'd i' the floor. Here's money for my meat:
I would have left it on the board so soon
As I had made my meal, and parted
With prayers for the provider.

Guiderius. Money, youth?

Belarius. Prithee, fair youth,
Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds
By this rude place we live in. Well encounter'd!
'Tis almost night: you shall have better cheer
Ere you depart: and thanks to stay and eat it.
Boys, bid him welcome.

Guiderius. Were you a woman, youth,
I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty,
I bid for you as I'd buy.

Belarius. He wrings at some distress.

Guiderius. Would I could free't!

Belarius. It shall be so.
Boys, we'll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in:
Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp'd,
We'll mannerly demand thee of thy story,
So far as thou wilt speak it.

Guiderius. Pray, draw near.

Imogen. So man and man should be;
But clay and clay differs in dignity,
Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.

Guiderius. Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him.

Imogen. So sick I am not, yet I am not well;
But not so citizen a wanton as
To seem to die ere sick: so please you, leave me;
Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom
Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me
Cannot amend me; society is no comfort
To one not sociable: I am not very sick,
Since I can reason of it. Pray you, trust me here:
I'll rob none but myself; and let me die,
Stealing so poorly.

Guiderius. I love thee; I have spoke it
How much the quantity, the weight as much,
As I do love my father.

Imogen. [Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies
I have heard!
Our courtiers say all's savage but at court:
Experience, O, thou disprovest report!
The imperious seas breed monsters, for the dish
Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,
I'll now taste of thy drug.

Guiderius. I could not stir him:
He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.

Arviragus. How angel-like he sings!

Guiderius. But his neat cookery! he cut our roots
In characters,
And sauced our broths, as Juno had been sick
And he her dieter.

Arviragus. Nobly he yokes
A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh
Was that it was, for not being such a smile;
The smile mocking the sigh, that it would fly
From so divine a temple, to commix
With winds that sailors rail at.

Guiderius. I do note
That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
Mingle their spurs together.

Belarius. 'Those runagates!'
Means he not us? I partly know him: 'tis
Cloten, the son o' the queen. I fear some ambush.
I saw him not these many years, and yet
I know 'tis he. We are held as outlaws: hence!

Guiderius. He is but one: you and my brother search
What companies are near: pray you, away;
Let me alone with him.

Cloten. Soft! What are you
That fly me thus? some villain mountaineers?
I have heard of such. What slave art thou?

Guiderius. A thing
More slavish did I ne'er than answering
A slave without a knock.

Cloten. Thou art a robber,
A law-breaker, a villain: yield thee, thief.

Guiderius. To who? to thee? What art thou? Have not I
An arm as big as thine? a heart as big?
Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not
My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art,
Why I should yield to thee?

Cloten. Thou villain base,
Know'st me not by my clothes?

Guiderius. No, nor thy tailor, rascal,
Who is thy grandfather: he made those clothes,
Which, as it seems, make thee.

Cloten. Thou precious varlet,
My tailor made them not.

Guiderius. Hence, then, and thank
The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool;
I am loath to beat thee.

Cloten. Thou injurious thief,
Hear but my name, and tremble.

Guiderius. What's thy name?

Cloten. Cloten, thou villain.

Guiderius. Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,
I cannot tremble at it: were it Toad, or
Adder, Spider,
'Twould move me sooner.

Cloten. To thy further fear,
Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
I am son to the queen.

Guiderius. I am sorry for 't; not seeming
So worthy as thy birth.

Cloten. Art not afeard?

Guiderius. Those that I reverence those I fear, the wise:
At fools I laugh, not fear them.

Belarius. Being scarce made up,
I mean, to man, he had not apprehension
Of roaring terrors; for the effect of judgment
Is oft the cause of fear. But, see, thy brother.

Guiderius. This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;
There was no money in't: not Hercules
Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none:
Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne
My head as I do his.

Belarius. What hast thou done?

Guiderius. I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten's head,
Son to the queen, after his own report;
Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer, and swore
With his own single hand he'ld take us in
Displace our heads where--thank the gods!--they grow,
And set them on Lud's-town.

Belarius. We are all undone.

Guiderius. Why, worthy father, what have we to lose,
But that he swore to take, our lives? The law
Protects not us: then why should we be tender
To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,
Play judge and executioner all himself,
For we do fear the law? What company
Discover you abroad?

Belarius. I had no mind
To hunt this day: the boy Fidele's sickness
Did make my way long forth.

Guiderius. With his own sword,
Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en
His head from him: I'll throw't into the creek
Behind our rock; and let it to the sea,
And tell the fishes he's the queen's son, Cloten:
That's all I reck.

Belarius. O thou goddess,
Thou divine Nature, how thyself thou blazon'st
In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchafed, as the rudest wind,
That by the top doth take the mountain pine,
And make him stoop to the vale. 'Tis wonder
That an invisible instinct should frame them
To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,
Civility not seen from other, valour
That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
As if it had been sow'd. Yet still it's strange
What Cloten's being here to us portends,
Or what his death will bring us.

Guiderius. Where's my brother?
I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,
In embassy to his mother: his body's hostage
For his return.

Belarius. My ingenious instrument!
Hark, Polydore, it sounds! But what occasion
Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!

Guiderius. Is he at home?

Belarius. He went hence even now.

Guiderius. What does he mean? since death of my dear'st mother
it did not speak before. All solemn things
Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
Is Cadwal mad?

Arviragus. The bird is dead
That we have made so much on. I had rather
Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty,
To have turn'd my leaping-time into a crutch,
Than have seen this.

Guiderius. O sweetest, fairest lily!
My brother wears thee not the one half so well
As when thou grew'st thyself.

Arviragus. Stark, as you see:
Thus smiling, as some fly hid tickled slumber,
Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his
right cheek
Reposing on a cushion.

Guiderius. Where?

Arviragus. O' the floor;
His arms thus leagued: I thought he slept, and put
My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness
Answer'd my steps too loud.

Guiderius. Why, he but sleeps:
If he be gone, he'll make his grave a bed;
With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
And worms will not come to thee.

Arviragus. With fairest flowers
Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins, no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath: the ruddock would,
With charitable bill,--O bill, sore-shaming
Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
Without a monument!--bring thee all this;
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.

Guiderius. Prithee, have done;
And do not play in wench-like words with that
Which is so serious. Let us bury him,
And not protract with admiration what
Is now due debt. To the grave!

Arviragus. Say, where shall's lay him?

Guiderius. By good Euriphile, our mother.

Arviragus. Be't so:
And let us, Polydore, though now our voices
Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,
As once our mother; use like note and words,
Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.

Guiderius. Cadwal,
I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word it with thee;
For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse
Than priests and fanes that lie.

Belarius. Great griefs, I see, medicine the less; for Cloten
Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;
And though he came our enemy, remember
He was paid for that: though mean and
mighty, rotting
Together, have one dust, yet reverence,
That angel of the world, doth make distinction
Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely
And though you took his life, as being our foe,
Yet bury him as a prince.

Guiderius. Pray You, fetch him hither.
Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',
When neither are alive.

Arviragus. If you'll go fetch him,
We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.

Guiderius. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;
My father hath a reason for't.

Arviragus. 'Tis true.

Guiderius. Come on then, and remove him.

Arviragus. So. Begin.

Guiderius. Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Arviragus. Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Guiderius. Fear no more the lightning flash,

Arviragus. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;

Guiderius. Fear not slander, censure rash;

Arviragus. Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:

Guiderius. [with Arviragus] All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

Guiderius. [with Arviragus] All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

Guiderius. No exorciser harm thee!

Arviragus. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!

Guiderius. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

Arviragus. Nothing ill come near thee!

Guiderius. [with Arviragus] Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

Guiderius. [with Arviragus] Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

Guiderius. We have done our obsequies: come, lay him down.

Pisanio. I heard no letter from my master since
I wrote him Imogen was slain: 'tis strange:
Nor hear I from my mistress who did promise
To yield me often tidings: neither know I
What is betid to Cloten; but remain
Perplex'd in all. The heavens still must work.
Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true.
These present wars shall find I love my country,
Even to the note o' the king, or I'll fall in them.
All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd:
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd.

Guiderius. The noise is round about us.

Arviragus. What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it
From action and adventure?

Guiderius. Nay, what hope
Have we in hiding us? This way, the Romans
Must or for Britons slay us, or receive us
For barbarous and unnatural revolts
During their use, and slay us after.

Belarius. Sons,
We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us.
To the king's party there's no going: newness
Of Cloten's death--we being not known, not muster'd
Among the bands--may drive us to a render
Where we have lived, and so extort from's that
Which we have done, whose answer would be death
Drawn on with torture.

Guiderius. This is, sir, a doubt
In such a time nothing becoming you,
Nor satisfying us.

Belarius. O, I am known
Of many in the army: many years,
Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him
From my remembrance. And, besides, the king
Hath not deserved my service nor your loves;
Who find in my exile the want of breeding,
The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless
To have the courtesy your cradle promised,
But to be still hot summer's tamings and
The shrinking slaves of winter.

Guiderius. Than be so
Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to the army:
I and my brother are not known; yourself
So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,
Cannot be question'd.

Arviragus. By this sun that shines,
I'll thither: what thing is it that I never
Did see man die! scarce ever look'd on blood,
But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison!
Never bestrid a horse, save one that had
A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel
Nor iron on his heel! I am ashamed
To look upon the holy sun, to have
The benefit of his blest beams, remaining
So long a poor unknown.

Guiderius. By heavens, I'll go:
If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave,
I'll take the better care, but if you will not,
The hazard therefore due fall on me by
The hands of Romans!

Belarius. Stand, stand! We have the advantage of the ground;
The lane is guarded: nothing routs us but
The villany of our fears.

Guiderius. [with Arviragus] Stand, stand, and fight!
[Re-enter POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, and seconds the]
Britons: they rescue CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then
re-enter LUCIUS, and IACHIMO, with IMOGEN]

Arviragus. One sand another
Not more resembles that sweet rosy lad
Who died, and was Fidele. What think you?

Guiderius. The same dead thing alive.

Belarius. Peace, peace! see further; he eyes us not; forbear;
Creatures may be alike: were 't he, I am sure
He would have spoke to us.

Guiderius. But we saw him dead.

Belarius. My boys,
There was our error.

Guiderius. This is, sure, Fidele.

Pisanio. My lord,
Now fear is from me, I'll speak troth. Lord Cloten,
Upon my lady's missing, came to me
With his sword drawn; foam'd at the mouth, and swore,
If I discover'd not which way she was gone,
It was my instant death. By accident,
had a feigned letter of my master's
Then in my pocket; which directed him
To seek her on the mountains near to Milford;
Where, in a frenzy, in my master's garments,
Which he enforced from me, away he posts
With unchaste purpose and with oath to violate
My lady's honour: what became of him
I further know not.

Guiderius. Let me end the story:
I slew him there.

Cymbeline. Marry, the gods forfend!
I would not thy good deeds should from my lips
Pluck a bard sentence: prithee, valiant youth,
Deny't again.

Guiderius. I have spoke it, and I did it.

Cymbeline. He was a prince.

Guiderius. A most incivil one: the wrongs he did me
Were nothing prince-like; for he did provoke me
With language that would make me spurn the sea,
If it could so roar to me: I cut off's head;
And am right glad he is not standing here
To tell this tale of mine.

Arviragus. Your danger's ours.

Guiderius. And our good his.

Arviragus. Ay, my good lord.

Guiderius. And at first meeting loved;
Continued so, until we thought he died.