Читать книгу Cymbeline (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography: The Life of William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Страница 20

Enter Belarius, Guiderius, and Aruiragus.

Bel. A goodly day, not to keepe house with such,

Whose Roofe’s as lowe as ours: Sleepe Boyes, this gate

Instructs you how t’ adore the Heauens; and bowes you

To a mornings holy office. The Gates of Monarches

Are Arch’d so high, that Giants may iet through

And keepe their impious Turbonds on, without

Good morrow to the Sun. Haile thou faire Heauen,

We house i’th’ Rocke, yet vse thee not so hardly

As prouder liuers do

Guid. Haile Heauen

Aruir. Haile Heauen

Bela. Now for our Mountaine sport, vp to yond hill

Your legges are yong: Ile tread these Flats. Consider,

When you aboue perceiue me like a Crow,

That it is Place, which lessen’s, and sets off,

And you may then reuolue what Tales, I haue told you,

Of Courts, of Princes; of the Tricks in Warre.

This Seruice, is not Seruice; so being done,

But being so allowed. To apprehend thus,

Drawes vs a profit from all things we see:

And often to our comfort, shall we finde

The sharded-Beetle, in a safer hold

Then is the full-wing’d Eagle. Oh this life,

Is Nobler, then attending for a checke:

Richer, then doing nothing for a Babe:

Prouder, then rustling in vnpayd-for Silke:

Such gaine the Cap of him, that makes him fine,

Yet keepes his Booke vncros’d: no life to ours

Gui. Out of your proofe you speak: we poore vnfledg’d

Haue neuer wing’d from view o’th’ nest; nor knowes not

What Ayre’s from home. Hap’ly this life is best,

(If quiet life be best) sweeter to you

That haue a sharper knowne. Well corresponding

With your stiffe Age; but vnto vs, it is

A Cell of Ignorance: trauailing a bed,

A Prison, or a Debtor, that not dares

To stride a limit

Arui. What should we speake of

When we are old as you? When we shall heare

The Raine and winde beate darke December? How

In this our pinching Caue, shall we discourse

The freezing houres away? We haue seene nothing:

We are beastly; subtle as the Fox for prey,

Like warlike as the Wolfe, for what we eate:

Our Valour is to chace what flyes: Our Cage

We make a Quire, as doth the prison’d Bird,

And sing our Bondage freely

Bel. How you speake.

Did you but know the Citties Vsuries,

And felt them knowingly: the Art o’th’ Court,

As hard to leaue, as keepe: whose top to climbe

Is certaine falling: or so slipp’ry, that

The feare’s as bad as falling. The toyle o’th’ Warre,

A paine that onely seemes to seeke out danger

I’th’ name of Fame, and Honor, which dyes i’th’ search,

And hath as oft a sland’rous Epitaph,

As Record of faire Act. Nay, many times

Doth ill deserue, by doing well: what’s worse

Must curt’sie at the Censure. Oh Boyes, this Storie

The World may reade in me: My bodie’s mark’d

With Roman Swords; and my report, was once

First, with the best of Note. Cymbeline lou’d me,

And when a Souldier was the Theame, my name

Was not farre off: then was I as a Tree

Whose boughes did bend with fruit. But in one night,

A Storme, or Robbery (call it what you will)

Shooke downe my mellow hangings: nay my Leaues,

And left me bare to weather

Gui. Vncertaine fauour Bel. My fault being nothing (as I haue told you oft)

But that two Villaines, whose false Oathes preuayl’d

Before my perfect Honor, swore to Cymbeline,

I was Confederate with the Romanes: so

Followed my Banishment, and this twenty yeeres,

This Rocke, and these Demesnes, haue bene my World,

Where I haue liu’d at honest freedome, payed

More pious debts to Heauen, then in all

The fore-end of my time. But, vp to’th’ Mountaines,

This is not Hunters Language; he that strikes

The Venison first, shall be the Lord o’th’ Feast,

To him the other two shall minister,

And we will feare no poyson, which attends

In place of greater State:

Ile meete you in the Valleyes.

Exeunt.

How hard it is to hide the sparkes of Nature?

These Boyes know little they are Sonnes to’th’ King,

Nor Cymbeline dreames that they are aliue.

They thinke they are mine,

And though train’d vp thus meanely

I’th’ Caue, whereon the Bowe their thoughts do hit,

The Roofes of Palaces, and Nature prompts them

In simple and lowe things, to Prince it, much

Beyond the tricke of others. This Paladour,

The heyre of Cymbeline and Britaine, who

The King his Father call’d Guiderius. Ioue,

When on my three-foot stoole I sit, and tell

The warlike feats I haue done, his spirits flye out

Into my Story: say thus mine Enemy fell,

And thus I set my foote on’s necke, euen then

The Princely blood flowes in his Cheeke, he sweats,

Straines his yong Nerues, and puts himselfe in posture

That acts my words. The yonger Brother Cadwall,

Once Aruiragus, in as like a figure

Strikes life into my speech, and shewes much more

His owne conceyuing. Hearke, the Game is rows’d,

Oh Cymbeline, Heauen and my Conscience knowes

Thou didd’st vniustly banish me: whereon

At three, and two yeeres old, I stole these Babes,

Thinking to barre thee of Succession, as

Thou refts me of my Lands. Euriphile,

Thou was’t their Nurse, they took thee for their mother,

And euery day do honor to her graue:

My selfe Belarius, that am Mergan call’d

They take for Naturall Father. The Game is vp.

Enter.