Cymbeline

be not hurt: it is a thoroughfare for steel, if it be not hurt. Second Lord Aside. His steel was in debt; it went o’ the backside the town. Cloten The villain would not stand me. Second Lord Aside. No; but he fled forward still, toward your face. First Lord Stand you! You have land enough of your own: but he added to your having; gave you some ground. Second Lord Aside. As many inches as you have oceans. Puppies! Cloten I would they had not come between us. Second Lord Aside. So would I, till you had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. Cloten And that she should love this fellow and refuse me! Second Lord Aside. If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned. First Lord Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go not together: she’s a good sign, but I have seen small reflection of her wit. Second Lord Aside. She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection should hurt her. Cloten Come, I’ll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt done! Second Lord Aside. I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of an ass, which is no great hurt. Cloten You’ll go with us? First Lord I’ll attend your lordship. Cloten Nay, come, let’s go together. Second Lord Well, my lord. Exeunt.

Scene III

A room in Cymbeline’s palace.

	Enter Imogen and Pisanio.
Imogen	I would thou grew’st unto the shores o’ the haven, And question’dst every sail: if he should write, And not have it, ’twere a paper lost, As offer’d mercy is. What was the last That he spake to thee?
Pisanio	It was his queen, his queen!
Imogen	Then waved his handkerchief?
Pisanio	And kiss’d it, madam.
Imogen	Senseless Linen! happier therein than I! And that was all?
Pisanio	No, madam; for so long As he could make me with this eye or ear Distinguish him from others, he did keep The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief, Still waving, as the fits and stirs of’s mind Could best express how slow his soul sail’d on, How swift his ship.
Imogen	Thou shouldst have made him As little as a crow, or less, ere left To after-eye him.
Pisanio	Madam, so I did.
Imogen	I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack’d them, but To look upon him, till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle, Nay, follow’d him, till he had melted from The smallness of a gnat to air, and then Have turn’d mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio, When shall we hear from him?
Pisanio	Be assured, madam, With his next vantage.
Imogen	I did not take my leave of him, but had Most pretty things to say: ere I could tell him How I would think on him at certain hours Such thoughts and such, or I could make him swear The shes of Italy should not betray Mine interest and his honour, or have charged him, At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, To encounter me with orisons, for then I am in heaven for him; or ere I could Give him that parting kiss which I had set Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father And like the tyrannous breathing of the north Shakes all our buds from growing.
	Enter a Lady.
Lady	The queen, madam, Desires your highness’ company.
Imogen	Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch’d. I will attend the queen.
Pisanio	Madam, I shall. Exeunt.

Scene IV

Rome. Philario’s house.

	Enter Philario, Iachimo, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, and a Spaniard.
Iachimo	Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain: he was then of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy as since he hath been allowed the name of; but I could then have looked on him without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his endowments had been tabled by his side and I to peruse him by items.
Philario	You speak of him when he was less furnished than now he is with that which makes him both without and within.
Frenchman	I have seen him in France: we had very many there could behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.
Iachimo	This matter of marrying his king’s daughter, wherein he must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I doubt not, a great deal from the matter.
Frenchman	And then his banishment.
Iachimo	Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him; be it but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay flat, for taking a beggar without less quality. But how comes it he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance?
Philario	His father and I were soldiers together; to whom I have been often bound for no less than my life. Here comes the Briton: let him be so entertained amongst you as suits, with gentlemen of your knowing, to a stranger of his quality.
	Enter Posthumus.
	I beseech you all, be better known to this gentleman, whom I commend to you as a noble friend of mine: how worthy he is I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.
Frenchman	Sir, we have known together in Orleans.
Posthumus	Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still.
Frenchman	Sir, you o’er-rate my poor kindness: I was glad I did atone my countryman and you; it had been pity you should have been put together with so mortal a purpose as then each bore, upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature.
Posthumus	By your pardon, sir, I was then a young traveller; rather shunned to go even with what I heard than in my every action to be guided by others’ experiences: but upon my mended judgment⁠—if I offend not to say it is mended⁠—my quarrel was not altogether slight.
Frenchman	’Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords, and by such two that would by all likelihood have confounded