| ACT III SCENE III | Wales. A mountainous country with a cave. | |
| | Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS; GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS following. | |
| 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 | 5 |
| | 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. | 10 |
| GUIDERIUS | Hail, heaven! | |
| ARVIRAGUS | 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, | 15 |
| | 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, | 20 |
| | 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, | 25 |
| | 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, | 30 |
| | 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 | 35 |
| | A cell of ignorance; travelling a-bed; | |
| | A prison for a debtor, that not dares | |
| | To stride a limit. | |
| ARVIRAGUS | What should we speak of | |
| | When we are old as you? when we shall hear | 40 |
| | The rain and wind beat dark December, how, | |
| | In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse | |
| | The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing; | |
| | We are beastly, subtle as the fox for prey, | |
| | Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat; | 45 |
| | Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage | |
| | We make a quire, as doth the prison'd bird, | |
| | And sing our bondage freely. | |
| BELARIUS | How you speak! | |
| | Did you but know the city's usuries | 50 |
| | 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 | 55 |
| | 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, | 60 |
| | 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 | 65 |
| | 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. | 70 |
| GUIDERIUS | Uncertain favour! | |
| BELARIUS | My fault being nothing--as I have told you oft-- | |
| | But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd | |
| | Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline | |
| | I was confederate with the Romans: so | 75 |
| | Follow'd my banishment, and this twenty years | |
| | This rock and these demesnes have been my world; | |
| | Where I have lived at honest freedom, paid | |
| | More pious debts to heaven than in all | |
| | The fore-end of my time. But up to the mountains! | 80 |
| | This is not hunters' language: he that strikes | |
| | The venison first shall be the lord o' the feast; | |
| | To him the other two shall minister; | |
| | And we will fear no poison, which attends | |
| | In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys. | 85 |
| | Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS. | |
| | How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature! | |
| | These boys know little they are sons to the king; | |
| | Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive. | |
| | They think they are mine; and though train'd | |
| | up thus meanly | 90 |
| | I' the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit | |
| | The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them | |
| | In simple and low things to prince it much | |
| | Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore, | |
| | The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who | 95 |
| | The king his father call'd Guiderius,--Jove! | |
| | When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell | |
| | The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out | |
| | Into my story: say 'Thus, mine enemy fell, | |
| | And thus I set my foot on 's neck;' even then | 100 |
| | The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats, | |
| | Strains his young nerves and puts himself in posture | |
| | That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal, | |
| | Once Arviragus, in as like a figure, | |
| | Strikes life into my speech and shows much more | 105 |
| | His own conceiving.--Hark, the game is roused! | |
| | O Cymbeline! heaven and my conscience knows | |
| | Thou didst unjustly banish me: whereon, | |
| | At three and two years old, I stole these babes; | |
| | Thinking to bar thee of succession, as | 110 |
| | Thou reft'st me of my lands. Euriphile, | |
| | Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for | |
| | their mother, | |
| | And every day do honour to her grave: | |
| | Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd, | 115 |
| | They take for natural father. The game is up. | |
| | Exit | |
