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Solemn music. Enter as an apparition, SICILIUS LEonatus, father to POSTHUMUS, an old man, attired like a warrior: leading in his hand an ancient matron, his wife, and mother to POSTHUMUS, with music before them. Then, after other music, follow the two young LEONATI, brothers to POSTHUMUS, with wounds as they died in the wars. They circle POSTHUMUS round, as he lies sleeping.

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[2] Here follow a vision, or masque, and a prophecy, which interrupt the fable without the least necessity, and unmeasurably lengthen this act. I think it plainly POPE. foisted in afterwards for mere show, and apparently not of Shakespeare.

One would think that Shakespeare's style being too refined for his audiences, the managers had employed some playwright of the old school to regale them with a touch of "King Cambyses' vein." The margin would be too honourable a place for so impertinent an interpolation. RITSON.

2 Bro. For this, from stiller seats we came,
Our parents, and us twain,

That, striking in our country's cause,
Fell bravely, and were slain;

Our fealty, and Tenantius' right,
With honour to maintain.

1 Bro. Like hardiment Posthumus hath
To Cymbeline perform❜d:

Then Jupiter, thou king of gods,

Why hast thou thus adjourn'd

The graces for his merits due;

Being all to dolours turn'd?

Sici. Thy crystal window ope; look out;
No longer exercise

Upon a valiant race thy harsh

And potent injuries:

Moth. Since, Jupiter, our son is good,

Take off his miseries.

Sici. Peep through thy marble mansion; help!

Or we poor ghosts will cry

To the shining synod of the rest,

Against thy deity.

2 Bro. Help, Jupiter; or we appeal,
And from thy justice fly.

JUPITER descends in thunder and lightning, sitting upon an Eagle: he throws a thunder-bolt. The Ghosts fall on their

knees.

Jupit. No more, you petty spirits of region low,
Offend our hearing; hush!---How dare you ghosts,
Accuse the thunderer, whose bolt you know,
Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts?
Poor shadows of Elysium, hence; and rest
Upon your never-withering banks of flowers:
Be not with mortal accidents oppress'd;

No care of yours it is; you know, 'tis ours.
Whom best I love, I cross; to make my gift,
The more delay'd, delighted. Be content;
Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift:

His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.
Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in
Our temple was he married.---Rise, and fade !---
He shall be lord of lady Imogen,

And happier much by his affliction made.
This tablet lay upon his breast; wherein
Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine;
And so, away: no further with your din
Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.-.-
Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.

Sici. He came in thunder; his celestial breath
Was sulphurous to smell; the holy eagle

Stoop'd as to foot us: his ascension is

More sweet than our bless'd fields; his royal bird
Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,
As when his god is pleas'd.

All. Thanks, Jupiter!

Sici. The marble pavement closes, he is enter'd
His radiant roof:---Away! and, to be blest,
Let us with care perform his great behest.

[Ascends.

[Ghosts vanish.

Post. [Waking.] Sleep, thou hast been a grandsire, and

begot

A father to me: and thou hast created

A mother, and two brothers: But (O scorn!)
Gone! they went hence so soon as they were born
And so I am awake.-Poor wretches that depend
On greatness' favour, dream as I have done;
Wake, and find nothing.-But, alas, I swerve:
Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
And yet are steep'd in favours; so am I,
That have this golden chance, and know not why.
What fairies haunt this ground? a book? O, rare one.
Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers: Let thy effects
So follow, to be most unlike our courtiers,
As good as promise.

[Reads.] When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself known, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthuanus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate, and flourish in peace and plenty.

'Tis still a dream; or else such stuff as madmen
Tongue, and brain not: either both, or nothing:
Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such

As sense cannot untie.3 Be what it is,
The action of my life is like it, which
I'll keep, if but for sympathy.

Re-enter Gaolers.

Gaol. Come, sir, are you ready for death?
Post. Over-roasted rather: ready long ago.

Gaol. Hanging is the word, sir; if you be ready for that, you are well cooked.

Post. So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish pays the shot.

Gaol. A heavy reckoning for you, sir: But the comfort is, you shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills; which are often the sadness of part

[S] The meaning, which is too thin to be easily caught, I take to be this: This is a dream or madness, or both,---or nothing,---but whether it be a speech without consciousness, as in a dream, or a speech unintelligible, as in madness, be it as it is, it is like my course of life. We might perhaps read,

Whether both, or nothing,-**** JOHNSON,

ing, as the procuring of mirth: you come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much; purse and brain both empty the brain the heavier for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of heaviness: O! of this contradiction you shall now be quit. O the charity of a penny cord! it sums up thousands in a trice: you have no true debitor and creditor but it; of what's past, is, and to come, the discharge :— Your neck, sir, is pen, book, and counters; so the acquittance follows.

Post. I am merrier to die, than thou art to live.

Gaol. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothach : But a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think, he would change places with his officer for, look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.

Post. Yes, indeed, do I, fellow.

Geol. Your death has eyes in's head then; I have not seen him so pictured: you must either be directed by some that take upon them to know; or take upon your self that, which I am sure you do not know; or jump the after-inquiry on your own peril : and how you shall speed in your journey's end, I think you'll never return to tell one.

Post. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct them the way I am going, but such as wink, and will not use them.

Gaol. What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the best use of eyes, to see the way of blindness! I am sure, hanging's the way of winking.

Enter a Messenger.

Mes. Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the king.

Post. Thou bringest good news ;-I am called to be made free.

Gaol. I'll be hanged then.

[4] i. e. Sorry that you have paid too much out of your pocket, and sorry that you are paid or subdued too much by the liquor. So Falstaff, “------------seven of the eleven I pay'd."

[5] Debitor and creditor, for an accounting book. So, in Othello:

STEEVENS.
JOHNSON.

"By debitor and creditor, this counter-caster,---" [6] That is, venture at it without thought. So Macbeth, "We'd jump the life to come." JOHNSON.

STEEVENS.

Post. Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the dead. [Exeunt PosT. and Messenger. Gaol. Unless a man would marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets, I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman and there be some of them too, that die against their wills; so should I, if I were one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good; 0, there were desolation of gaolers, and gallowses! I speak against my present profit; but my wish hath a prefer- · [Exeunt.

ment in't.

SCENE V.

CYMEBELINE'S Tent. Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, Gui- · DERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, Lords, Officers, and Attend

ants.

Cym. Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart, That the poor soldier, that so richly fought, Whose rags sham'd gilded arms, whose naked breast Stepp'd before targe of proof, cannot be found: He shall be happy that can find him, if

Our grace can make him so.

Bel. I never saw

Such noble fury in so poor a thing:

Such precious deeds in one that promis'd nought
But beggary and poor looks.

Cym. No tidings of him?

8

Pis. He hath been search'd among the dead and living, But no trace of him.

Cym. To my grief, I am

The heir of his reward; which I will add

Το you, the liver, heart, and brain of Britain.

[To BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and Arviragus.

By whom, I grant, she lives: 'Tis now the time
To ask of whence you are :-report it.

Bel. Sir,

In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen :

Further to boast, were neither true nor modest,
Unless I add, we are honest.

Cym. Bow your knees :

Prone--i. e. forward.

STEEVENS.

To promise nothing but poor looks, may be, to give no promise of courageous behaviour

JOHNSON.

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