Page 498 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

LUCIUS

Let proof speak.

CLOTEN
His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or two, or longer:
if you seek us afterwards in other terms, [80] you shall find us in our salt-
water girdle: if you beat us out of it, it is yours: if you fall in the adventure,

our crows shall fare the better for you: and there’s an end.

LUCIUS
So, sir.

CYMBELINE
I know your master’s pleasure, and he mine: [85]
All the remain is ‘Welcome’.
[Exeunt.]

Scene II IT

Enter Pisanio, with a letter.

PISANIO
How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not
What monster’s her accuser? Leonatus!

O master, what a strange infection
Is fall’n into thy ear! What false Italian
(As poisonous tongu’d as handed) hath prevail’d [5]
On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.
She’s punish’d for her truth; and undergoes,

More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults
As would take in some virtue. O my master,
Thy mind to her is now as low as were [10]

Thy fortunes. How? that I should murder her,
Upon the love and truth and vows which I
Have made to thy command? I, her? Her blood?
If it be so to do good service, never
Let me be counted serviceable. How look I, [15]