Page 560 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Then free for ever. Is’t enough I am sorry?
So children temporal fathers do appease;
Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent,
I cannot do it better than in gyves,

Desir’d more than constrain’d: to satisfy, [15]
If of my freedom ’tis the mainport, take
No stricter render of me than my all.
I know you are more clement than vile men,

Who of their broken debtors take a third,
A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again [20]
On their abatement; that’s not my desire.
For Imogen’s dear life take mine, and though

’Tis not so dear, yet ’tis a life; you coin’d it:
’Tween man and man they weight not every stamp;
Though light, take pieces for the figure’s sake: [25]
You rather, mine being yours: and so, great powers,

If you will take this audit, take this life,
And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen,
I’ll speak to thee in silence.
[Sleeps.]

Solemn music. Enter (as in 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.

SICILIUS
No more thou thunder-master show [30]
thy spite on mortal flies:
With Mars fall out, with Juno chide,

That thy adulteries
Rates and revenges.
Hath my poor boy done aught but well, [35]
whose face I never saw?

I died whilst in the womb he stay’d,
attending Nature’s law: