Page 570 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

Heard you all this, her women?

LADIES
We did, so please your highness.

CYMBELINE
Mine eyes
Were not in fault, for she was beautiful:
Mine ears that heard her flattery, nor my heart

That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious [65]
To have mistrusted her: yet, O my daughter,
That it was folly in me, thou mayst say,
And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all!

Enter Lucius, Iachimo, the Soothsayer, and other Roman Prisoners,
guarded; Posthumus behind, and Imogen.
Thou com’st not, Caius, now for tribute; that
The Britons have raz’d out, though with the loss [70]

Of many a bold one: whose kinsmen have made suit
That their good souls may be appeas’d with slaughter
Of you their captives, which ourself have granted:
So think of your estate.

LUCIUS

Consider, sir, the chance of war, the day [75]
Was yours by accident: had it gone with us,
We should not, when the blood was cool, have threaten’d
Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods
Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives

May be call’d ransom, let it come: sufficeth [80]
A Roman with a Roman’s heart can suffer:
Augustus lives to think on’t: and so much

For my peculiar care. This one thing only
I will entreat, my boy (a Briton born)
Let him be ransom’d: never master had [85]
A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,
So tender over his occasions, true,

So feat, so nurse-like: let his virtue join
With my request, which I’ll make bold your highness